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Before we turn to the Word of
God, just want to quickly say one or two words about this book
that maybe you are seeing on display and may not totally appreciate. I first saw it quite a number
of years ago when it was first being republished by Solid Ground
Publishers, and I was deeply moved by the testimonies that
I was reading in it, especially because as a young pastor then,
without formal training at that particular time, I always wrestled
with how to listen to individuals that were coming with all kinds
of spiritual situations. and how to function as a physician
of souls in terms of also responding to them. And just seeing how the Ichabod here was dealing
with issues was a real joy to me. I particularly remember thinking
to myself that I need to record on the various pages what he
was dealing with so that it's easier to reference back afterwards.
I'm sure many of you go through this. You've got your journals
that you have, and they are now almost simply archived material,
and yet you appreciate that they have such wealth. You want them
to be relevant to you at the point when you really need to
refer to them. What I've appreciated particularly
about this issue, this copy that's now on sale, is the index at
the back. In other words, I no longer need
to do what I thought I was needing to do, because it is all there. And if you're one of those that
suffered the pain, that I had joyful pain in that you're reading
but you're wishing you could keep it somewhere for ready reference,
this definitely is the kind of issue, rather copy, that you
would want to get a hold of. And then if you have the older
versions back there, you could then contribute them to someone
else, pass on your pain to somebody else, hoping you will then get
this one in due season. All right, so I thought I should
quickly throw that in for you before we turn to our last session. Please turn in your Bibles once
again to 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians and chapter one,
And as you do so, I will quickly throw in a word of thanks to
all of you for the wonderful fellowship that I have had among
you in the last day or two, and for your most generous and gracious
comments and responses towards the preaching of God's word that's
been conducted here. As has already been said, this
is now our last session, and may the Lord truly speak to us. Let's read once again 1 Thessalonians
chapter one from one up to verse seven. I trust by now these words
are ringing in your own minds. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. to the Church of the Thessalonians
in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and
peace. We give thanks to God always
for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering
before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love
and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we
know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our
gospel came to you not only in word but also in power and in
the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind
of men we prove to be among you for your sake. and you became
imitators of us and of the Lord for you received the word in
much affliction and with the joy of the Holy Spirit so that
you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and
Achaia. We'll end our reading there. Well, I trust we've had a rich
feast over the last day and a half, as our minds have been engrossed
with the whole subject of effectual calling. We have seen something
of its relationship to the grace of God. We have gone back into
eternity past, and seen its relationship to predestination. We have also
wrestled with how it relates to those individuals who are
not in a position of capability to respond to it, either because
they lived at a time when the gospel was not there, at least
in its current form, or because of some mental situation that
they have, or perhaps they die in infancy. We also spent a bit
of time appreciating the urgency of effectual calling, the word
and the spirit. And then in the last session,
we were feasting on the relationship between effectual calling and
common grace. And now as we come into the last
session, we're really dealing with effectual calling on the
mind, on the heart, and on the will of individuals. In other
words, we are becoming students of anatomy, spiritual anatomy. We're getting into the human
soul and seeing something of what happens there when God speaks
in a voice that wakes the dead and causes individuals to come
to him in genuine repentance and faith. We're really asking
the question, what changes in an individual? And thankfully,
in the passage of scripture that I have chosen, you cannot miss
the fact that there is real change. The Apostle Paul puts it in verse
six, that these people became imitators of not only the apostles
and the preachers, but also of the Lord. He speaks of them receiving
the word with joy, he says there. despite the afflictions that
they were going through. In fact, there was such a transformation
that they became glorious examples of godliness to all the others
in the provinces of Macedonia and Achaia. Surely, those of
us who are preachers and evangelists and missionaries, can only read
this with holy envy, that somebody over a short period of time ministering
in a city should have this kind of profound effect. And no doubt, this is what excited
the Apostle Paul, and consequently, the passage that we have read
represents something of a sandwich, because the first part of it,
verse 2, and verse 3, is an expression of joy in the fruit
of Paul's ministry. And then again, when you come
to verse six and verse seven, you have an expression of joy
concerning the fruit of Paul's ministry. And then somewhere
in the middle, you will have the actual ministry itself. So Paul was, in this first chapter,
really wanting to express his own excitement at the fruit of
effectual calling. God himself using him in a way
that is, to say the least, totally extraordinary. In fact, in many
ways, this is the insurmountable argument that atheists fail to
answer with respect to the Christian faith. It is said of D.L. Moody that once speaking at a
university and sharing the gospel that some atheist challenged
him to a debate. Now whether this story is true
or not, I'm yet to finally source it out. But what I was informed
many years ago was that G.O. Modi accepted the challenge.
