A Comprehensive Benediction

A Comprehensive Benediction

(No. 3179)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 1910.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, who has
loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope
through Grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good
word and work." 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17.

[Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon, upon the same text, are Sermons, #1542,
Volume 26–FREE GRACE A MOTIVE FOR FREE GIVING;

#2363, Volume 40–COMFORT AND CONSTANCY and #2991, Volume 52–WHAT WE
HAVE, AND ARE TO HAVE.]

ALL through his Epistles, Paul is continually expressing his best
wishes for the friends to whom he writes. The Christian should be a
well-wisher to all men. No cursing should ever come out of his mouth,
but his lips should always distil blessings even upon his enemies–and
much more upon his friends. Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, it
should be a part of our religion to be desiring the best of blessings
for our fellow men. As the high priest of old blessed the people, so
should those whom God has made to be priests and kings unto Himself–a
privilege that pertains to all saints– exercise the function of
blessing the people by desiring good things for them!

The blessing invoked in the text is very comprehensive, but although
there is much to crave, there is much more to acknowledge with
gratitude. Blessings already secured in the Covenant are the foundation
of a rich expectancy for the supply of all our present needs. We may
reasonably hope that God will do in the future what He has done in the
past. Hence the Apostle speaks very plainly of what God the Father and
our Lord Jesus Christ have already bestowed–and then he couples
therewith the kindest wishes as to the future of his friends at
Thessalonica.

With as much brevity as possible, I shall first speak on that part of
the text which contains two positive facts. And then upon that part of
it which expresses two holy desires.

I. The 16th verse contains A VERY CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE TWO POSITIVE
FACTS.

Paul, writing concerning believers in Christ at Thessalonica and
everywhere else, says, "Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God,
even our Father, who has loved us and has given us everlasting
consolation and good hope through Grace." From this we gather that
every true Believer–everyone who rests upon Christ and is saved
through the effectual working of the Holy Spirit–is, at the present
moment, first of all, the object of the love of God–"who has loved
us." So, my Friends, Paul does not speak of God as though we were
strangers to Him and He is a stranger to us, but he says, "who has
loved us." Concerning this matter, he does not speak as one who was in
doubt–with mingled hope and fear– but he says positively, "Our Lord
Jesus Christ, Himself, and God, even our Father, who has l oved us." He
is quite sure of it! He is certain that these people to whom he is
writing, and all believers in Jesus, are the objects of Divine Love!

Will you turn that Truth of God over in your minds, dear Friends,
making a personal application of it at this moment? If you are now
trusting in Jesus Christ, God loves you! That He should think of you is
something! That He should pity you is more. That He should bear with
you and have patience with you is no small thing–but think of God
loving you! That Infinite Being whom the Heaven of heavens cannot
contain, whose years are eternal, whose existence knows no limit nor
shadow of a change–He loves you and yet you are, compared with Him,
nothing–yes, less than nothing and vanity! Could you conceive of an
angel loving an ant? Could you imagine one of the seraphs being in love
with the gnat which dances in the sunbeam? It would be wonderful
condescension for the august spirits to love such insignificant
creatures, yet it would be only one creature loving another creature!
And between one creature and another, the distance cannot be as great
as between the Creator and the created one! That God, the Eternal,
Infinite, Almighty I AM, should actually condescend to love us, who are
but as worms compared with Him and who are but as things of yesterday,
soon

gone, oh, 'tis strange, 'tis passing strange, 'tis amazing! Yet though
it exceeds marvel, it does not, thank God, exceed belief! But were it
not that God has, Himself, revealed it, we might have cause enough to
suppose it to be impossible that the Lord Jesus Christ and God, even
our Father, should have loved us!

Being spoken of in the past tense, I infer that the love which God has
for Believers is no novelty. He did not commence to love them
yesterday. Brothers and Sisters, we believe that as many as have been
called by Grace have been the objects of a love that never knew a
beginning! Long before the stars were lit, or the sun's refulgent ray
had pierced through primeval shade, the heart of Deity had fixed itself
upon the chosen! The prescient eyes of God had seen them when as yet
they were not–and in His book all their names were written, which in
continuance were fashioned when as yet there were none of them! They
were not merely foreknown, but they were foreloved! They were the
favorites of His heart, the dear ones of His choice. He "has loved us."
Fly back as far as you will–till time has not begun, the work of
Creation is not accomplished and God dwells alone–it was still true of
all Believers, even then, that "God, even our Father, has loved us."

