1 Thessalonians 5

1 Thessalonians 5:12-15

8 SUNDRY 12. “We entreat you, brethren, to know those who labor among you, standing before you in the Lord, and admonishing you.” This is a simple allusion to the preachers and teachers who stand before you, This being the attitude of a preacher, no allusion to ecclesiastical authority, as E.V. would indicate; but the people raised up by the Holy Ghost to instruct you in the truth of God, and correct all of your errors and mistakes.13. “And esteem them exceedingly in Divine love on account of their work.” This is a still further confirmation of the allusion purely to the people whom the Holy Ghost at the time uses for your instruction and admonition, and not, as E.V. would infer, the ecclesiastical officials. You see that you are not to appreciate them for any personal or official consideration, but simply for the sake of their work, and they are true to God, preaching and expounding to you the pure word of life, and warning you faithfully against all sin, error, and wrong-doing in every respect. In that case you are to “esteem them exceedingly in love;” i.e., the Divine agape, which is poured out in the heart by the Holy Ghost. “Live in peace among yourselves.” If you will all get the “peace of God,” which comes only in entire sanctification, you will have no difficulty in living in peace.14. “We exhort, you, brethren, admonish the disorderly.” When God speaks of disorder, he means sin. How sad to see a preacher standing before a congregation of his own members, heterogeneously blackened with a vast diversity of sins, and all tangled up in the devil’s lassoes, and talk out his soft, delicate, smooth, little sermonette, ingeniously manufactured for the occasion, to pass over the heads, and hurt nobody, and let the people drop through his fingers into hell; instead of thundering against every damning sin like a messenger from heaven, and doing his utmost to bring the people to repentance! What an awful account when he meets his congregation, covered with shame and “everlasting contempt,” as they all stand before the great white Throne! “Comfort the small-souled.” “Feeble-minded”(E.V.) is incorrect and misleading, as if they were demented or the mind enfeebled in some way. The literal Greek is simply “small-souled” people.

Multiplied millions of people in this world are the one talented class, having small souls. We should be very careful with them, lest we grieve and discourage them.

Though their souls are ever so small, if we can squeeze them through the pearly gate, they will have all eternity in which to grow. If you meet them a million of years from now, you will find they have developed into giants. There is a maxim among swine-feeders, “that the runt will make the biggest hog;” but you must give him time to grow. “Assist the weak.” This world abounds in people “weak,” physically, mentally, spiritually, influentially, and financially. They all deserve our sympathies, encouragement, and support. “Be long- suffering toward all.” “Let patience have its perfect work.” Our Savior suffered to the end of his life without the slightest resentment, and died praying for his murderers. He is our example. If we go to heaven, we must walk in his footprints.15. “See that no one may render evil for evil, but always pursue good toward one another and toward all.” Good is abundantly competent to conquer evil, if you will only give it a chance.

In the day of Elisha the prophet, Benhadad, the king of Syria, finding all of his plans against Israel thoroughly anticipated and defeated, convening the magnates of the army in war council, tells them to look out for the spies who report all of his plans to the armies of Israel. A man stands up, and says, “O king, we are all true and loyal men! but there is a prophet in Israel who tells the king all of your counsels the moment you whisper them in your bedchamber.” Then says Benhadad: “Our first campaign must be to capture that man; who knows where he is?” “At Dothan,” is responded from a person present, claiming to have correct information as to his whereabouts.

With all expedition the Syrian army is dispatched to Dothan, with orders not to return without the prophet Elisha, dead or alive. When Elisha and his boy preacher walk out of their chamber at day-dawn, Gehazi exclaims, “O Master, we die to day; do you not see we are surrounded on all sides by the Syrian army?” “Yes; but those on our side are many more than those who are against us.” “Why, there is not a single one on our side to fight for us.” Then Elisha asks the Lord to open Gehazi’s eyes. Then he looked around and saw the whole mountain covered with angels and war-chariots of fire, so that his fears all departed. Then Elisha dropped on the Syrian army such an optical illusion as to enable him to take complete command of them, mistaking him for their leader, and march them to Samaria, and turn them over to the king of Israel. When he thought he must kill them, the prophet said, “Not so; but give them all their dinners, and send them back to the king of Syria in peace.” This signal act of kindness made the Syrians ashamed, so they troubled Israel no more, but lived with them in peace. “When you undertake to overcome evil with evil, you make a great mistake, utilizing the weaker force and neglecting the stronger, as if a man would shoot a popgun, and neglect to fire off the loaded cannon at his disposal.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-22

