Anniversary evening, date and location unknown
[0:00] I am now going to thank you for the Thessalonians, the second chapter and the thirteenth verse.
[0:15] Lord, the second epistle to the Thessalonians, the second chapter and the thirteenth verse. But we are bound to give thanks always to God, O you brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath, from the beginning, chosen you through salvation, through sanctification, through all the spirits and within all the earth.
[1:02] We notice a little this afternoon how the apostle, set before the real work of grace, in the church to whom he was writing, that God hath, from the beginning, chosen him.
[1:24] And that is a good beginning, as Jesus said, I have chosen you. He hath not chosen me. And he mentions this to show the distinction between the real beginning, where God is at work with all his hands and makes known his power, makes known your life out of his grace, against the empty, easygoing religion of many, both in this present day and as it is said before us in this chapter, he mentioned to whom the Lord Jesus himself spake of those days which were come, when Antichrist should arrive.
[2:22] And the Lord Jesus said, Behold, I have told you before, so that when these things of God want you, he may remember that I told you often.
[2:38] Oh, what a wonderful and an unnerving guide and lamp all comforts in the Word of God through each one of us.
[2:50] I might make one more remark here before passing on, and that is the Apostle in another place, speaking right to Timothy, he said, The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter days, some should depart from the faith.
[3:11] So then there is a word left on my board, for strength of purpose, by God the Holy Ghost, a warning against those who should depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrine of the depths.
[3:35] Friends, I say to my ultimate, I believe there are a thousand sinners who profess to worship God, and they worship the devil.
[3:49] For how few places the so-called worship are where the evil sends us the truth, for the Word of God in the letter is faithfully and simply preached, and are there places where there is a contending for the power of the Word.
[4:11] The impartial in referring to the preaching of the Gospel would say of some that the Word was with power, and with the Holy Ghost, and with much assurance.
[4:26] And we believe that there are many today who know nothing at all of the Holy Ghost or His operations in their hands.
[4:39] For then this apostle, having regard to his love for the Thessalonian Church, he says, we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, that is why he knew from his own feelings with them, and from what he heard, nevertheless, from their own legs, that there could be the right beginning.
[5:07] But in the heart of each one of us, there is a light spirit through the Apostle Paul. We cannot but bless God when we see God working on it.
[5:24] We are told to rejoice, we tend to do to rejoice, that when we hear one another speak of what the Lord has done for them, or whether we hear perhaps of various churches who receive tokens that the Lord has not cast them off, we rejoice.
[5:46] Beg in, he's been to be cleansed, he made us go away. I know this friend in the ministry, we do not want to be left to look on truly false roots.
[6:01] We want to first make sure that we do self-conceive, and we must leave the issue with God. But all of how it rejoice is one of us.
[6:13] But now, it appears, we do again believe that the Word has been left, that there has not been a running event, not talking about real thoughts, not just ordinary hearing signs, not hearing the Word of God thinking it's a good sermon, and our thinking it's very interesting, not that the Word becomes and be made known in it, out in your past.
[6:46] It's not quantity, it's quality. Better is a little with righteousness, and great revenue without price. Better is a little you can call your own, and a lot you can only look at.
[7:00] better is a little which the Lord makes over to you, and a lot you predominantly take to yourself. Better is a little on which you can see, than a piece of the man.
[7:18] Now you know, try to look at a piece all our life's time, and even a sense that it is good, and yet if we never find a place, then we could shall.
[7:33] But it is indeed a mercy of the Lord coming to grant you a promise, shall I say, all for yourself. And we know that where there is a good beginning, there will be a carrying on.
[7:49] As I mentioned this afternoon, when the Apostle expresses the Philippian Church which is confidence, that he which has begun will perform it, and he will finish it, until the day of Jesus Christ.
[8:06] What it will be the whole mercy that is. Where the work of grace is begun, where it is indeed the work of grace, there will be a carrying on, there will be a performing, or a finishing of it.
[8:24] God never leaves his work undone, and let go not only for the work of grace in our souls, but for all the Lord is pleased to do for it in us.
[8:38] The white man said, I know that what God do, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, and nothing can be taken from it. Lord, I pray, may the Lord have a key heart, you know we are exhorted.
