Destined for Deliverance - 1 Thess Lesson 32

CTW Titus 2:11-14

Destined for Deliverance

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

 It is time for the study of God’s Word. Please turn with me to 1 Thessalonians. We took a break from our study of this letter last week to focus on Mother’s Day. By doing that we took a break after message two of a passage that it is taking us three weeks to get through. We are looking at chapter 5, verses 1-11. We have studied verses 1-3 in one message, verses 5-8 in the second message two weeks ago, and today we will be looking at verses 9-11. So let’s read these 11 verses together. We will then do enough review to make sure we have a good handle on the context of verses 9-11. Stand with me.

 In our first message we defined the Day of the Lord. We saw that Paul did not answer the most common question regarding this Day. He said that the Thessalonians had no need of anything to be written to them concerning the times and the epochs. He had already taught them what they needed to know about the events of the last days.  The evidence within this letter is that they were living with an expectation of the Lord’s return. Paul’s emphasis in these 11 verses isn’t on revealing some new insight about when Jesus is coming back. His emphasis is on the same thing Jesus emphasized, being ready, making sure that we are prepared for His return.

 The Day of the Lord is the day of God’s wrath, the day of vengeance, the day of visitation. This is the day of God’s terrifying judgment on all who have rejected His offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. Revelation 16:14 calls this “the great day of God Almighty.” Following this final judgment, which takes place at the Great White Throne, Satan and all the unbelieving will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where they will be committed to an eternal, conscious punishment. It is not an unloving thing to do to warn the lost of their impending judgment at the hands of a holy God. It is the message of this doom that God may use to draw them to their only hope of rescue, Jesus Christ.

 Because this day comes just like a thief in the night, most are unprepared and clueless. Those unprepared will be saying “Peace and safety,” and will endure a certain destruction that comes upon them suddenly, like the labor pains of a woman with child. 

Last time we were here we pointed out the vivid contrast Paul uses to distinguish between those who are prepared and those who are not. He contrasts light with darkness, night and day, asleep with alertness, drunkenness with sobriety. Those who are not prepared are in darkness. Those who are not ready are asleep spiritually and intoxicated with the pursuit of their worldly desires. They are like the people of Noah’s day and Lot’s day. They are not concerned with the fact that judgment will come just like it did when the rain came and drowned those who ignored Noah’s warning, and like fire and brimstone consumed those who ignored Lot’s warning.

 Those who are ready are not of night and darkness. They are, rather, alert and sober. Since they are of the day they have put on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet the hope of salvation. We who are ready are ready because we have come to the Him who is the Light of the world and we have been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. We walk in the light as He is in the Light and His blood has cleansed us from all sin.

 We did not dive deeply into the hope of salvation the last time we were here. I mentioned it briefly. We defined hope as a desire for something good coupled with the confident expectation of obtaining that which we desire. Biblical hope and the hope of the world are vastly different. The hope of the world is a “hope so” kind of hope. It is like the hope I have when I go fishing. I hope I am going to catch something. Biblical hope is the desire for something good, and along with that desire, is the confident expectation that we will obtain that which we desire. In fact, we can be so certain of obtaining the good that we can speak of it as if it has already been accomplished. This hope is expressed in verses 23-24 at the end of our chapter. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” My friends, that is the confident expectation that what God has purposed, God will bring to pass. That is biblical hope.

 As you read through and study these 11 verses one thing is abundantly clear. There are only two options for outcomes when the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. These two outcomes are destruction or deliverance. The Roman Catholic church didn’t like that there are only two options so they invented a third option called Purgatory. This is not a biblical option. It is the invention of man that is designed to offer hope, but it doesn’t offer hope because it doesn’t exist. We will either be destroyed in judgment or delivered in salvation.

 That brings us to verses 9-11 where the focus is on our deliverance from destruction. This is the good news. The gospel is good news. I always marvel at the people who try to present the gospel without first presenting the bad news. My friends, the reality of a certain and eternal destruction for all who do not follow Christ is bad news. The fact that man is hopelessly and helplessly separated from God by sin is bad news. The reality of our spiritual bankruptcy, the fact that we have nothing to offer God as a basis on which we can stand before Him as a holy and righteous Judge is bad news. The fact that He will punish all sin, wherever it is found, is bad news. The fact that Jesus is coming back some day and will separate the sheep from the goats and send all the unbelieving to eternal darkness, to a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, is bad news. The fact that there are multitudes who will not be ready for that day of the Lord is bad news.

