Paul's Description of a Sound Conversion

Introduction: Paul's Thanksgiving and the Essence of Conversion

0:02 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, January 12th, 1986, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn with me please to Paul's letter to the Thessalonian Church, the book of 1 Thessalonians, and follow as I read verses 2 through 10, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 2 through 10. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election,

1:12 how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, even as you know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord. Have mercy. Have mercy. Have mercy.

1:35 Having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to Godward is gone forth, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves replied, For they themselves replied, For they themselves replied, concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned unto God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

2:31 Now obviously if you have followed the reading with any attention of mine, it is clear to you that what we have in this paragraph is the record of Paul's prayer of thanksgiving for the Thessalonian Christians, which flows into the record of the powerful influence of the gospel upon them and the mighty influence of the gospel through them. He begins very specifically with the record of his...

3:03 He begins very specifically with the record of his... ...thanks to God in verse 2, the specific things for which he gives thanks to God in verse 3, and then he seems to launch into something that breaks the bounds of a mere transcript of his thanksgiving to God and describes how the gospel came to them in power and the wonderful impact it had upon them so that they became... He opens certain things.

3:38 They became imitators of the apostle and of the Lord, they became examples to all believers, and then in verse 8 he begins to describe the gospel did through them, so that that gospel now sounded out through them into that whole area. And then he concludes with that which was really the first in their experience, What is last in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 was first in the experience of the Thessalonians. For you'll notice that Paul is here recording the effect of his initial entrance into their midst as a gospel preacher. Verse 9, for they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had among you and how you turned. So that what we are given in verses 9b and verse 10 is a description of the initial impact of the gospel upon the Thessalonians producing a sound conversion. Which is.

4:57 In turn produced all of the other fruits that are described in verses 3 through 8. So we're going to concentrate our attention tonight upon verses 9b and verse 10 under the general heading of Paul's description of a sound biblical conversion. Paul's description of a sound biblical conversion. Conversion.

The Urgency of Sound Conversion: Deliverance from Coming Wrath

5:29 And you may ask the question, why should I at the end of a Lord's day in which I have already bent my mind to think long and hard upon the doctrine of the church, upon the miracle of the feeding of the 4,000 and upon the matters of fellowship and personal devotion. Why should I be exercised to give serious and careful attention to the subject of a sound biblical conversion? Well, let me tell you at the very outset that this matter is a matter of life or death. It is a matter in terms of the last phrase of verse 10 of being delivered from the coming wrath of Almighty God. Paul asserts in the last phrase that it is only those who have experienced what he and the Thessalonians experienced. Of a sound conversion who are being delivered by Jesus from the coming wrath. And here the wrath of God is described as something that is already on its way.

6:46 It is not a mirage. It is not a tool in the hands of preachers to get some work done having no real substance. In fact, the wrath of God is a commodity. It is already on its way.

7:04 Paul uses a form of the verb which pictures the wrath of God as already making its approach upon men. And it is that very wrath which is making its approach upon mankind that will burst upon the head of every unconverted man or woman, boy or girl, when Jesus, returns from glory. And so in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, he describes that very wrath when it comes in its final manifestation in this language. 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 7. And to you that are afflicted, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with the angels of his power, Power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord

8:24 and from the glory of His might, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints. When He comes to be glorified in His saints, the wrath that is on its way will have arrived. And when it arrives, dear people, I find these words strike terror to my soul. It will come in this context.

8:53 Angels. Angels of His power, flaming fire, vengeance, punishment, destruction.

9:09 Who among us would bend before such terminology upon anyone who can contemplate the wrath of God even for a moment and not tremble at the thought that that wrath, should it come to me, will come in the form of vengeance, destruction.

9:48 And so I plead with you. In the time of the Lord, I will come to you. In the time of the Lord, I will come to you. In the time allotted tonight, to bend your ears and all the energy of heart and mind with the earnest prayer, O God, teach me what is the essence of a sound biblical conversion.