But this is what he said, that when we do meet, I want you to
come with five individuals who can say that ever since they
became atheists, they became more loving husbands. really
committed and hardworking citizens in society. And he said, I will
bring 20, who will say that ever since they believed my message,
this is what happened. It is said that when Mundi showed
up the following day for this particular debate, he had his
20. The atheist was nowhere to be
seen. The reason is obvious, because
human philosophy does not change people. True, genuine, evangelical Christianity
transforms. It transforms individuals from
inside out. And that's what I want us to
see from this passage of scripture. To begin with, effectual calling
changes the human mind. It brings about a spiritual enlightenment. And this is captured by the Apostle
Paul in this passage of scripture when he speaks about these Thessalonians
receiving the word. Verse six, And you became imitators
of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction. Because we are believers, and
we've been believers for a while, we tend to take a statement like
this for granted. What's so special about receiving
the word? We begin to betray something
of our natural Arminianism, the leftovers of it, even when the
Lord has opened our eyes to the profound doctrines of sovereign
grace. Well, all we need to do is to
remind ourselves of what the Bible says concerning the natural
mind. First of all, we need to appreciate
the fact that the natural mind is enmity towards God. That's what we read in Romans
chapter eight. I'll quickly read it for you
there. Romans eight and verse five. The Bible says, for those
who live according to the flesh have their minds Sorry, those who live according
to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But
those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the
things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh
is death, but to set the mind of the spirit is life and peace. And then verse seven, for the
mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. For it does not submit to God's
law. Indeed, it cannot. It's not possible. Or, putting
it another way, it is impossible. Such a mind cannot receive the
word. It's out of the question. Or in case you're still doubting
that, we go to 1 Corinthians chapter two. 1 Corinthians chapter
two. This is the way the Apostle Paul
puts it. And for now, I'll just read verse
14. The natural person does not accept
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. and he's not able to understand
them because they are spiritually discerned. The very Paul who had earlier
in chapter one written the fact that the word of the cross is
folly to those who are perishing now explains the reason why. It is because the natural mind
does not have the spirit of God. So that's really the situation
in which the Thessalonians were. They were in that state where
the preaching of the cross was laughable. That Jesus of Nazareth, hanging
on a cross, crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? and finally expiring, that that
should bring about a completely new humanity. Tell me another one that certainly
doesn't add up, it doesn't make sense. similarly to the minds and ears
of the average Jew, that He who hung upon the cross in utter
weakness should now be the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ that
all Israel has been waiting for for so many years. Again, that's
an insult to us as a Jewish nation. No wonder the apostles were being
persecuted as the book of Acts clearly shows us. It is folly. It is an insult. And yet, we are being told by
the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 6, that you received
the word. How come? How did this happen? Well, it's because effectual
calling and regeneration causes the mind to see God's wisdom. to finally perceive that this
and this alone makes sense. Simply because it is an immediate
working of the Holy Spirit upon the human mind. Earlier on in
First Corinthians chapter two and verse 12, this is the way
the Apostle Paul puts it. He says, now we have received
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God. And what's the effect of that?
That we might understand the things freely given to us. That's what has changed things.
It is when the Spirit of the Living God has come and worked
upon the human mind, suddenly we have begun to see what we
did not see before. And as Paul himself puts it earlier
in chapter one, to those who are called, verse 24, both Jews
and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of. Suddenly it all makes sense. This is the doorway to heaven
and nobody is going to hold me back. That's what happens when the
Lord saves us. to use Paul's picture in second
Corinthians and chapter four, this is the way he puts it, concerning
that evil one blinding the minds of unbelievers and then God turning
on the lights. He says that in verse four, Maybe
let me begin with verse 3, with the veiling of the gospel. It says there, 2 Corinthians
4 and verse 3, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled
to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this
world, meaning the devil, Satan, has blinded the minds of the
unbelievers. to keep them from seeing the
light of the gospel of the glory of God, who is the image of the
glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim
is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your
servants for Christ's sake. And here is the transformation.
For God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Wow. You see, when we preach the gospel
and men and women receive the word. This is not a natural process. It's not like a teacher in a
classroom convincing his kids that one plus one is equal to
two. This is something that's totally
out of this world. is an act of God in the immediate
situation, removing the veil, turning on the light, and consequently
this individual for the first time seeing the state of danger,
the all-sufficiency of Christ as Savior, and consequently calling
upon Him with their entire hearts. It's like an individual who is
an alcoholic, and consequently in the jungles of Africa, stumbling
across a cellar. In opening it, he finds crates
of wine and whiskey and champagne and beer and everything else. And while he is in there, obviously
he thinks his heaven has come. While he is obviously just going
one step further along the lines of self-destruction. And then
you see an actual cobra going under the door into the same
cellar. You begin to call him out saying,
look, you are in danger. There is a cobra in there. It
will kill you. You know what he's going to be
doing? He'll be laughing at you. I know why you're saying that,
I know. You just want to take me away from my pleasure. That's
like you. Miserable messenger you are. While he's goggling in his beer.