 But the message of verses 9-11 is the good news. Listen carefully to the words of verses 9-10. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.” There are no sweeter sounding words to be found on the pages of holy Scripture. These words are encouraging words according to verse 11. These are words that build us up in the faith. These are words that provide us the hope of salvation. 

We are going to see in verses 9-11 three important reasons for that hope. We have hope, biblical hope regarding our deliverance in the day of the Lord because 1) the Sovereign planned our deliverance, 2) the Savior provided our deliverance, and 3) the security promised in our deliverance. In a feeble attempt to keep everything alliterated I will give you the “so what” of our deliverance from verse 11. Verse 11 gives us 4) the strength procured because of the promise of our deliverance.

The first point to be understood is that the Sovereign planned for our deliverance. Verse 9 says very clearly, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation…” It might be more accurate to say that the Sovereign placed us in the deliverance. We must understand the word “destined.” It is the Greek word “tithemi.” (tith-ay-me) The basic meaning of the word is “to set, put, place, or lay.” It means to set something in its place, or to assign a something a place. It was used in the parable of the two builders told by Jesus. The wise builder built his house and he began by digging deep and laying a foundation on the rock. The word “tithemi” is used of where the wise man laid the foundation.

Paul uses the word here in more of a figurative sense. The Greek scholar Spiros Zodhiates says that the figurative use of the word means “to appoint.” We understand what it means to appoint someone. The President appoints people to different positions in his cabinet.

Let me show you a few verses where this word is used in this figurative sense to clearly mean “to appoint.” Look at 1 Timothy 1:12. The word “putting” is the same Greek word translated “destined” in our text. We know the story of Christ putting Paul into the ministry of the gospel. It did not start because Paul had already proven himself faithful as a follower of Christ. He was an enemy of the gospel whom God sovereignly chose for this role.

Paul says this even more clearly in 1 Timothy 2:7. Here the NASB translators translated it “appointed.” Why was Paul appointed a preacher and an apostle? Because that was God’s plan. That was God’s purpose. That was what God determined was what would result in the greatest glory to Himself.

Let’s look at one more. 1 Peter 2:4-8. Speaking of those who will not believe, who will not come to Jesus Christ who is the Living Stone which is precious in the sight of God, these stumble over Christ “because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.” This word “appointed” is the same Greek word translated “destined” in 1 Thess. 5:9.  Why were these appointed to destruction? It wasn’t because they were not appointed to salvation. It was because they rejected Christ as the solution to their sin problem and they were disobedient to the word. They are responsible for their own destruction.

It should be fairly obvious that we are talking about the doctrine of sovereign election in this passage. The objection that always comes up against election is that it isn’t fair. Objectors read a passage like we have before us in 1 Thess. 5:9 which says, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation…” and they say, “Well, that isn’t fair that God would destine only some for salvation.” “That must mean that He destined others for destruction. That is exactly what we just read in 1 Peter 2:8. He appointed those to destruction. But Peter is really very clear as to why they are appointed to that doom. It is because they do not believe. It is because they are disobedient to the word. They are responsible for their unbelief and their disobedience to the word.

God has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation. Please turn over to 2 Thess. 2:13-14. This is a profound declaration of God’s plan for our deliverance. Paul says that “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation…” Ephesians 1:4-6 tells us, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” Ephesians 1:11 tells us that “we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will…”

In 2 Timothy 2:10 Paul writes, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.”

The most important passage dealing with God’s appointing us not to wrath, but for obtaining salvation, is found in Romans 8:28-30. Several men just completed a fairly deep study of Romans 8 and we just worked through these verses and they are so comforting, encouraging, and the source of such security. For whom does God cause all things to work together for good? Those who love God. Who are those who will love God? Those who are called according to His purpose. These are the ones whom He foreknew. Those whom He foreknew He predestined to become be conformed to the image of His Son. This He did so that Christ would have preeminence among many brethren. Those whom He predestined He called. This is the effectual calling that awakens dead sinners and produces the spiritual life. This is the work of God that opens blind eyes and awakens faith. These are the ones whom God justifies. Those whom God justifies He also glorifies.