[8:57] Brethren, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they hear God. Again, I'll be exhorted, examine yourselves, whether he feels the faith, prove your own self.
[9:12] Brethren, give the allegiance to make your calling and your election sure. There's a solemn thing that sits under the sound of the truth. It's solemn.
[9:24] What the effect? What does it do? What has it done for you? I wonder sometimes how many there are who sit under the sound of the gospel and perishing inhabitants.
[9:39] How do we escape to be neglectful thanks to our angels? God, who's faith unto the fathers and prophets in the days of old has indeed last days spoken unto us by his Son.
[9:56] This God who speaks for the Lord circumcised your ear to hear the message. Have you ever been able to sing on the heart with a solid body lying on the moon and sound the gospel trumpet gives?
[10:18] No unit can with it compare the soul that told it did. Well then, the apostle speaks here in love and certain terms that we are found to give thanks.
[10:38] Don't mention that God is saying he ought to do it only ought to. We are found for it. And friends, if the life of God is in your heart and you see signs of light in other, you cannot do other but bless God for it.
[10:55] We are bound to another part of it.
[11:12] And let us not be literally, we know that we pass from death on to life because we love the brother.
[11:25] And I always remember one instant in my own life and brought down through great depths of this pompency thinking I would all together love my heart so high, so cold, so dead and the letter left my dear brother in the chair here tonight and I saw his writing on the envelope so they brought here in my eyes and out in my heart and the Lord made these words we know that we've passed from death over us because we love the brother and it was amazing about our hands of drawing out my love for himself and of repiting me in my heart but to come back to these words we are bound to give thanks always to God for you brethren, beloved of the Lord because God hath from the beginning choked in you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth so then here the apostle blesses God because he could see a right beginning and as we mentioned briefly this afternoon a little about that right beginning it's where the Lord would draw his hands smash his one with the brunt and the burning grace is that first of a friendly hand put forth by God to save his own and friends if you know what you are in your own heart you will know that he is all of grace you will know that we've read in that epistle or the epistle to the heavens and the beauty, the simplicity the depth and the fullness of those words by grace
[13:41] I like the words of a poet it's all of grace from base to summit grace in every course and stone grace in planning rearing drowning suffering grace and grace alone and I would like to preach it I wish I could speak about the love of the triune God the poor dearly sinner and if we know a little of the banner of it in our own hands we too let our power to give thanks unto God when we see it in others and doubtless some of you here now as well as I do what it is to look for it in love and love for our God's parents look for it in their children I said sometimes I guard my own children
[14:42] Lord tell me that I can get them up because I know that if the Lord is quicken and infini my life come what will come what may if not be well with them it cannot be otherwise save thee on earth and after death the plenitude of death because he had chosen you from the beginning through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth the first one I have noticed is this it sets forth the essential nature of the spirit world how many people there are today in the professing world they may be deeply sincere in their religion but friends there's no feeling in it we've been told before now ourselves that we pay too much attention to our feelings and to our feelings and to our feelings of the reality of the truth the first one
[15:52] I was noticed is this it sets forth the essential nature of the spirit world how many people there are today in the professing world We've been told before now by some that we pay too much attention to our feelings when what religion allows us.
[16:09] And the people who say such things they can look at the word of God as if they won't dare to comment, change it. Well we can't.
[16:20] We know if you look at the feet on the table that we need the Lord as if we were to bring it to us. But it sets forth the essential nature of that faith which God did.
[16:35] It's not only the starvation of the evil of God and the friend you can know it from beginning to end. You can be so far enlightened by God the Holy Ghost as to see what men in the world cannot see.
[16:53] And yet you may still be left sure of that to be spiteful, that is, no faith in your heart receiving.
[17:04] You see, it was said, Mother woman of Samaria, about the water in the well, the way it is deep. And I have nothing to draw with.
[17:18] And in setting before you this, I need well. We must also set before you that, wherewith we draw from an even place.
[17:29] And what is the only point you notice in scripture, the importance Jesus himself. That puts on faith.
[17:41] It's not faith that we can bring ourselves as the gift of God. You take those characters who came to him seeking to be healed. Take the woman who pressed through the crown and touched the hem of his ground.
[17:57] And the woman, Jesus turned unto her, and he did not say, I have healed thee. He said, I have faith, and made thee whole. Go in peace.