Well, suddenly you see that there is a switch for the lights outside
that door. You turn it on. Now at that point, you don't
need to bring in eloquence at all. He won't even know how he managed
to climb as high as that balcony to get through a window that
is half his size. And as he finds himself on the
outside, wow, wow, wow, thank you for turning on the light. That's all you did. Well friends, that's what omnipotence
does, turns on the light. No need to make your arguments
sophisticated because this person not only sees the danger but
also sees the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and
flees to the Savior for dear life's sake. Well, that's what these people
experienced. And hence, they received the
word. But let's go on, because effectual
calling goes further. It also changes the human heart. It changes the human heart. We already see something of this
in the text. Let's go back there. First Thessalonians
and chapter one. The apostle Paul says, and you
became imitators. of us, that's verse six, and
of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction,
and then he says there, with the joy of the Holy Spirit. With the joy of the Holy Spirit. Now, that's a transformation. That an individual should suddenly
find the things of God, His highest good, His greatest joy. Do you remember before your conversion
how church took so long, especially the pastor's sermons? I mean,
he's hardly began preaching and you're already going like this
on your wristwatch. wondering, when is he ending? Do you remember how the best
word in your pastor's sermon was, finally? Your own heart responded saying,
finally, I'm going to get out of here. Reading the Bible, praying, Saving
the Lord, giving financially to the Lord's cause, excuse me. You did the least in the hopes
that God will accept it and bring you into his heaven. At least
you're not as bad as the other fellows who didn't even go to
church. Although you admitted that it
was killing you with boredom. Well, the apostle Paul here is
saying, guess what? Something happened to you. You received this message with
joy. You were individuals now who
were beaming with excitement. concerning the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, concerning the things of God. But it's not only there. When
you go to the first part of this passage, notice how Paul is not
simply talking about the work and the labor and the steadfastness
of these individuals, but he's also pointing to where the work
and the labor and the steadfastness was coming from. Look at verse
two and verse three. He says there, we give thanks
to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in
our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work
of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Here were hearts that at one
time were stony hearts. Here were hearts that at one
time were full of self-centered rebellion. Here were hearts that
at one time were full of unbelief, full of hatred. And Paul is now describing them
as being full of faith, full of love, full of hope. Now that's change. That's real
change. That's transformation. Writing to Titus, Paul says,
just remind the believers how they were before in Titus chapter
three and verse three. Look at the previous condition
of the heart. For we ourselves were once foolish,
that's the mind, Disobedient, that's the will, we'll come to
in a moment. But listen to this, led astray. In other words, hooked and being
taken in the path of lostness. That hook, he opens it up further. Slaves to various passions and
pleasures. Passing our days in malice and
envy. Hated by others and hating one
another. That's the way we were. The heart
was enslaved to sin and consequently being dragged downwards into
the very abyss of hell. We knew it. In fact, that's what
caused us to despise believers and call them holier than thou. It's because we were miserable
failures ourselves. We had a love for sin we could
not cure and we know it. But oh, how I love this picture
that Paul gives, almost impossible to expound. But when the goodness
and loving kindness of God, our savior appeared, he saved. It's as though from the midst
of darkness, suddenly there was a ray of light. And we blossomed,
we opened up. We experienced a renewal that
was not there before. The way in which at dawn the
birds begin to sing. begin to sing their beautiful
songs. Some melody begins in the soul
where at one time there was hatred and misery. And then he ends by saying, by
the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom
he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Wow. That's the change that God does
at the point of effectually calling us. And the other part that I
want us to notice back in our text is that this is not because
of wonderful situations around the believer. It's not because
of an ambience that is positive for holy living. No. When you read our text, this
is what it says. You received the word in much
affliction. with the joy of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the circumstances
around you, especially the persecution of the Jews, as we notice in
Acts 17, ought to have left you miserable. And yet, that's not what's happening there.
You are full of joy. Now, isn't that what sets Christianity
apart? I mean, all of us, anybody can
be happy on his birthday when everyone is singing, he's a jolly
good fellow, he's a jolly good fellow. I mean, we all at that
point can be happy. That's what was happening here. It was in the midst of persecution. And yet, there is a river of
joy flowing out of the hearts of the saints. A river of joy
that cannot be closed down. That's the real transformation.