If God does not destine us for salvation rather than wrath, I don’t see how we would ever get there. I can’t find support in the Bible that fallen man is still in possession of some capacity to choose salvation. If it is a sure work, if it is a completed work, if it is a perfect work, it must be God’s work. We cannot count on man doing anything right. If man is accomplishing anything there is always the potential for the work to not be done perfectly. In fact, there is a guarantee that man cannot do anything perfectly. A perfect work requires a perfect workman. God alone is the One who can do the perfect work of salvation perfectly from start to finish.

I pity those poor souls in the pews or chairs of churches today who are being told that their salvation is something they can forfeit. You know why they believe it is something they can lose? They believe it is something they can lose because they believe it is something they did to achieve it. If salvation is dependent upon something we must do, then there is always the risk that we don’t do it right. There is always the risk that we can undo it, or walk away from it, or sin our way out of it. But if it is the work of God from start to finish, it is a perfect work from which man cannot escape. If it is the work of God alone it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The Sovereign planned your deliverance. It is because of His appointing you not for wrath but for obtaining salvation that you are securely protected from the wrath to come. The wrath Paul mentions here is the divine judgment of God inflicted on the wicked. It is reserved for the brood of vipers whom John the Baptist questioned in Matthew 3:7. “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” John 3:36 tells us plainly, “He who believes in the Son of God has eternal life, but He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on Him.” Romans 1:18 says, “for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The wrath of God is mentioned in far too many verses to read.

Because the Sovereign planned our deliverance, we have obtained salvation. This word “obtained” is best understood in a few other places where it is used. In Ephesians 1:14 we are told that the Holy Spirit “is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession (obtained), to the praise of His glory.” The word “possession” is the same Greek word translated “obtaining” in our text. It is translated the same way in 1 Peter 2:9 where we read, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession (obtained), so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

God has appointed us to become the possessors of salvation. God the Sovereign planned that we would be among those destined to obtain salvation. My friends, that is humbling. That is a mind-blowing truth that humbles us. Why? Because we know how undeserving we are. We know how unworthy we are. We know how wretched we can be. We marvel at the reality. We are overwhelmed with the grace of God.

We need to move on. The Sovereign planned our deliverance. The Savior provided our deliverance. Look again at verse 9. We have obtained salvation “through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.” For God has not destined us for wrath, but for salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us. God did not destine us for wrath, which is exactly what we deserve, but in our place He destined His own Son for His own wrath. We really should pause for deep consideration of that truth.

God did not destine the deserving for wrath, but rather destined the undeserving for wrath. This takes the “fairness” argument out of the equation doesn’t it? If God was committed to “fairness” He would never have condemned a righteous One to condemn in the place of the unrighteous. The undeserving One whom God destined for wrath was His only begotten Son. We have become so familiar with the truth that Jesus dies on the Cross for our sins that it has almost become too common, too familiar, too comfortable to us. The reality is that there is not a more inconceivable, incredible truth than this. God did not destine us for wrath, but for salvation through His own Son Jesus Christ, who died for us.

I challenged the men in our study Wednesday night with this thought. If I needed a heart transplant, and I was going to die without a new heart, I asked the men how many of them would be willing to sacrifice their son so that I could have their heart. Brent refused to offer Garon’s heart, and I don’t blame him. Nubbin refused to offer Josh’s heart, and I don’t blame him. But God offered His sinless, perfect Son, and sacrificed Him on a cruel Roman cross, to die in our place, so that we could all have new hearts.

I could say so much about this but the word of God always says it much better. Matthew 20:28 tells us that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. John 10:10 records these words of Jesus. “I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus is pleased to call us His friends.

Romans 5:6-8 says, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” I would be remiss to include verse 9. “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” That is the point of our text. God has not destined us for wrath, but for salvation through Jesus Christ, who died for us.