[18:08] We know that that healing power which came from Jesus, when the hem of his ground was touched.
[18:20] With the need that was, that which cured her of her faith. But there had been no receiving it, and no right knowledge of it, and no right cure in actual woman's experience, unless life of faith had been implanted in her heart.
[18:41] So then faith, we read the substance of being told for, is the evidence that things are not seen. And we might say it is that which God gives, which enables us to receive what he agrees to give us in his word.
[19:02] So then this sanctification and all the living life, we sanctify it to be set apart.
[19:14] We sanctified by the Spirit is to be set apart by God. Body and Spirit, which are God's, for we speak that our temples are the dwelling place, our bodies are the temples or the dwelling place of the Holy Ghost.
[19:36] And it is to be set apart for a specific purpose. And the Lord has said concerning his people, this people I have formed for myself.
[19:52] They shall show forth my praise. And therefore, this sanctifying by the Holy Spirit is to be set into a fulfilling of what God in eternity has decreed of all his people.
[20:18] Oh, friends, there is a feeling, there is a reality. And now I say this, if your religion is real, if you know anything about the claim of the preciousness of Christ, and being a perfect claim of your love to him before the time, and you've been able to sing from the heart of the poet, we want to feel, we want to see, we want to know thee more.
[20:43] Friends, we are in a certain place as it respects our source and vision before God. How long do you and how long are you chapters by your God without the love of this?
[20:57] And I might say that that comes as close to me as it does to anybody else in this chapel. I feel that in the Lord, in the power of this grace, yet once again, which we would not be satisfied to live at a distance from him whom are so loving.
[21:21] There would be a walking out, what we read, a seeking for him as a hidden treasure. There would be a seeking for him above all other things.
[21:34] Well then, being chosen to starvation through sanctification of the Spirit, as noted, in the Enochic 3, that which transpired in the experience of all those who were chosen in the beginning by God.
[21:58] Effectual calling, there is a time in the experience of all those who were chosen, when they shall be effectively called by grace.
[22:10] Now the choosing is in the beginning, in eternity. The calling is in time. And the effectual calling is, what we might say, the proof of eternal choosing.
[22:25] And therefore it must come. And these are the positive truths which hate receive. And therefore in accordance with the purpose of God, there is a being brought into the knowledge of being quickened into divine life.
[22:48] As something which perhaps is a time one cannot explain. A hand is put forth, a hand of mercy, the sovereign hand of grace, bringing one away from the world, which lies in the wicked one.
[23:07] If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.
[23:18] That is unfortunately, but the character concerned is not brought on the willingness. For my people shall remain willing in the day of my come.
[23:31] And the mercy is this, concerning God, as he sees things. He is in one mind, and who can turn things?
[23:42] And what his soul desires is, even that he doeth. And therefore, as one of our colleagues said, the appointed time rose on the face, not to propose, nor to propose who was in eternity, but to call by grace.
[24:03] How we teach them. How we teach them. We've spoken to them before the Lord teach with them. And they in their own heart and say in effect, no, I've never had these things.
[24:17] I've never had my parents finish them. No, say some of the younger friends. Not when I'm over twenty-one years old.
[24:28] For I bring the parents of Christ. Lord, put all thy hands. And the Lord be willing. In the case of all who were fallen or dazed unto eternal life.
[24:42] They were chosen of God in the beginning. Chosen unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit.
[24:53] And the first signs of life, Father, being quickened into divine life is the beginning of the work of sanctification of the Holy Ghost.
[25:06] Working into the character. Yes, I am working for the character. Setting them aside for a purpose. If we pursue this further, we might look at those characters whom the Lord sets aside for the ministry in particular.
[25:29] I mention it merely to illustrate my point. Are we willing to be satisfied by God, the Holy Spirit, for this work?
[25:41] Friend, you in your life, and to respect your own standing before God. Are you willing to be set apart? That you, that the Lord might so use you, that you in your measure shall show forth the praises of God.
[26:00] The apostle says, I beseech you, brethren, by the nurses of God. That you present your bodies, the living, sacred, life, holy, and acceptable of your God.
[26:14] Which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
[26:31] We are bound to His life when we see thus, in God's home time, a manifesting in time of that which has been decreed in the earth.