10:04 And if I am not one who has experienced such a conversion, O God, have mercy upon me, even as pastor preaches tonight, that by the operations of the Spirit with the Word, I may know. O that great reality, e'er I pillow my head.

The Fundamental Activity: Turning to God from Idols

10:25 Well then, setting up the context of the passage, the great issues before us which I trust will secure the text that suits a sound biblical conversion. Well, Paul describes it in terms, first of all, of the fundamental activity, and it is this, verse 9b, how that you turned to God, from idols. That's the main verb, and the emphasis falls upon the fundamental activity. You turn to God from your idols. That's the fundamental activity in true conversion. And then he gives us two attendant activities or dispositions.

11:27 Notice them. You turn to God from idols to serve. a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven. For you academy students, you have the main verb in the turning followed by two infinitives, the serving and the eager waiting for His Son out of the heavens.

11:55 And that will constitute our outline then because that's what's in the text. First of all then, note with me the fundamental activity in true conversion. It is described as a turning unto God from idols. They turned to and they turned away from something.

12:24 Now if you'll notice carefully, that to which they turn is none other than God Himself. And that from which they turned away is God. It is described as their idols. Now it's plain, is it not, on the very surface of the text.

12:44 If the fundamental activity in true conversion is turning unto God and away from idols, then before conversion, we are turned away from and towards our idols. Do you see that? You've got to be converted from something. And Paul assumes that when the Gospel came to Thessalonica and was preached to Jew and Gentile, it found them all without distinction with their backs turned away from God and towards their idols.

13:27 And the essence of their conversion was a turning towards God from their idols. Now that which is assumed in the text is made plain by the universal testimony of God. Of Holy Scripture. Namely, that by nature, every single one of us has turned away from the living God and has turned unto one form of idolatry or another.

14:01 Devotion to God, the fear of God, love of God, delight in communion with God, these were the commodities, the gifts that constituted the native heir of the Garden of Eden before sin entered. God filled, as it were, every nook and cranny of Adam and Eve's world and He filled every nook and cranny of their hearts' affection and devotion. They had eyes to behold His glory in all that He had made, for it was all His handiwork. They had no purpose, pantheistic notions that all was God and God was all. No, they looked upon everything in their external world as created by God. Their eyes beheld His glory and that which He made. They saw His handiwork smothered with His fingerprints, and they delighted in the God whose fingerprints they were. But what was true as they looked out at the external world was true in the cosmos,

15:17 the world of their own hearts. Adam had an affection for Eve, and Eve an affection for Adam. Together they shared a love of God's creation and His creatures, but in all of that there was no inordinate idolatrous attachment to each other, to any of God's gifts. Every nook, every cranny of the heart that belonged to God was filled with God to the last atom.

15:48 Every nook of that God-shaped, whole in man was filled with God in the case of Adam and Eve. But now what happened? When sin entered, Adam and Eve were the first to experience that which is described by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53 and verse 6. All we...

16:17 We have turned every one of us to his own way, and when they turned from God as the supreme object of their love and devotion, and they set their affection on this thing called knowledge, they would have something at the expense of obedience to God and love to God and supreme allegiance to God. The human heart cannot exist in a vacuum, and when God was pushed out into that vacuum, rushed the things of God's world, and the heart of Adam and Eve became idolatrous hearts from the moment sin entered their experience. And the scripture tells us that this is universally true of man, the sinner, that when he ceases to worship God. The creator, Romans 1, he always ends up worshiping the creature.