Is it not marvelous that we should have been the objects of a love that
has been so constant? For, as there never was any beginning to it, so
there never has been a period in which that love has grown dim towards
those who were the objects of it! The river of God's Love has gone
flowing on in one undiminished stream even until now! He "has loved
us." He loved us when our father Adam plunged us into the ruins of the
Fall. He loved us when He spoke the first promise in the Garden of
Eden, that the Seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head. He
loved us all through the prophetic days when He was writing the Book of
Love upon which our delighted eyes were afterwards to gaze. He loved us
when He sent His Son, His only Son, to live our life and to die our
death! He loved us when He exalted that Son of His to His own right
hand–and in His Person exalted us there, too, and made us to sit in
heavenly places together with Him. He loved us when we were little
children, in the weakness of infancy hanging upon our mother's breasts.
He loved us when, in the follies of our youth, we seemed determined to
destroy ourselves while He was determined that we should be saved. He
loved us when we loved not Him. He drew us with the cords of a man and
with the bands of love–and now, even at this day–we can, each one of
us, look up to Him and say, "Abba! Father! You are mine and I am Yours
by the Spirit of adoption." Yes, we can say this! We can look back all
along our past lives and right beyond our birth into eternity past, and
we can thank Him that we can truly say, "God, even our Father, has
loved us."

Now, my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you must not be satisfied
unless you can speak about God's love to you in the same positive terms
as those which were used by the Apostle Paul. Never rest contented if
you do not know that God loves you! Give no sleep to your eyes, nor
slumber to your eyelids until, by a living faith, you have been able to
read your title clear to this love of God! It may be that you have lost
the sensible presence of that love–then ask for Divine Grace to search
until you find it again. You may be saved and yet you may not be happy,
but you ought never be content unless you are certain that you are
saved–and then such certainty will infallibly bring you peace and joy.
If now your full assurance has departed and your faith is under a
cloud, come and knock again at Mercy's door and cling to the posts
thereof, looking up at the Crucified One. Turn your tearful eyes to
Calvary, trusting afresh to Him whose wounds will give you healing and
in the crimson lines of whose agonies you must read your acceptance. Go
there, I say, and be not content till you can say with Paul, "Our Lord
Jesus Christ, Himself, and God, even our Father, has loved us." This is
the first positive fact which is here mentioned.

There is another fact which is equally positive–"and has given us
everlasting consolation and good hope through Graced It is absolutely
certain that God has given His people this double blessing. What a
delightful blessing this is, "everlasting consolation"! There is music
in the word, "consolation." Barnabas was called "the son of
consolation." No, more than that, it is the name of One who is far
greater than Barnabas, for the Lord Jesus is called "the Consolation of
Israel." But God is here said to have given this blessing to His people
in a very special form– "everlasting consolation." A man goes to work
to make money and, after toiling hard for it, he gets it and it is a
consolation to him. But it is not an everlastingconsolation, for he may
spend or he may lose all his money. He may invest it in some company
(limited or unlimited), and very soon find it vanish! Or he may be
compelled by death to leave it. It cannot be, at the best, more than a
temporary consolation. A man toils hard for knowledge. He acquires it.
He becomes eminent, his name is famous. This is a consolation to him
for all his toil, but it cannot last long, for when he comes to feel
the headache or the heartache, his degrees and his fame cannot cheer
him. Or when his soul becomes a prey to despondency, he may turn over
many a

learned tome before he will find a cure for melancholy. His consolation
is but frail and fickle–it will only serve to cheer him at
intermittent seasons–it is not "everlasting consolation." But I
venture to say that through the consolation which God gives to His
people, they are unsurpassed for their endurance! They can stand all
tests–the shock of trial, the bursting out of passion, the lapse of
years–no, more–they can even endure the passage to eternity, for God
has given to His people "everlasting consolation."