[26:46] All friends and grandparents, their solid truths, their unauthorable. In the life of God is that which shall be.
[26:57] And when one is born by grace, there is the beginning of this setting of us. Now again, children, this afternoon, how in this sanctification of the Spirit and all that, we will be created in the eternal mind of God.
[27:19] And that how both means and ends are ordained. And in one's core by grace, it is as one of our poets expresses it, also the means for a particular bond, through which His sovereign love should run.
[27:41] So time and place, yea, means and mode were all determined by our God. Chosen, from the beginning, chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit.
[28:05] So that being written into divine life, there is a being led into the knowledge of all the sin and salvation. It's a great thing to knock yourself to the stairs.
[28:17] It will bring you to mourn, sometimes your sin will bring you to despair. But what a strange thing to say, at least strange, to the carnal heart.
[28:29] To say we can also give thanks to God when we see people made miserable to their sins. And we often think of it as it respects younger people, especially those who are near and dear to us.
[28:49] Well, my friends, God knows we wish them well. God knows we wish them every patinets, here in time.
[29:00] But, over and above all that we can bless God when we can see the work of Christ bringing them to mourn over their sin.
[29:13] Yet we can, what on the one hand, we can pray that those things which the Lord has given us here on earth to enjoy the day, might be enabled to enjoy and get together with it.
[29:30] We wish today we wish that they will be sightly spot on all earthly things brought to sea, the nothingness of them, from glory kinsouls, or the allurement and enchanted of this world is, and brought to another as one thing equal.
[29:51] Well, now then, it is the work of God that Holy Ghost does to teach. And the Apostle John is speaking of that anointing, that the anointing which ye have received of him, that is the grass, even the anointing of the Holy Ghost, abides in you, and ye have no need that any man teach you.
[30:20] And therefore there is a bleeding into the reality of the truth, a walking out of the truth, a partaking of the truth, not just the receiving of it as truth in the heart, but being given the ability to receive the love of the truth in the heart.
[30:44] And therefore there is a difference then between knowing and receiving the truth, in the understanding and receiving the love of it in our heart.
[30:57] and the Lord is being given the truth, and the Lord is being given the need of these animals. in the school, in the school, in the school, in the school of experience.
[31:10] there will be a leading on into the knowledge of the sweetness of the forgiveness of sins.
[31:22] And this, friends, is where, for good many of us differ from many prophetic people today.
[31:43] The forgiveness of their sins seemed to consist in this, and not that Christ died for sinners, and their sinners, therefore he must have died for death.
[31:55] Well I can tell you that that remedy would never have suited the public. For he felt the wounds and the scars of sin in the school of thought.
[32:09] And it brought him, crying for mercy before God. God being merciful, to be made a sinner. And therefore in the experience of all those who are sanctified by the Spirit, there is a being led into the knowledge of sin, and a being brought to receive for the forgiveness of that sin, for the application of that blood of Christ, to the conscience that blood is sprinkling, which we give better things than that available, seeking to know that which is recorded in the word concerning the fountain, open for sin and for uncleanness.
[33:01] Now, when that word, that the Son of Jesus Christ, cleanses from all sin, what comfort can you find in it? If you, being taught by God the Holy Ghost, know yourself as a sinner, what comfort can you find in that word?
[33:22] And through the same Holy Spirit, who has brought you to know your sins, apply to cure and bring that homage. You know, we want that the Lord by His Holy Spirit to do what the one who is waiting at the pool has all for, for all the one he received, how the Lord Jesus came to him, and the Lord by His Holy Spirit chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit, belief of the truth.
[34:02] And we might speak concerning justification by faith, that the knowledge in truth, that there is a leading into the knowledge that our all righteousness is our liberty rack.
[34:18] When this was clearly set forth in the guidance of Eden, when God came into the way, the garment which I only had prepared for Himself and for His wife, He took away the big, big papers, and He gave them a garment of skin.
[34:39] This is where the Jews of old stumbled. They sought out righteousness according to the law, one of their own. But finally, I want to notice, that for a few minutes is this, how it concerns the fruit, all the good works which God has before ordained, that we should walk in them.