17:24 And so instead of holding to God's gifts and having the heart filled with unrivaled affection and devotion and submission to God, man who turns away from God invariably attaches his heart to his eyes. In the language of the prophet, they have forsaken me. The fountain of living waters, and they have hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. And sometimes that idolatry is of the gross form, the kind that we look upon and say how stupid and disgusting when we see people bending down to objects that they've made with their own hands and calling those things their gods or representatives. And sometimes that idolatry is of the gross form, the kind that we look upon and say how stupid and disgusting when we see people bending down to objects that they've made with their own hands and calling those things their gods or representatives. Of the spirit who supposedly stands behind and over and above their gods. But the Bible also indicates that there is an idolatry of a much more subtle but nonetheless real sort.

18:34 In Colossians 3, 5, it calls covetousness idolatry. The grasping after things that are not mine, that I have no right to grasp after. And God says that, Covetousness is idolatry. It's an attempt to fill up that God-shaped hole with some new thing.

18:58 Some new and novel experience. Some new relationship. Some new possession. Some new thrill.

19:07 Some new experience. The sadness of the history of man. Always seeking to fill up that God-shaped hole with things that can never fill it. Turned away from God and we have turned to our idols.

19:31 Therefore, when the apostle gives that description of all mankind in their native state in Romans 3, he describes us in this language, None righteous, no not one. None who understands. None who seeks after God. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19:55 We do not natively live as those who are in face-to-face delightful communion with God. We have turned away like sheep. We have cast off His fear. Our hearts have become a veritable idol shell filled with the idols of pains and pleasures and ambitions and a thousand other things.

The Gospel's Power in Conversion: Persuasion of the Mind

20:23 But now in such a situation, the apostolic gospel comes as it came at Thessalonica. Paul says in verse 5, Our gospel came unto you. And when the gospel preacher came, the gospel came with him. And when you read Acts chapter 17, you'll find exactly what gospel came to Thessalonica.

20:48 And I want us to turn there for a moment, and I have a reason for this. What was Paul's gospel? A real apostle who could perform real miracles, who did speak in real tongues.

21:04 And yet when he came to Thessalonica, what did he do? He didn't come with his miracle-working campaign, his tongue-speaking campaign. What did he do? He tells us. Luke tells us what he did.

21:17 Acts 17, And when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica. Where was Assyria? The synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his custom was, this was his ordinary evangelistic pattern, went in unto them, and for three Sabbath days, reasoned with them from the Scriptures.

21:47 He went in and opening the Scriptures. He engaged their minds to think about the realities of the book of God. He didn't go in and try to get them all loosened up with a bunch of jokes, and then slip in a little anemic gospel pill when they were all loosened up. He didn't try to dazzle them by miracle-working campaigns.

22:13 He didn't promise them all kinds of exotic experiences. He went in and he took the Word of God, and he said, Think, man, and if you don't care to think about the Word of God, then go to hell. Go to hell in your willful ignorance.

22:31 That's right.

22:34 If you're too lazy,

22:37 God's Word and what it says to you, it's right that you should perish in your willful ignorance.

22:45 Paul came, and he preached the gospel. And in that gospel, what did he do? He told the bad news of man's ruin. Then he gave the good news of God's intervention in Jesus Christ.

22:59 He opened and alleged that it was necessary for Christ to suffer, to rise, to rise from the dead. And this Jesus said he that I proclaim unto you is the Christ. And when the gospel came in power, how is it described? Verse 4 of Acts 17.

23:20 Some of them were persuaded. You see, when the gospel comes with power, we know it. Not because we have tingles up and down our spine. Not because we hear angels' voices and the flutter of angels' wings.

23:34 Not because we speak in tongues, not under the power. Because our minds that have been thinking about the truths of Scripture and how they apply to us are persuaded. And we give up our whole being to the truth concerning which our minds have been persuaded out of the Bible. Now, that's how the gospel comes in power.

23:59 And any other so-called power of the gospel is a bunch of rubbish.

24:06 That's how the gospel comes in power. That's how it's described. We reasoned they were persuaded. And yet when he describes that in first Thessalonians one, he said, our gospel came to you not in word only, but in power.

