If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to 2 Thessalonians 3. We’ll read the first five verses.
As you’re turning there, I was trying to think of what to preach on this week, and with everything going on, yesterday I had plans to do some yard work and visit Dad; and so as I was thinking this through in my mind–putting my mental list together and so on, I realized, “Wait a minute. Today is Saturday. I have a sermon I need to write.”
So I put those things aside and started thinking, “What am I going to preach about tomorrow?”
I have been reading a book and listening to another book on audio, both regarding the End Times, and both written by David Jeremiah. I thought about that, but then again, I thought about holding off on that until after Orville’s special service next week because it might turn into a series.
The night before, on Friday, I had finally gotten a chance to watch Nefarious. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a Christian horror film. Yes, that’s right, a Christian horror film. Now, you may be thinking, how can you have a horror film that’s Christian? Well, it isn’t that scary, first of all–though it is ‘R’ rated. But it barely deserves its ‘R’ rating as far as I’m concerned. But what makes it Christian?
Well, it’s put together by Christians, first of all, and second, it is probably the first theologically correct horror movie ever made. If not, it’s second or third. I don’t know if The Exorcist is theologically correct, it might be. But this one definitely is. And like The Exorcist, this has to do with someone who is demon-possessed.
Now I won’t go into the whole thing, but it did leave me thinking about it the following day. And yes, I did have weird dreams that night.
I thought about going into a sermon about The Devil and his schemes, and I’m going to do that this morning, but rather than focusing on The Devil, I’m going to preach about the Devil while focusing on God.
So let’s take a look at our scripture verse this morning: 2 Thess. 3:1-5
Scripture: 1 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you. 2 And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith. 3 But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.4 We have confidence in the Lord that you are doing and will continue to do the things we command. 5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.
So here, Paul, Timothy, and Silas are once again commending the Thessalonian church on their faithfulness; on living Godly lives, and in living in love toward one another, especially while the church is facing persecution. So this letter, which is quite short, was written to encourage the church while it is going through a very difficult time. And one of the things that Paul says to encourage them, and the one thing that I would like to encourage you with today is this: that even though we live in a fallen and corrupt world surrounded by fallen and corrupt people, some who blatantly and unashamedly live by their sinful nature, God is holy, He is just and He is faithful. And as his children, he is faithful to deliver us from evil and unto a greater relationship with himself.
I want to start by honing in on a phrase that Paul uses here, at the beginning of verse 3: But the Lord is faithful. I know that saying “God is faithful” might sound a bit simple, maybe a bit overused or cliched, but we need to be reminded of it because our faith in God can be easily shaken. It’s easy to become discouraged, it’s easy to give up, it’s easy to be worn down by the enemy. Remember when I said I was going to talk about The Devil by talking about God? Satan’s greatest tactic is discouragement. In my father’s last days, he’s lying on his deathbed crying because he’s so discouraged about how things are going at the nursing home. There’s a lot of miscommunication, they’re short-staffed, things aren’t getting done right, and he’s discouraged.
Have you ever met anyone who is in tears because their life is prolonged? He is. He’s in tears because he doesn’t want to live this way any longer. He doesn’t want to deteriorate anymore. He wants to go to his eternal home so badly that he’s saying to himself, ‘What have I done? If I only knew then what I know now.”
The Devil is relentless. He doesn’t play fair. He doesn’t play by the rulebook. He’s not a gentleman. He’s literally inhuman, therefore his tactics are inhumane. The movie I was talking about earlier goes on to describe that very clearly.
And here is a man on his deathbed, and the Devil is still at work. You would think the Devil would leave him alone in this state, but he doesn’t. He’s still active. He’ll try to get us no matter where we are.
And when Satan has us under his thumb like that, it’s easy to wonder if God is paying attention. We wonder, as my dad is now, “How did I end up here?” I messed up. There’s no hope. Dad’s praying, “Lord forgive me,” because he feels as if his money is being squandered at the nursing home the longer he stays there–the longer his life is prolonged. Are they just out for a money grab or are they incompetent or is this a reflection of being short-staffed and over-burdened? I don’t know
But here’s one thing I know, and something I reminded Dad that night, God is faithful.
And I left thinking my few sentences didn’t make an impact. When I came back the next day, Dad was a different person. He said it was because of the words that I spoke. And the Holy Spirit must have turned on the light because Dad gave everything back over in God’s hands and was a completely different person the next day.