What is this "everlasting consolation"? It includes a sense of pardoned
sin. A Christian, when his heart is right, knows that God has pardoned
his sins, that He has cast them behind His back, and that they will
never be mentioned against him again. He has received in his heart the
witness of the Spirit that God has blotted out, as a thick cloud, his
transgressions and, as a cloud, his sins. Well, if sin is pardoned, is
not that a consolation? Yes, and an everlasting consolation, too–one
that will do to live with and that will do to die with–and that will
do to rise again with! Oh, joy! My sins are pardoned! Now do what You
will with me, my God! As my sins are put away, You have given me
"everlasting consolation."

This "everlasting consolation" also gives an abiding sense of
acceptance in Christ. The Christian knows that God looks upon him as he
is in Christ and, inasmuch as God put Christ into his place, and
punished Christ for his sin, He now puts the Believer into Christ's
place and rewards that Believer with His love just as if he had been
obedient unto death, as Christ was! It is a blessed thing to know that
God accepts us and to be able to sing, with Hart–

" With my Savior's garments on,

Holy as the Holy One"–

and this is a consolation which is abiding. It is, in fact,
everlasting! Now let sickness come–the consolation still abides. Have
we not seen hundreds of Believers as happy in the weakness of disease
as they would have been in the strength of hale and vigorous health?
Let death come–the consolation still remains. Have not these ears
often heard the songs of dying saints as they have rejoiced because the
love of God was shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit? Yes, a
sense of acceptance in the Beloved is an "everlasting consolation."

Moreover, the Christian has a conviction of his security in Christ. God
has promised to save all those who trust in Jesus. The Christian does
trust in Him and he believes that God will be as good as His word and
will save him. He feels, therefore, that whatever may occur in
Providence, whatever onslaughts there may be of inward corruption, or
of outward temptation, he is safe by virtue of his union to Christ–is
not this a source of consolation? Why, some of you might freely give
your eyes to know that you are saved! It would be a good bargain for
men even to be lame or maimed if they did but enter into life. The
Christian knows that he is secure–beneath the shield of the Divine
Omnipotence he laughs at the rage of Hell, feeling that no fiery dart
can ever pierce that sacred protection! Are you rejoicing in this
everlasting consolation? If not, you should seriously question whether
you know what true religion means. Do you find that your losses make
you wretched? Do bereavements in your family make you murmur and
complain? Are you never happy? Does not joy ever come into your spirit?
Do you always hang your head like a bulrush? Have you no peace of mind,
no sacred mirth? Do the bells of your heart never ring? Do the
heart-strings of your soul never sound out the music of grateful
praise? Then gravely question whether you can be a child of God, for
concerning the children of God it is written, "God, even our Father,
has given us everlasting consolation."

I am sure there are many here who, if they were to speak from
experience, would say, "Well, we are very poor, but we are rich in
faith, and faith makes us rich toward God. We have not anything to
spare, yet surely goodness and mercy have followed us all the days of
our life. We are sick in body, yet our afflictions are so sanctified
that we rejoice in deep distress. We are ridiculed and slandered by the
ungodly, but we rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer anything
for Christ's sake. Yes, God has given us everlasting consolation!" John
Bunyan said that the man who wears the flower, "heart's ease," in his
bosom need not envy a king! And that is a flower which the Christian
always wears in his buttonhole–or if he does not always wear it there,
it is his own fault, for God has given it to him–He has given unto us
everlasting, unchanging, unfading, inexhaustible fountains of
consolation!

Another thing which God has given us is "good hope through Grace"–a
hope, a good hope–a "good hope through Grace." What is the Christian's
hope? It is a hope that he shall be preserved in this life by God's
love and kindness. A hope that when he comes to die–for die he must
unless the Lord shall come first–he shall have all-sufficient Grace to
be able to play the man in the last solemn article. He has the hope
that, after death, his soul, out-soaring sun, Volume 56
www.spurgeongems.org 3

moon and stars, shall enter into the realm of spirits and be with
Christ! He believes that the day shall come when his very body, though
it has become food for worms, shall be quickened and called by the
voice of the archangel from its bed of dust and its silent sleeping
place. He believes that those bones of his shall live again and that
his soul and body shall be reunited and that, when the Lord Jesus shall
stand at the Last Day upon the earth, in his flesh he shall see God! So
he sings with Toplady–

"These eyes shall see Him in that Day, The God that died for me! And
all my rising bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto Thee?"