24:24 And how was that power manifested? By causing them to see in the gospel message that that message was perfectly suited to their desperate need, that it contained the truth about sin, the truth about God, the truth about Christ, the truth about the necessity of repentance and faith. And then the wonderful thing happened. Under the power of that gospel, they deliberately, consciously, from the depths of their being, turned the very God from whom they had turned in attached their idols. They now turn to this God, away from their idols. And Paul says that was the heart of their conversion. And my friend, that's the heart of every true conversion that's ever occurred since then.

The Purpose of Christ's Death: Bringing Sinners to God

25:32 And why is that the heart of conversion? For this simple reason, the very central purpose for which Christ died lies in the heart of what happens in conversion. First Peter three and verse 18. Is one of the most vital texts in all of the Bible with reference to the work of Jesus upon the cross.

25:59 Why did Christ suffer? Peter is going to tell us. First Peter 318. Christ suffered for sins once the righteous for the unrighteous in order that he might bring us to God.

26:21 Jesus died. He died the just for the unjust that he might effect in all for whom he died a sound biblical conversion. You see that that he might pray he had to bear the wrath of God that satisfying God's justice. Now God could welcome sinners without blinking at the demands of his law, without hiding his eyes to the demands of his law.

26:59 Christ died, taking away all the legal barriers that existed between man, the guilty sinner and God, the holy judge of the universe. And that's the gospel. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. But I say it reverently.

27:21 The forgiveness of sin is not an end in itself. It is a means to the end of the restoration of face to face loving communion between God, the creator and man, the creature.

27:38 It's the reversal you see of the tragedy of sin. It is under God to begin again to create in man the native climate of Eden, where fellowship with God and unrivaled affection to God and communion with God in the fear of God are the native air that man breathes. And though it will not come to its perfect expression until the consummation, bless God, it begins really and powerfully here and now. And if it doesn't begin here and now, it will never be consummated in the age to come.

28:18 God doesn't begin anything there. He completes what he begins now. Now, that's the fundamental activity in true conversion. Turning on to God.

Characteristics of True Turning: To God Himself and From All Idols

28:30 Now, if that's so, I want you to notice two or three things with me very carefully. Number one, in true conversion, men turn to God himself. They turn to God himself. You see that? How that you turned unto God.

28:53 He doesn't say you turned unto God's forgiveness, God's peace, God's pardon, God's offer of mercy, God's gift of the Spirit, God's gift of this, that or the other. There is no turning to the benefits, but to the benefactor and his benefits. Not a turning to the gifts, but to the giver and his gift. You say that's playing with words.

29:23 No, it isn't, my friend. Listen. I've met very few people who don't have a native desire to have all the forgiveness God will give them. Just so long.

29:33 As long as they don't have to turn to God and give up the love and the practice of sin. God says, no way. If you would have my gifts, you must have me. And that's why one of the gospel imperatives is repentance.

29:51 And what's the heart of repentance? Paul tells us in Acts 20, 21 and 26, 20. He said, I preached repentance towards God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 26, 20.

30:04 He said, I preached wherever I went throughout the whole Roman Empire that men should repent and turn unto God. It could be plain. This whole notion that you can be saved by simply trusting Christ as your personal Savior. Accept what he did on the cross for sinners.

30:24 Accept his finished work. That's nonsense.

30:28 That's reaching out for one of his gifts. And the imperative of the gospel is you must turn unto God. Yes. Turn unto him in the only way he can be approached by sinners.

30:42 Through Jesus Christ. Through his work performed on behalf of sinners. In the faith and confidence that he died for sinners and rose from the dead. Yes, yes, yes.

30:54 But it's turning unto God. And in true conversion, men always turn to God himself. And secondly, in true conversion, they turn from anything which is contrary to God. You see that?

31:16 You turn to God from your idols. Anything and everything in the hearts of the Thessalonians that would have kept them in conversion from giving to God that which he claimed, namely, supreme, unrivaled religious affection. They turned away from it. They turned away from it.