When we place things in God’s hands, God’s wonderful Holy Spirit changes our spirit. The Devil is going to throw his fiery darts at us, but what does Paul say to the Ephesian church? “Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”
Not only in the Book of Ephesians but also in this particular text in 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul speaks about God being faithful to deliver us from the Evil One. We take up our shield of faith and God is faithful to deliver us. Do you see the correlation between the shield of faith and God’s faithfulness? We put our faith in God’s faithfulness against the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Remember a few years ago, I did a sermon series on God’s promises? If you were to boil God’s promises down to one thing, it would be God’s faithfulness. What does it mean for God to be faithful?
Well, let’s first talk about what it doesn’t mean. God’s faithfulness doesn’t mean that we get to have everything we want and all our dreams come true. Remember our series on Romans 8 and the verse that says, “In all things God works for the good of those who love him?” Remember the illustration of the professor who lost his wife in a tragic accident? He still clung to this verse. God is faithful to make all things work for our good in spite of the situation that we are in. I’m going to go back to Romans 8 again today. But first, going back to 2 Thessalonians, beginning in Verse 2, Paul said: And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith.
We may not be instantly delivered from the wrongdoing that people may have done to us or are doing to us or to others. We wish it were the case. You know, we live in a world of instant gratification. I don’t have to tell you about drive-thru fast-food chains, drive-thru pharmacies, drive-thru oil changes, drive-thru banking, drive-thru this-and-that; or ordering something online and having it arrive in your mailbox or on your doorstep in a week or less.
Remember when it used to be 4-6 weeks?
I’ve been paying my parents’ bills, and they do it the old-fashioned way with checks and snail mail. Nothing wrong if you do that, but it’s just been so long for me because I’m so used to paying bills online that it’s instantly done.
And anything else you pay through a debit card. It’s instant.
But God, unfortunately, isn’t always instant. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t faithful. We don’t see things happening, and we wonder where God is and when he’s going to come and swoop down and save us. But God is faithful, even if he isn’t quick.
Regarding the timing of the return of Christ, Peter said that God, “is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.” I think that rings true for not just his second coming, but for a lot of things when it comes to God’s timing.
In the Book of Job, Elihu says this:
10 “So listen to me, you men of understanding.
Far be it from God to do evil,
from the Almighty to do wrong.
11 He repays everyone for what they have done;
He brings on them what their conduct deserves.
12 It is unthinkable that God would do wrong,
that the Almighty would pervert justice.
If it is unthinkable that you and I would pervert justice, then how much more unthinkable is it that the Most Holy One would pervert justice?
Let’s look at Verse 3 again: “3 But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.”
Does this sound familiar? Sounds like a prayer we just prayed a few minutes ago. “And deliver us from evil.” Some translations for The Lord’s Prayer have “deliver us from The Evil One,” and it could also be interpreted as “Deliver us from The Evil Man” because this particular usage of ‘evil’ in Greek connotes a person, specifically a male person. And so, it alludes to The Devil. Jesus taught us to pray more specifically, “Deliver us from Satan.”
Jesus wouldn’t teach us to pray something that God wasn’t willing to answer.
George Calhoun said: The Christian life is not a Church picnic, attending a nice worship service or adopting the power of positive thinking. It’s a battle with an enemy who relentlessly tries to destroy us and the work of God.
Satan tries to destroy us and he uses many tactics. I mentioned discouragement. What else?
We may have to endure all kinds of hardships. Our prayer list is getting longer, have you noticed? Maybe Satan likes to bring up the past. Maybe there are those who wronged us, and Satan likes to remind us of those wrongs and we have to learn to forgive 70 times 7. And just as a side note, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been reading David Jeremiah’s book, The Book of Signs regarding the end times. And he mentions that when Jesus used the phrase 70 times 7, it wasn’t a word to just describe a lot. Seventy times seven equals 490, which Biblically refers to a cycle of years in the Old Testament.
I’m just going to quickly read to you from The Oxford Bible Church so that I get this point across, but not to divert too much from the sermon.
It says: God set apart 4 distinct units of 490 years, and determined these 4 Great Jubilee Cycles to form the backbone for Israel’s history. He fulfilled His purpose through these Cycles.