This is the Christian's hope, that he shall then live, world without
end, in the perfection of enjoyment! That he shall have all spiritual
joys in communion with Christ–and all joys that shall be suitable to
his new and spiritual body as he shall walk the golden streets and
forever praise the love which brought him into an existence of perfect
bliss! This is the Christian's hope and, consequently, the thought of
death does not alarm him–rather, he looks forward to it with joy! As
the toil-worn laborer does not dread the eventide when he shall put off
his dusty robes, but longs for the night that he may rest in his bed,
so the Christian, when he is in his right mind–

"Longs for evening, to undress,

That he may rest with God."

He is willing to put off the cumbrous clay of his body and commit it to
the purifying earth, that he may, as a disembodied spirit, depart to be
"with Christ, which is far better," expecting that, afterwards, body
and soul together shall be forever gratified with Christ!

This is the Christian's hope and it is a good hope. It is good for what
it brings us, but it is especially good for that upon which it is
grounded. The reason why the Christian expects this eternal happiness
is because God has promised it to him and has given him an earnest of
it. He has Heaven in his heart even now. That is to say, he has within
him the beginning of that life which shall, in due time, become the
heavenly life. In olden times, when men bought an estate, it was
customary for the seller to give to the purchaser a tuft of grass and a
leaf from one of the trees on the land, signifying that the purchaser
then had what was called seizin of the property, and they were proofs
that it belonged to him. And when God gives true faith in Christ and
enables a soul to have peace with God through the precious blood, this
is the earnest of Heaven, a foretaste of its bliss and sure evidence
that Heaven is, indeed, ours. I trust that there are many of us who
have this earnest and feel comforted by it. We have a good hope because
it is founded upon God's promise in His Word and upon the witness of
the Spirit within our heart that we are born of God!

And it is said to be a good hope through Grace." Ah, Friends, there is
no good hope except "through Grace." You cannot have a good hope
through merit. If anybody expects to have a good hope through baptism,
he is very much mistaken! Baptism is simply the testimony of a good
conscience toward God–it cannot give any hope of Heaven. If we were to
build upon such a foundation as baptism, confirmation, the Lord's
Supper, or anything of the kind, we should be sad losers, for there is
nothing in all these things put together to make a Christian's hope!
Nor must we build our hopes on our prayers or our tears, or on anything
that we can do, for if so, it will be a sandy foundation and when the
time of trial comes, it will give way under us. But to have a good hope
through Divine Grace–such a hope as this–that I, a poor unworthy
sinner, have been invited by God to put my trust in His dear Son, and
that He has promised that if I do, I shall be saved! I do trust in
Jesus and, therefore, if God has promised truly, I shall be saved–this
is indeed a foundation on which I may build without fear! Is not this,
my Brothers and Sisters, the top and bottom of the Christian's hope,
that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," and that
whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life?
You do believe in Him and, therefore, you can say that you do possess
eternal life! I do solemnly declare that if I have ever at any time
begun to say in my own mind, "I shall be saved, for I have preached the
Gospel, I have experienced such-and-such enjoyments, I have drawn near
to God in secret prayer"–if ever I have talked to myself like that, I
have soon been led to see that if I had not something infinitely better
than all that to trust to, I would be resting on a broken reed. But,
oh, to come to Jesus just as one came, at the first, saying–

"Nothing in my hands I bring– Simply to Your Cross I cling. Naked,
come to You for dress.

Helpless, look to You for Grace. Foul, I to the Fountain fly– Wash me,
Savior, or I die!'

This is, indeed, to have a "good hope through Grace."