31:43 An idol is any person or thing within or without you that rivals God's claims over your heart.

31:58 For some people, an idol is a boyfriend, a girlfriend.

32:03 For some, it's a car. It's a house. It's a job. For some, it's sensual pleasure.

32:11 Their God is found in the indulgence of the appetites of food. Of sex. Of illicit drugs.

32:24 In other words, my friend, anything, no matter how legitimate it may be in itself, if it keeps you from wholehearted turning unto God, then you're an idol. And until you turn from it, you'll never, never be converted.

32:44 That was the problem of the rich young ruler. Money that is not evil in itself had become his god. He was yielding. He was yielding supreme allegiance to it.

32:55 And Jesus said, Smash your idol. Then you can have eternal life. He wouldn't smash his idol. And Jesus didn't run after him and say, Well, I'm sorry, young man.

33:05 I made the standard a little bit high, hoping to go for broke and get you to come all the way at first. But I'll lower my standard. No, the Bible says he loved him and he let him go.

33:17 He loved him, but he let him go. I ask you, with judgment day honesty, knowing, there is a wrath that is coming. And if you say, Well, Pastor Martin, why did he get so worked up? My friends, I can't help it.

33:33 God put me together in such a way that when I played football, I didn't play with half my energy. I played with all of it like a madman. And when God made heaven and hell real, they demand more energy than a football ever asked of me. Shall I render more to four pieces of pig's skin than I'll render to my God?

33:56 My friend, I'm not play-acting. I believe wrath is coming. And that wrath will overtake you unless you turn to God and turn from anything, any relation, total allegiance of religious affection that he demands.

34:25 Now, what is your God? It keeps you from him.

34:29 What is it?

34:32 You better answer honestly now, because God will force an answer out of you in the day of judgment. God have mercy if you go to judgment and idolater. Especially an idolater who's heard the gospel.

Attendant Disposition 1: Serving God as a Willing Bond-Slave

34:46 But then I must hasten to spend just a few minutes expounding the attendant activities or dispositions, and I don't know which to call them. Whenever there is this fundamental activity of turning unto God from idols, it will always be a turning with a disposition of and a commitment to two things. Look at the text. 1 Thessalonians 1.10 You turned. To serve the living and the true God and to wait for his son from heaven. First of all, he says you turned to serve the living God. A literal wooden translation would be this.

35:36 You turn to serve as slaves. God, the living and the true one. Now, you see, the contrast? He said when you turned unto God, what was the disposition of heart with which you turned to him?

35:55 He said you turned with a disposition of giving yourself up to loving service to this God, who unlike your idols that were dead and lifeless, that could communicate no forgiveness, that could not fill that God-shaped hole, unlike those idols whether gross or inward, outwardly seen or inwardly hidden. He said you turned to serve the living God, the only true God. You turned to serve because having turned, the moment you turned, you tasted that the Lord is good. That God-shaped hole was filled for the first time with the glory of your true humanity. You experienced communion with this God. And the heart ran out.

36:52 Oh, God, I will be your willing bond-slave. And the word used here is the standard word for a slave. That man who was the property of another. He had no name of his own, no will of his own, no possessions of his own, and usually no reputation of his own.

37:07 He mirrored the glory of God. He had no name of his own, no will of his own, no possessions of his own, and usually no reputation of his own. He mirrored the glory of God. He mirrored the reputation of his master as he was dependent upon the supply of his master, as he lived under the will and dictates of his master.

37:33 And Paul says in true conversion, the attendant upon any true turning to God is this disposition of bond-service to the living and to the true God. Now Romans chapter 6 is a whole chapter that emphasizes this again and again. Now let me put it in as blunt terms as I know how. Whenever a sinner gets forgiveness, God gets a slave.