The Grace given at these key times were Sovereign interventions of God in Israel’s history, where He imparted His Grace and moved His Purposes forward. Each Cycle ends with a Divine Intervention of Grace, moving God’s Plan into its next major phase. Thus the very time structure of Israel’s history demonstrates God’s Sovereign Grace.
It went on with charts and graphs of all sorts of things, but I’ll end it with this example: it defines the last of these Cycles as running from the Ezra Decree to restore Jerusalem (458 BC) to Messiah’s sacrificial atoning Death and Resurrection (AD 33).
I just wanted to point that out because it’s one of those great amazing things that blow our minds, right?
Anyway, moving on with the concept of forgiveness, I said I’d go back to Romans 8 again, and Romans 8:1 tells us: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We have to not only forgive others but learn to forgive ourselves and remind Satan of who we are now in Christ.
So forgiveness, unforgiveness, or remembering wrongs is one way Satan attacks us. Another one of Satan’s tactics–is temptation. 1 John 1:9 says, “[God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” God is faithful and just. There are those words again. Faithful and just to deliver us from our sins. Not just forgive us, but also deliver us from The Evil One.
God’s plan of salvation is not just forgiveness, but righteousness and holiness and sanctification.
James said, “7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
Tying this in with what Paul said in verse 3, “The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.” The battle is not just the Lord’s, the battle is His and ours to fight together. Like I said earlier, we have to put on the full armor of God and use it, but God fights with and for us. It’s not all on us!
God is faithful in our faith.
In each and every case in the Old Testament, when God delivered mankind from an enemy–a physical enemy, God commanded his people to do something. The deliverance of the Hebrew slaves was due to God’s miracles, but Moses had to be faithful to confront Pharaoh. God didn’t just do it himself the way he freed Peter from his cell. The parting of The Red Sea was God’s faithfulness, but Moses had to lift his staff in concert with God. The Israelites were delivered from the Philistines, but David had to stand up to Goliath. Jericho’s walls came tumbling down, but Joshua had to lead the troops around the walls seven times.
God’s deliverance from Satan requires us to take a step. Deliverance from sin requires us to confront that sin. Resisting the Devil is an act on our part and a decisive action of warfare. We must stand up to Satan and say, “Never again,” and then take bold steps toward living a Godly lifestyle. But only with Christ can we conquer Satan. The movie Nefarious makes it clear that only with Christ can you conquer Satan.
Going back to Romans 8, remember when we talked about how we are “more than conquerors” through Christ? I’m not going to read all of that to you again, but, “The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one” is a one-sentence summary of that seven-verse explanation of “we are more than conquerors” that Paul gave to the Roman church.
In other words, we are more than conquerors because God is faithful.
Lastly, Paul gives a word of blessing to the Thessalonians that ties in nicely with the promise of deliverance from The Evil One. He said, “5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.”
God not only wishes to rescue us from the Evil One but also unto himself, into the safety and security of His love. Who wouldn’t want that? I talked a moment ago about God delivering the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. He didn’t just deliver them out of Egypt, he also delivered them into the Promised Land–a land flowing with milk and honey. He didn’t get them out of Egypt and away from Pharaoh and then wiped his hands and said, “Okay, you’re welcome. If you need me, give me a call. There’s an oasis nearby. If you keep heading in that direction, you should find a great place to live.”
No, they were His people. He directed them into a greater place. A place that he had promised them. And He was faithful to His promise in spite of their rebellion. Think about that. God punished them for their rebellion, but He kept His promise. Why? Because God is not a man that he should lie. He was faithful, and He stuck it out with them the whole 40 years.
Richard Fisher said that Even now, despite the darkness of human sin all around us, God is never far away. And the experience of God’s nearness is not out of reach. He is present right here and now, ready to revive us again. Our responsibility is to draw near to Him in humility, prayer, and repentance … and God will reciprocate.
God is faithful to deliver us from evil, The Evil One, and wicked men. What kind of loving and righteous God would he be if he wasn’t faithful in this?
Paul told the Philippian church: “that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Though forgiveness and right standing with God are instant, our deliverance often comes through perseverance. Sometimes deliverance is instant, but not always. Paul ends this verse in 2 Thessalonians with: “5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.”
I want you to know that God is there for you. God is faithful to walk with you through the deliverance from The Evil One into a new life in Christ.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Daniel Gutko on Unsplash
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