Now let us take these two statements, look at them again, and then lay
them up among our choicest treasures. The one statement is that God has
loved us. O Christian Friends, do try to drink in that great Truth of
God! Do not be satisfied simply to hear the words repeated, but get
them right into your very spirits–"Our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, and
God, even our Father, has loved us." O you angels, you have not even in
Heaven a greater joy than this–to know that God has loved us! The
other statement is that God "has given us everlasting consolation and
good hope through Grace." So we cannot be without consolation. Whatever
your trouble may be, my dear Christian Friend, though you may have lost
your dearest one, though your property may have melted as the snowflake
melts into the sea, yet God has given you eternal consolation–and
whatever you may have to fear concerning the future, you have a hope
that is broader than your fears!–

"This is the hope, the blissful hope, The hope by Jesus given! The hope
when days and years are past, We all shall meet in Heaven!'

As I turned this text over, I could not help pitying those who have no
hope, no good hope through Divine Grace. When I opened my letters this
afternoon, on coming back from Liverpool, the first one I opened was to
tell me of the death of one with whom I spent a very happy day about a
fortnight ago. He seemed to me to be in perfect health when I spoke to
him, then, but now he is gone to his eternal rest. The next letter I
opened came from the deacon of a Church in Devonshire, to say that one
of our students, who was settled there as a minister, had been suddenly
taken ill and had just died. I did not care to open any more letters,
just then, for fear that I would read of somebody else being gone. But
I thought, "Well, both of these dear Brothers have served their
generation by the will of God, and they have fallen asleep, and it is
well." I could only look forward with hope to the day when somebody
would read just such a letter about me– and could only trust that they
would be there to say of me what I could say of these
Brothers–"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

But what a sad thing it is to live in this world and to have no hope!
It would have been better not to have lived at all than to live without
a "good hope through Grace." I do not really know how some of you
manage to live. I know you have your troubles–troubles at home and
troubles in business–and I cannot make out how you manage to put up
with this poor existence without the hope of a better one! Knowing what
we do about a future state, if we had not a good hope concerning it, we
really might wish that we had never been born. And we sometimes wonder
how some of you can be so easy and so careless about the unknown state
when you, perhaps, know that you will soon be in that state and also
know that if it is not a better state than this one, it will be a very
sad thing for you to have had an existence at all! Oh, "seek you the
Lord while He may be found! Call upon Him while He is near." A good
hope can be had through Divine Grace and that Grace is free even to the
chief of sinners! If we come to God on the footing of Divine Grace, He
will never cast us out. Oh, that we might all have this infinite
treasure of a "good hope through Grace"!

II. Now I can spend only a few minutes upon the second part of the
subject in which we have TWO GOOD WISHES, TWO HOLY DESIRES. The first
part of the text has told us what God has given us. The second part
tells us what we ought to desire God to give us–"Comfort your hearts,
and establish you in every good word and work."

I pray God for those who are about to be baptized and also for you who
have long made a profession of your faith, that you may get the first
blessing, namely, Divine comfort. May God comfort you! It is a bad case
when a Christian is not happy, when he is not full of comfort. I know
it is treated by some people as though it were a very insignificant
matter whether a Christian is happy or not, but I am sure it is an
exceedingly important matter that he should have comfort. A wretched,
miserable Christian is, to a great extent, an injury to the Church, and
a dishonor to the Cross of Christ, for worldly people will pick out
such an one and say, "That is what your religion does for a man!" Now,
genuine godliness gives peace and joy. In its first beginning, when a
man is under a sense of sin, it does make him wretched to feel his sin,

but when the soul is obedient to the command of Christ and trusts in
Him, it gives him joy and peace. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace"–and for a Christian not to have this fruit of the Spirit is to
libel Christianity!