[35:06] God's holy bishop Usher said, that sanctification is nothing left, than for a man to be brought into a complete submission of this will, to the will of God, and to live in the offering of his soul continually, in the place of love, and of over-offering of life.
[35:32] And that which is very clearly revealed, as the very common word is, how that the good works referred to in Scripture, are, and next, proved the beginning of the real work of Christ in the soul.
[35:53] The Lord Jesus said, He has captured into me, that I have chosen you, and ordained you, that he could go, and bring all fruit, and that your fruit should remain.
[36:12] But the word of the apostle, inviting to the obedience, and to come even closer still, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, all the good works, with God's hand, before ordained, that we should walk in them.
[36:35] And friends, on this point, let God be proved, and let him run alive. The fulfilling of the purpose of God, and his respect, the fruit of his people prepare, dwelleth at night, and show you in Scripture.
[36:55] The Lord hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. How close this word comes. And what can we say concerning any who profess to love God, who profess to have been chosen in the beginning by God, and yet in their walk, they show no truth, they bear no truth.
[37:26] And summarizing it, we might refer to that clue briefly, as being, that the gospel will be here. And we are at a point about this, that there will be, where there is, a being chosen to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, that there will be, a following heart, the known of the Lord.
[37:56] And it has been made, it has been planted in your heart. It will cause much, searching of your heart, before God.
[38:08] When our family says, it went on, a tree, or the root we see, it's then we cry, a holy tree. Now many of these words of exhortation, in God's work, respecting, going on to know the Lord, seeking to walk worthy of the location, wherewith we are called.
[38:36] The Lord Jesus sets himself on, as the living mind, and he exhorts all his followers, to abide in him.
[38:49] For as he says, a branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the blind. No more can he, except he abide in me.
[39:03] And were then to which we could refer, in quality visuals, how we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, ultimate works, which God has before ordained, or as we read in the margin, prepared, that we should walk in them.
[39:28] What it seems to set forth, an inflamed thing. What the word of God, every wedding bears, that a good tree much, bring forth good fruit of the Lord.
[39:45] God has gone to the beginning, chosen you through salvation, through sanctification, of the Spirit. Good William Gatsby, was very much to the point, in one miracle he made, in writing to another.
[40:08] He said, I believe, that real gospel obedience, or Christian obedience, to the will of God in Christ Jesus, should be something indispensable necessary.
[40:25] That a land free may justice too, and with his much propriety, both of his truthfulness, and the goodness of his truth, and the professor of religion, both of his union, truth and oneness, with Christ the living Lion, who is a stranger to the obedience of Christ.
[40:52] A good tree must bring forth good fruit, chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and then lastly, belief of the truth.
[41:12] And this is nothing more, than being led into the saving knowledge of Christ, and to have him formed in one path, the hope of glory.
[41:25] He who himself said, I am the way, the truth and the light, and the no man cometh, unto the path of a blinding.
[41:37] And it is true, what one of our poets said, what things be a right in the text. To try both your state and your scheme, he cannot be right in the rest, unless he thinks right in the text.
[41:58] Children to salvation, already brought help in eternal life of God, who filled when Christ himself came upon earth, who laid down his lifeless people, chosen to salvation, through the working of the doubt, through the sanctification of the Spirit, and the belief of the truth.
[42:25] For as it were, seeing him through, seeing him through, some right in all, believing, or a being squawed up into the truth, it is right.
[42:37] We are unto be called to by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so the ones who are not sanctified, by God the Holy Spirit, by that same blessed Spirit, are led through the presence of Christ.
[43:01] in the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, what he is for his people, and the eternal Son of God. How he eternal is. It is delightful with the sons of man.
[43:14] It is delighted in the habitable hearts of God's earth, setting forth out. In due time, when he came upon earth, that his path was settled, the joy set before him.
[43:29] In due the cross, despite the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven. Belief of the truth, a leading into the knowledge of him.
[43:44] In every audience, in some measure, as one's Savior, as one's prophet, as one's priest, as one's king, as one's advocate in heaven, as one's intercessor there, and as one's all and within all.
[44:06] We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brothers. Beloved to the Lord, because God has, from the beginning, chosen you as our age, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.
[44:28] Well, may the Lord bless, the beautiful God of all. His name is David. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[44:39] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.