If we climb the Mount Everest of Paul’s writings, at the end of Romans 8, we find these words following that amazing truth found in verses 38-30. After telling us that those who are called according to God’s purpose, those whom He foreknew, and predestined, and called, and justified, and glorified, Paul writes, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” (Rom. 8:31-34)

Paul said it like this to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 5:21. “He (God) made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” He told the Ephesians in 5:2, “walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”

I will remind you again of the words we read in our Call to Worship from Titus 2:11-14. Beginning in verse 13 Paul writes that we are “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus…” Let me stop there and say that the appearing of the glory of Christ is not going to be a good day for those who are destined for wrath. But for those who are not in darkness, but in the light, those who are not asleep but sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet the hope of salvation, it is a glorious day. Paul tells us it is a day of glorious appearing for us because Christ Jesus “gave Himself for us to redeem us from ever lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

Peter’s testimony regarding this is found in many places but I will read to you 1 Peter 3:18 which says, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.”

We should never allow such life transforming truth to become so familiar to us that we take it for granted. From before the foundations of the world God ordained a plan wherein He predestined those whom He foreknew for a salvation that would rescue us from His wrath. In order for His justice to be served, His eternal plan included the death of His own Son in our place. That truth is mind boggling. It is incomprehensible. It is incredible. That truth is life transforming.

We need quickly to look at the security promised by our deliverance. We have seen the Sovereign’s plan for our deliverance, and the Savior’s provision for our deliverance. Now look at the security promised by our deliverance. “so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.” We learned in earlier studies of this passage that sleep was a euphemism for death. The Thessalonians were evidently concerned that those who had died would miss out on the important events related to the Lord’s return. Paul says, “Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter whether we are dead or alive when the Day of the Lord comes. We will live together with Him.” This means that we will live forever with Him.

If death cannot cause us to miss out on the blessings of Christ’s presence, neither can anything else. This is why Paul affirms at the end of Romans 8 that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of Christ, not death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In these three verses Paul has given us the truth about the Sovereign’s plan for our deliverance, the Savior’s provision for our deliverance, the security promised in our deliverance, and finally we see the strength procured from our deliverance. Paul tells us in verse 11, “Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.” The word “encourage” is “parakaleo” in the Greek. It is a word we encounter often. It literally means to call or come along side. To encourage, or comfort as the KJV translates it, means to come to one’s aid, to help, to comfort, strengthen and encourage. This we are to do for one another. The word translated “build up” is “oikodomeo” and it means to establish, confirm, edify, to cause to advance in the divine light.

So who might need to be encouraged and built up with these truths? It isn’t just the truth of verses 9-10 that Paul refers to in verse 11. It is everything from verse 1-10. There are a lot of people who may be in need of encouragement and building up with understanding of the things related to the day of the Lord. First, those who are not ready for that day need to be encouraged to repent and believe in the truth of this passage. There are some of you who need to be encouraged to repent and believe in the truth of the gospel and to commit your life to following Christ. There may be some of you, especially the young people who need to consider the next step in following Christ. You may have believed, you may have come to faith, but you need to take a step forward and follow the Lord in baptism, making a public proclamation of your devotion to Christ.

There are many among God’s people who look to the coming day of the Lord with fear and anxiety and trepidation. This is because they are unsure of their salvation. They have doubts. If those doubts are the result of a lack of evidence of salvation, those also need to repent and turn to Christ, calling out to God for mercy. This is why we are told to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith. The church is full of people who are deceived regarding salvation. Some people have doubts for a good reason. Their lives are void of the fruit of spiritual life.

On the other hand, true believers can doubt. Doubts about salvation are, I believe, a normal part of the Christian life. But listen, there is nothing that provides more assurance regarding our salvation than the truth we have examined today. If God has not destined you for wrath, you will not experience that wrath. If He has not destined you for wrath, it is because He has destined you for salvation through His Son Jesus Christ. If God has chosen you, and He has called you, and you have come to faith in Christ, you can know for certain that He has justified you and is sanctifying you and will bring you to glory. This is truth we can encourage and build one another up in.

There is a security procured by the true child of God. It is a security not based on anything we do, but on the faithfulness of the God who has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing more encouraging than this. There is nothing more edifying. There is nothing more strengthening than the assurance provided by the doctrines of grace.  

Let’s pray.