When one's heart is sad, it is not always best to show it. "When you
fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you appear not unto men
to fast." Even if you have some sorrow of heart, tell it not at once to
your neighbor, who may have quite enough trouble of his own to bear
without having yours added to it! Do, Christian, seek to get the
comfort of which the Apostle here speaks. Is there ever a position into
which you and I can be cast where there is no comfort for us in the
Divine promises? There is, in God's Word, a key to open all the locks
of trouble in Doubting Castle! If we will but turn over the sacred
pages, we shall find there a promise exactly suited to our case. Do you
lack comfort, Christian? How can you while there is a Mercy Seat to go
to and One there whose ears are always open to hear your petition and
to relieve your trouble? Do you lack comfort while you can pray? Surely
it must be neglect of prayer that makes your burdens so heavy. How can
you be without comfort while your Savior lives? If Jesus Christ still
bears your name upon His heart, that should be enough for you! Is it
not really a comfort to think that the Father, Himself, loves you? My
Father, who is in Heaven, knows my needs–ought not that to cheer me?
Midst darkest shades, if I feel that He is with me–yes, even in the
Valley of the Shadow of Death–if His rod and His staff comfort me,
what have I to fear? Yes, Christian Friends, you have abundant ground
for comfort, so be not content unless you enjoy that comfort! May God,
even your Father, put you and keep you in a comfortable frame of mind!

I would say especially to young Christians–Do not imagine that as soon
as you become believers in Christ, you are to cast away those cheerful
looks and those bright eyes of yours. God forbid! If you were happy,
before, be far happier now! You need not have levity–that is to be
avoided–and the pleasure which consists in sin should be no pleasure
to you, but now your joy should be deeper as it is purer, more lively
as it is more sound!

"And establish you in every good word and work" These are the two forms
of establishment in good Doctrine and in good practice. When a
Christian receives good words, the devil would like to drive them from
him and to drive him from them. It is one of the masterpieces of Satan
to try to spoil our faith. If he can lead us to believe falsely, he
will the more easily lead us to actfalsely. So may God "establish you
in every good word."You cannot help noticing, if you look upon the
spiritual firmament just now, how like it is to what the natural
firmament was the other night. It is said that there were thousands of
shooting stars visible within an hour! And I might almost say that if
you look out into the Christian world, you can see thousands of
shooting stars within a minute! I do not know what new error we shall
have within the next 24 hours. There are some people who are so fond of
novelties that they have advanced pretty nearly every form of error
that our poor imagination can conceive of, yet they seem to be studious
to make fresh ones! We have new "isms" and "ites" of all sorts, but
old-fashioned Truths of God, which we thought would never have been
doubted, are, nowadays, contested! An age of great religious activity
is pretty sure to be also an age in which error is active and,
therefore, it is the more necessary that we should pray for Believers
that they may be established in every good word!

I should like you who are members of this Church not only to believe
the Truth, but to know why you believe itand to be so sure and certain
of it that you cannot be shaken from it! I would have you be not like
the dry leaves in autumn, which are carried away by the first wind
because they have lost their vitality, but like the green leaves in
spring which will bear the March winds and cannot be torn off because
their sap is flowing in them and they are fresh and vigorous. I would
that you were always able to give a reason for the hope that is in you
with meekness and fear. The faith which we have has been handed down to
us by martyrs' hands all along the ages–not through the corrupt Church
of Rome–but down along the line of martyrs and confessors who have
sealed their testimony with their blood! And that testimony is still
with us this day! Search God's Word and if we teach you anything that
is inconsistent with it, then reject us as we would have you reject all
false teachers! If we set before you anything which is of ourmaking,
and not of God's making, cast it to the dogs and have none of it! But
if it is God's Truth, be established in it. Garner it in your soul.
Hold it fast as for dear life and never let it go! Believe that the
Truth of God as it is in Jesus, is worth the blood which martyrs have
shed in its defense–and will be worth all that it can possibly cost
you in holding it! May you be established in every good word–not
merely in some good words–but in every good word! Believe all the
Truths of God. Many Christians, alas, believe only one Truth or so. One
man gets a hold of the Doctrine of Predestination and he is like a
child with a doll–it is all the world to him! Another man gets a hold
of the Doctrine of Human Responsibility and he looks at it, as Luther

says, "like a cow at a new gate." He stands staring at that and can see
nothing beyond it! But I would have you see all the Truth and be always
ready to receive anything that God has revealed! Be you steadfast "in
every good word."

But the blessing invoked by the Apostle is that you may be established
in every good work as well as in every good word. Alas, there are some
Christians who like the Word of God very well, though they do not like
the work–but unless our godliness extends to our daily work, it is not
godliness at all! May you, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, be
established in every good work! May there be the good work of holiness
in all the relationships of life! May you be the best of sons, the best
of daughters, the best of parents, the best of husbands, the best of
wives, the best of employers, the best of employees! Wherever your lot
may be cast, may you be established in every good work in all the
relationships of life!