It's a real transformation. It is what shuts the mouths of
unbelievers when they've said everything they have to say against
the Christian faith. There's one thing they cannot
explain away, the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the human soul. Only omnipotence can do this. Let's hurry on to the last. Because effectual calling, it
doesn't just change the mind and change the heart, it invariably
also changes the will of the person. In other words, its fruit
is visible to all. It is visible in actual action. And that's what the Apostle Paul
ends with in the rest of this chapter. We won't read the whole
of it, but notice what he says there in verse seven. He says that, so that you became
an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. In other words, Paul had preached
in Philippi, quickly went through Apollonia, reached Thessalonica,
preached there, and then moved on to Beria and all the other
cities, major cities in Macedonia and went down further to Achaia
and even preached there, including Corinth. And you see, wherever
he was going, people were referring back to the changed lives in
Thessalonica. It was visible, they could see
it. In verse nine he says, for they
themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had
among you, and how you turned, you turned to God from idols
to serve the living and true God. It was visible, they could
see. You didn't just add church going
to your weekly schedule. There was an actual service that
began to happen. As I had spoken earlier, your
work of faith, your labor of love, they could see that here
were individuals whose entire lives had become transformed That's Christianity. And notice it's despite the persecution
all around, despite that, these lives still became different. Notice also that it wasn't something
that was just transitory. It continued. And I want to add,
even in the absence of Paul. Let's quickly jump to chapter
three of 1 Thessalonians, chapter three. Paul had been gone for some time.
Timothy ministered in Thessalonica. And now he's linked up with Paul.
And this is the good news he brings to him. what this Paul
is reporting on the good news. Chapter three and verse six.
But now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought
us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you
always remember us kindly and long to see us as we long to
see you. For this reason, brothers, in
all our distress and affliction, we have been comforted about
you, through your faith. For now we leave. If you are
standing fast in the Lord, for what thanksgiving can we return
to God for you? For all the joy that we feel
for your sake. before our God as we pray most
earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and
supply what is lacking in your faith. Wow. Here is Paul the missionary. having labored in this place
where it was full of Greek idolatry. It was full of Jewish hostility. And he would have loved to be
with these new believers longer, to ground them even further in
the faith. But the hostility was so much,
he had to be sent away. And then we don't know how much
longer it was before he got this news and the news is this, the
brethren have been going from strength to strength. The Christian faith there has
not only grown, it's blossomed, it's flourishing. In other words, This change is
real. That's why when he was rejoicing
about them, he also spoke about their steadfastness of hope,
their persevering hope. The change was permanent. They were not living as they
lived before, no. In fact, their lives were absolutely
impossible before, but the change has taken place. What do I want
to say to us, brethren? It is that this is biblical Christianity. Nothing else is. We must never
accept any cheap imitation. of true Christianity. We should
discard it altogether. Remember what I said in my first
session, that it is truths like these that give us a robust evangelicalism, one that leaves its mark upon
a generation. And that's what we need to long
for. Not mere numbers that fill up
buildings and then when they get out there the world cannot
see any difference between them and the people that fill up the
four walls of our churches. No. We must long for the true effectual
calling and we must long to see its fruit. What we are reading about here
cannot be produced by mere human ingenuity. It's absolutely impossible. You might as well go into your
nearest morgue or what we call mortuary back home and tell the
guys to get on their feet and walk out of those fridges. Well, you may succeed there,
but you still cannot succeed in this. It's utterly impossible. God must do it, and thankfully
God says, I will do it to my elect people. And so Paul could be spoken to
by the Lord saying, stay here longer, preach here longer, because
I have many people in this city. And through your preaching, I
will effectually call them to myself. while men and women are
trying to kill you, I will effectually call them to myself. I will turn on the light. They will see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. I will change their hearts. They will love me instead of
loving sin. They will love holiness instead. I will transform their wills. I will make them willing in the
day of my power. And they will be totally different. Paul, remain there. Remain there. That's the Christianity we should
long for, brethren. And that's why we're studying
this topic. It's not simply that we might
arm ourselves again so that we might be better able to argue
with Armenians or hyper-Calvinists, but that we must have a robust
evangelicalism. that cannot be argued away. Men and women who see what's
happening in and through our ministries will finally have
to say, this is God. We cannot explain it in any other
way. This is God. And oh, that those that are a
fruit of our ministry may be full of joy as they sing, oh,
what a wonderful change in my heart has been wrought since
Jesus came into my heart. Not since Pastor so and so convinced
me Since Jesus came in, came in, there is light in my soul. For which long I had sought since
Jesus came into my heart. That's the Christian faith. And
oh, that we may see its glory in the land once again. Let us pray.
The Affect of Effectual Calling on the Mind, Heart, and Will
| Sermon ID | 25161056277 |
| Duration | 48:13 |
| Date | |
| Category | Conference |
| Bible Text | 1 Thessalonians 1:1-7 |
| Language | English |
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