9 PAULINE AND OF 16. “Rejoice ever more.17. “Pray without ceasing.18. “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” This beautiful and notable Scripture received great notoriety during the Wesleyan holiness movement as the shibboleth of the embattled host. It was everywhere rendered prominent as the Wesleyan standard of entire sanctification, insisted upon by the great founder of Methodism. While it is the standard of John Wesley and his followers, it is still more consolatory that it was the standard of Paul and the Apostolic Church. When you get the artesian well of entire sanctification in your soul, you will find this high standard of religion not only practicable, but easy, restful, and infinitely enjoyable. In the infancy of the experience, you will find it necessary to be exceedingly vigilant, probably involving a degree of care and labor which will soon obliviously evanesce, superseded by a delectable, unutterable rest in which to “rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks,” will become habitual, settled, and permanent, and almost as spontaneous as breathing, so as to transpire currently and uniformly without attracting attention or observably encumbering the will. Amid the sweet tranquillity of the soul’s imperturbable repose, constant joy, incessant prayer, along with holy gratitude, become the normal state of our spiritual life, natural and unconscious as breathing.19. “Quench not the Spirit.” The Greek word for quench means to put out fire by throwing water on it.

Fire is the symbol of the Holy Ghost throughout the Bible. Hence, you are never to throw Satan’s cold water on the Lord’s fire.

Popular Churches and fashionable preachers are avowedly and habitually Spirit quenchers, always ready to throw cold water on the fire of the Holy Ghost, thus keeping their Churches in a North Pole atmosphere, freezing out every spark of spiritual life. This is awfully wicked, and grievous to the Holy Spirit. Satan’s plan is to freeze people here, and burn them in hell through all eternity. A cold religion is the devil’s dumping-cart into hell. The scribes and Pharisees at the present day are awfully fearful of fanaticism. They would better fear hell-fire.

Satan’s counterfeit religion in all ages has denounced God’s salvation as “fanaticism.” Dr. Clark says, “There is very apt to be some fox-fire where there is much true fire.” We certainly would better have religion with fanaticism, than none at all.

The man who throws away all the wheat to get rid of the chaff, starves to death as the result of his blind folly. People who, through fear of fanaticism and excitement, let their Churches freeze out and die, are laughingstocks for devils in hell.20. “Despise not prophecies.” The Greek and Hebrew for prophecy means to boil up like an artesian well, flowing impetuously, incessantly, and forever. Prophecy is one of the nine Pauline spiritual gifts. (1 Corinthians 12:10.) We have it defined (1 Corinthians 14:3):“He that prophesieth, speaketh to men edification, exhortation, and comfort.”This gift was the crowning glory of the pentecostal experience. It fills with the Holy Ghost, imparts tongues of fire, split in twain, one prong to preach hell-fire to sinners, and the other heavenly fire to sanctify the Christians. It lets the tongue loose at both ends and in the middle, to speak red-hot words incessantly and forever; indiscriminately, regardless of race, rank, or color, administering edification, exhortation, and comfort to all you meet, whithersoever you go. God’s plan is to save the world by preaching, not the modern scientific sermonizing, which is unknown in the Bible; but this everlasting talking, exhorting, praying, entreating, and comforting.

Dead pastors are opposed to all this, as they think the people would monopolize their business and take it out of their hands. Moses thought very differently when God laid the spirit of prophecy (this very thing) on the seventy, and they all broke out preaching with all their might, like a holiness camp-meeting under a pentecostal baptism, and the people running to him from all the seventy prophets in different parts of the encampment, telling him to stop them or they will take his business forever out of his hands.

Moses, thus bewildered by their multitudinous clamor, leaps and shouts with stentorian voice, “Would God that every man in Israel did prophesy!” Here we have the positive commandment, “Despise not prophecies;” i. e., we are not only to permit every man, woman, and child to throw their mouths open, and talk freely for the Lord; but to encourage them. But the clerical wiseacre says, “They are incompetent, having neither intellect nor education.” Jesus says, “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praises.” What a contrast with the dumb Churches of the present day!21,22. “Abstain from every evil sight.” Your eyes belong to God. If you give the devil the use of them in any way, he is certain to corrupt your heart. You should be constantly turning your eyes away from the devil’s advertisements, conspicuous throughout our cities, purposely to arouse lust and allure into his hell-dens. You should never permit yourself to look at anything evil, if you don’t want a fiend from the bottomless pit to creep into your heart.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-28

10 AND THE COMING OF THE LORD 23. “The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly.” The sinner is a stranger to the God of peace; to him he is the God of wrath and retribution. Hence, sanctification is not for sinners. Repentance and justification are the gospel pertinent to them. The appeal here is to Christians only. Hagiasai, sanctify, is in the aorist tense, and means instantaneously take the world out of you; from alpha, not, and ge, the world. Regeneration takes you out of the world, and sanctification takes the world out of you. Hence, we must have a double divorcement from the world before we can go to heaven. Against the gradualistic theology, which everywhere curses the modern pulpit, the New Testament is outspoken and decisive from Alpha to Omega.