38:05 Just that simple. Whenever a sinner gets forgiveness, God gets a slave. Not one who grits his teeth and pens over and says, Well, if the only way I'll get to heaven is to obey God, I'll grit my teeth and do it. Oh, no.

38:25 God doesn't want any such service. No, because the heart has been changed by grace. And all those hard thoughts about God and God being mean and His will being hard and all those accusing lies of the devil have been repudiated. We've tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

38:48 And in the reflexive response of that taste, we say, Here, Lord, I give myself to You. Tis all that I can do. Lord Jesus, I lay in willing hands at Your feet. Oh, my heavenly Father, what will You have me to do?

39:09 That's the first attendant disposition of a sound biblical conversion. A disposition of willing submission to God as a bond slave. And then secondly, a disposition of evil and eager anticipation of the return of Christ Himself. See it in the text?

Attendant Disposition 2: Eager Anticipation of Christ's Return

39:32 You turned, he says, not only to serve, but to eagerly await. It's a very intensive verb. Not simply to await, but eagerly to await His Son out of the heavens, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. So the second attendant activity or disposition of true conversion is this eager anticipation of the return of Christ.

40:12 Now, how does all that fit into conversion? It's very simple. You see, the only way we sinners can turn to God in the fundamental activity of conversion is to turn to Him in the light of the revelation He's made of Himself in the Gospel. Now, who's the focal point of the Gospel?

40:33 The Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the good news about Jesus in His person and work and what He is and what He's done on behalf of sinners. And that sinners can come to God through Him who is the way, unto God, the only way. And therefore, when there is a turning unto God with the disposition to serve, there will always be the attendant disposition that grows out of the attachment of love to the person of Jesus Christ.

41:10 No one ever turns to God through Christ in repentance and faith, but what the same heart in which there is implanted a principle of servitude to God has implanted in it a principle of love to Christ. That's why Peter can write, assuming it's true of all believers, 1 Peter 1.8, In whom, whom having not seen you love, in whom believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. He assumes that every heart in which there was resident faith in Christ was a heart that also had love to Christ. When you say, I don't see the word love, it doesn't quite all come together yet. All right, listen. When there is genuine love to a person, what is the attitude of that loving heart when through necessity you are separated from that person?

42:22 When my wife was in the hospital for this recent surgery, and I would anticipate going to see her, what was the attitude of my heart? It was eagerness to look upon her face. Because that's just the way to love acts. Now do you see the connection?

42:44 He said when there's true conversion, and there is this disposition of service to God, there will always be, out of this attachment in love to Christ, something of a passion to be with Christ. And that passion is expressed in the language, eagerly waiting for His Son from heaven. It's not the longing of escapism. It's the longing of a bride who's been separated from her bridegroom.

43:25 And the day of her wedding is the day when she shall see Him after a forced separation of six months. And all that she does in her eager, busy preparations throbs with her eager anticipation. It's not the anticipation of escape. It's the anticipation of and so it is when a sinner gets converted.

43:56 There is an attachment in love to the person of Christ. And because there is an attachment of love, there is the passion of longing to see Him face to face. Though we love Him now, we know the love we have to Him now, at best is probably only the tithe of a tithe of a tithe of the love that we will know. When forever rid of the effects of indwelling sin and the pressure of an unsympathetic world and the machinations of a subtle devil, we shall at last be at home with Him in the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwells righteousness and only righteousness. Righteousness. You see why Paul could say as he did in 1 Corinthians 16, 22, If anyone loved not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. You see why he could say it?

44:58 What he is saying is, if anyone is so devoid of the sense of his own sin and gratitude for the mercy of God to sinners in the Lord Jesus, that he has not fled to this God through His Son and in the saving sight of Christ as an attachment of love to the person of Christ, let such a creature be cursed of God. He's not fit to cumber God's earth. That's in the Bible. I didn't write it.

45:28 You look at it. 1 Corinthians 16, 22. You mean failure to love Jesus is grounds to be cursed of God? Yes.