Then, in this Christian Church, may you work in prayer, may you work in
teaching, may you work according to the ability which God has given
you–and may you be established in it! If there is any good work which
you have not yet attempted, but to which you are called of God, may you
have Grace to enter upon it and, once engaged in it, may you never take
your hands from the plow till you have finished the task that God has
sent you! O Beloved, I can pray this prayer from my heart for everyone
of you! May you who have served the Master for years, still be kept
serving Him! Oh, may none of you turn your backs in the day of battle!
May you be faithful unto death and so obtain the great reward! May the
Grace which has helped you forward up to now, impel you forward till
your hairs are gray and until you throw yourselves back upon the couch
of death to sleep with God! So may you be established in every good
word and work! Every Christian ought to be a member of the established
Church–I do not mean the church which is established by the English
law–but the Church which is established by God! Oh, to be established
by Divine Grace–to be established by knowing what we believe, by
practicing it–and by being established in that practice! These
Apostolic good wishes I leave with you–may you inherit them!

But remember that we must first come to Christ, or these good wishes
will be only wishes. We must first trust the Savior, or else these
blessings can never be ours! May Divine Grace bring us to Jesus and
keep us at His feet–and Divine Grace shall have the praise forever and
ever!

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 THESSALONIANS 2.

Verses 1, 2. Now we beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him, that you be not
soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word,
nor by letter from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. In the
Church of Christ, the teaching has always been that Christ is coming
quickly and that teaching must never be withdrawn, for He is coming
quickly, as He said to John in the Revelation. At the same time, this
teaching has given an opportunity to certain presumptuous people to
prophesy that at such-and-such a time, Christ will come. They know
nothing about it and their prophecies are not worth the breath they
spend in uttering them! And we have, today, what the Apostle wrote to
the Thessalonians–

3. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that Day shallnot come,
except there comes a falling away, first, and that man of sin be
revealed, the son of perdition.I believe that to a large extent this
has already happened and that the "man of sin" has been revealed. This
"son of perdition" has had a long, dark and terrible reign over myriads
of men, and he still sits on the seven hills of Rome, and rules over
multitudes of his fellow sinners. Paul held that it was consistent to
expect the Lord to come quickly and yet to know that certain events
must occur before He did come. That is just the condition, I think, to
which a man's mind will come if he diligently and impartially reads the
Scriptures–especially the prophetic parts of them. The Lord will come
in such an hour as we think not, yet there are clear indications of
certain things which are to happen before He does come.

4. Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that
is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God. It has been said that the Pope of Rome is
infallible, that his interpretation of Scripture, whatever it may be,
is as valid as the Scripture, itself, and that whatever he chooses to
decree must be obeyed by the faithful. Such are some of the
pretensions, even at this day, of the "man of sin."

5-7. Do you not remember that when I was yet with you, I told you these
things? And now you know what is restraining, that he might be revealed
in his time. For the mystery of iniquity is already at work.There were
certain rea-Volume 56 www.spurgeongems.org 7

sons why that gigantic iniquity should begin to be developed, even
while the Roman Empire was in power to keep it in check. And when that
passed away, there was the opportunity for "the mystery of iniquity" to
become the despot of the world!

7-10. Only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the
way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord shall
consume with the breath of His mouth and shall destroy with the
brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to
the working ofSatan with allpower and signs andlying wonders, and with
all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. This is the last
sin of all–that ungodly men do not receive "the love of the truth." If
they were, themselves, true, they would love the Truth of God. If the
Grace of God was in them, His own precious Truth would be prized by
them above everything else! But when men finally reject the Truth by
which they might be saved, God visits them with terrible judgments!

11-17. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that
they should believe a lie: that they all might be

damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasured in
unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you,
brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has, from the beginning,
chosen you to salvation through sanc-

tification 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 ourFather, which has loved us,
andhasgiven us everlasting consolation and good hope through Grace,
comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work So
may it be, for Jesus' sake! Amen.