The aorist tense in this passage and hundreds more admits of no gradualism. It positively means “sanctify you this moment.” The gradualism in the plan of salvation is all on the human side. We gradually approach sanctification, suddenly enter it, and gradually progress indefinitely. The Greek for “wholly” is holoteleis, from holos, the whole, and telos, perfection. Hence, it means entirely unto perfection; i.e., every constituency of your being sanctified unto Completion. Paul makes no provision for sin, and gives no place to the devil. In E.V. this word is an adverb, qualifying sanctify. In the Greek it is a compound adjective, with a double superlative signification.

It does not occur in the classic Greek. Paul, a tiptop linguist, manufactured this wonderful compound superlative adjective to describe the people whose responsibility he must bear at the pearly portals. The word describes the pronoun you, in the text. Hence, you, yourself, must be complete in every constituency of your being if you ever enter heaven. Many adroit tergiversations are resorted to by Satan’s preachers to evade a clear and unequivocal revelation of God’s truth in this passage. But not one of them can stand before the white light radiated by the Holy Ghost from these inspired words, “May your whole spirit, mind, and body be preserved blamelessly at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The rank and file of the modern clergy are dichotomists—i.e., advocates of the two natures; i.e., soul and body—unfortunately confounding spirit and mind, and preaching intellectualism and metaphysics, instead of spirituality.

John Wesley was a trichotomist, like the apostle Paul, preaching the three constituencies of humanity—spirit, mind, and body. Total depravity applies to the human spirit only, not to the mind and body.

Man in the fall became a spiritual corpse, retaining his intellectual and physical life, though terribly wrecked and dilapidated. A thousand systems of counterfeit religions prevail in the world this day, consisting of mentality and materiality, without a solitary vestige of spiritual life Satan’s illusory passports to hell, all competent to live and prosper without the Holy Ghost, who alone can quicken the dead human spirit into life, sanctifying it with our entire being for an eternity of bliss. The silly heresy somewhat prevalent among ignorant people, vindicating the theory that sin remains in the body after the soul is made pure, is utterly eradicated and annihilated by this passage, as we see here that sanctification includes spirit, mind, and body; i.e., our entire being, leaving no pocket for the devil. Here you see also the peculiar prominence given to the Lord’s second coming by apostolic preaching, as in this powerful and importunate prayer for the entire sanctification of the Thessalonians, the petition involves their abiding in the experience till the Lord comes. Hence, we have the New Testament standard of religion here clear and unequivocal; i.e., entire sanctification of spirit, soul, and body, and perseverance in the experience till the Lord comes. Hence, you see the glorious climax of the New Testament gospel culminating in these beautiful and transcendent truths; i.e., and the Lord’s return to the earth to execute righteous judgments against the wicked nations and fallen Churches, and establish his kingdom from the heads of the rivers to the ends of the earth.24. “Faithful is he who calleth you who also will do it.” Your omnipotent Savior, who is infinitely abundantly able to do this work, Calls you to sanctification.

Hence, it is wicked, rebellious, and blasphemous to say you can not get it. It is not your work, but that of the omnipotent God, who creates a world in a moment.

Hence, you are left without excuse, as you have nothing to do but turn over your sanctification into his hands, raise the shout of faith, and be loyal to God. He does it without any help on your part.26. “Salute all the brothers with a holy kiss.” The word kiss is philema, from phileo, to love, and simply means a love token given—a literal kiss of the lips, or a cordial salutation in some other way. It is certainly our privilege to administer the kiss; however we should not sticklerize, lest we be brought under bondage. In this glorious full salvation the Lord breaks from our necks every yoke which Satan and men have put on us. So let us jealously conserve our perfect spiritual freedom, never permitting men or devils to lay the weight of a feather on our consciences, and see that we do not manufacture yokes with our own hands, and put them on our own necks. The world is in the devil’s bondage, and unsanctified Christians in legal bondage.

Let us all watch and pray, lest men, devils or our own hands, ever interfere with this blessed, sweet, and glorious liberty, a prelibation of heavenly bliss.27. “I adjure you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the brethren.” This verse solves the problem of legal oaths, as here we see that Paul administers an oath to the brethren, that this letter should be read to all the saints. As these people had been so recently converted out of heathenism, it was a matter of the most vital importance that it should be read to every one of them; hence Paul adjures them in the name of the Lord, thus tightening up their obligations, and augmenting the certainty of the great end in view that every disciple should hear this letter.

It was not enough simply to read it in the public audience, but they must make certain investigation, finding out every absentee, hunting him up, and reading this letter to him.28. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” This is simply an apostolic benediction, such as we find, in diversified forms and magnitudes, concluding every epistle. The popular superstition prevalent in the Churches, using only 2 Corinthians 13:13, in the dismission of a congregation, and restricting the privilege to an ordained clergyman, is by no means commendable. It is certainly the gracious privilege of every Christian conducting religious service to pronounce these benedictions pursuant to the light and leading of the Holy Spirit.