45:37 Because failure to love Jesus shows that you're giving supreme attachment to something that put Jesus on the cross. You're giving attachment to an idol, something that opened up the wounds of the incarnate God, something perhaps innocent in itself that caused Him to be plunged into the darkness of hell until He cried, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? That's why you don't love Christ. It's because you love that idol, that thing, that sport, that relationship, that thrill, that sensuous indulgence, whatever it is. So the two attendant dispositions whenever there is true conversion is the disposition of willing bondservice to God and an eager anticipation of the return of Christ. Now please listen. I've sought to go after your consciences, but I know whenever a preacher does that the accuser of the brethren is present to do his foul work.

The Jesus of Biblical Revelation and Ongoing Deliverance

46:56 I am not saying that every moment of every day, of every week, of every month, a truly converted man will have an even and a growing dynamic consciousness of his servitude to God and his eager awaiting of the Lord Jesus. I am not saying that. I know simply by reading my own heart as well as reading my Bible and seeking to succor and minister to the Lord Jesus that every moment of every day of every week of every month a truly converted man will have an even and a growing dynamic consciousness of His servitude to God and His love and His love and His love of Christ. I am not saying that we need to succor and minister to God's sheep over many years that the degree to which we love our posture as bond slaves and the degree to which we eagerly await the return of Jesus varies. There are times when through backsliding of heart and desertions of God and the oppression of the Devil and maybe a severe of delightful servitude and the eagerness of anticipation may well nigh be undiscernible. I'm fully conscious of that. But if we're a child of God through the covenant that God has made with His own beloved Son and with believers in Him, God will certainly revive and quicken and stir into flame again that posture of a willing bond slave

48:25 and that posture of the passion of love that eagerly awaits the coming of the Lord Jesus. Oh, I ask you as you sit here tonight, concluding where the text concludes, look at it. When he wants to identify the Jesus he's talking about,

48:48 notice that he identifies Him in terms of theological issues. Even Jesus, what Jesus? The Jesus whom He raised from the dead and who delivers us from the wrath to come. In other words, our eager anticipation is not for a Jesus who is a nebulous, undefined, mystical, elevated religious guru.

49:21 It is the Jesus of biblical revelation born in Bethlehem's main, raised in the carpenter shop of Nazareth, baptized in Jordan, mighty miracles throughout Judea and up in Galilee, hung upon an instrument of Roman execution outside the city walls, buried in a borrowed tomb, raised from the dead on the third day, and ascended back to the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Paul says that's the Jesus whom we wait, The Jesus of biblical revelation. The Jesus of scriptural data. And he said the Jesus whom we can never forget is delivering us from the coming wrath. And they are two presents. He is delivering. By his past and present and future activity. He is my deliverer. As surely as his death once for all delivered. His present intercession is continuing to deliver. And his vindication of me at the last day will be the final deliverance. Hallelujah.

50:38 He delivers from what? The wrath that's coming. The wrath that's coming. And whom does he deliver?

50:45 Only those who've experienced a sound biblical conversion. That's all. That's all. Now young man, young woman, boy, girl, teenager, young adult, middle aged man or woman, gray haired man or woman heading down the other side of the hill of life.

Final Plea: Turn from Idols to Christ Before the Wrath Comes

51:04 Hear me. Hear me. The wrath is coming. I close where I began. The wrath is coming. It's coming. It's on its way.

51:13 And the scripture tells us in Revelation 6. When unconverted men see it about to burst upon them, they'll cry for the rocks and the mountains. Hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. We would not embrace the mercy of the Lamb extended to us so freely in the gospel.

51:35 Mediated to us by men who loved us enough to tell us of our sin and our misery. To tell us of the work of Christ and the love of Christ and the power of Christ. And the claims of Christ. We would have none of it.

51:50 My friend, you may choose to have none of the gospel, but you'll have no choice about whether you'll have the coming wrath. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. And it's coming.

51:59 And when it comes and finds you unconverted, then you too will cry for the rocks and the mountains to hide you from the face of an angry Lamb. Oh dear man or woman, boy or girl, I plead with you. I entreat you with all the power. Passion of my heart.

52:20 Don't go on unconverted. Take seriously the word of God. What it says about you as one who's turned away from God. Attached your heart to idols.

52:32 And yet in that idolatrous state, the God who could consume you has in Jesus Christ shown his love to sinful men. And now he sends the message of his saving mercy in the gospel through his son. And he says, turn, turn, why will you die? Cast away all your transgressions, for why will you die?

53:00 Why will you choose death? What is that idol? It will be consumed by the angry returning son of God. While he is yet in the posture of mercy.

53:16 In the posture of graciousness and tenderness. Oh, do as the Thessalonians did. Turn to this God from your idols. Abandon your idols and embrace this God.

53:32 Embrace him in the only way he can be embraced. In the revelation of his mercy in the Lord Jesus. Throw the weight of your sin sick, sin bound, guilty soul upon Christ. And ask God for Christ's sake to have mercy upon you.

53:51 Throw yourself down at his feet and say, oh God, you made me to be yours. And in your service I would find my true identity, the true meaning of life. Fill up that God-shaped hole, oh Lord, with yourself. I've tried to fill it with sensual pleasures and things and position and property and a thousand other things.

54:17 But, oh God, it's aching void. Haunt. Attach my heart in love to you, son. So that as I actively serve and my feet and my hands are here on earth serving you as a bond slave, my affections will be in heaven from whence I wait for the object of my love, the Lord Jesus.

54:45 My friends, that's what biblical conversion is all about. All this cheap raise your hand, pray your little prayer, go your way and live your own life, that's heresy.

54:56 It'll probably take more people to hell. It'll probably take more people to hell than are taken by the cults.

55:02 My friend, there's no two layers of Christian experience. You're either converted or you're unconverted. You've either turned to God from your idols or you've turned from God and you're attached to your idols. There's no middle ground.

55:14 You say, well, isn't that... No, there's no middle ground!

55:20 And if you're still there attached to your idols, the wrath is coming. It's tracking you down. It's one day closer today. And there's only one way to get out from underneath that wrath and that's to be converted.

55:30 Turn to God from your idols through the Lord Jesus. Become His willing bond slave. Become one who waits for His Son out of the heavens. The Jesus of biblical revelation.

Obligation of the Converted: Sounding Forth the Word

55:46 I've sought to be plain, simple. I've sought to deliver my soul. May God grant that the Word will not be preached in vain. And you who can sit here and say, by the grace of God, Lord, that's what's happened to me.

56:02 Well, my friend, you don't pat yourself on the back. Because it happens. It doesn't happen to you because of what we read in verses 4 and 5 of this chapter. You go home and meditate upon it.

56:12 It's because God loved you and chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world. And in time, He brought the Word to you. Not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit. And what an obligation is upon us, like these Thessalonians, to sound abroad this Word that has come to us with power.

56:31 We cannot make it effectual in the hearts of others. But we can sound it forth. And we must sound it forth. And then cry to God that He will make it powerful and effectual.

56:44 Deturning men from their idols to the living and the true God. Let us pray.

Prayer for Effectual Conversion

56:57 O God, our Heavenly Father, we pray that the Holy Spirit will take the preached Word and cause it to come home with power. That power which persuades the mind, persuades the will, subdues all pride of intellect, pride of standing, and pride of reputation, and humbles young and old alike, bringing them to that great leveling land of the cross, where clothed in the sense of shame and guilt, sinners find the wonder of Your grace and forgiveness. O God, may we see, ere that final day, that You have heard and answered our prayer and made this proclamation of Your Word effectual to the salvation of sinners. Hear our cry, and to Your name be praise and honor and glory.

58:06 Amen.