Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2028
“And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.” 2 Thessalonians 3:5.
FOR the moment, Paul in spirit is coasting the purple shores of the celestial country. With his Thessalonian friends he is making a joyful voyage within hail of Immanuel’s land. The sail is bright with the sunlight and the keel is marking a silver track behind it. The Apostle’s happy soul has left far in the stern the deceivableness of unrighteousness and the rocks of error. It comes into his heart that he would gladly steer his friends into certain of those lovely creeks which run up far into the inner recesses of the sacred fatherland. Shall he turn the helm that way? He pauses, for the navigation is difficult. One must be greatly expert to thread the streams which descend from the sunny fountains.
It is not given to all saints to follow safely all the windings of the rivers of delight. Paul had been with his Brethren at sea in the place where the Lord sank all their transgressions in the depths and he had been with them in sore affliction when neither sun nor moon appeared—and in all such seafaring he was in his element. But, brave pilot as he was, he could not pretend to penetrate all the richer and rarer experiences which bring elect souls nearest to the heart of the great Father. Therefore, instead of offering to be their pilot, he bowed his head and prayed, “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ.”
The special entrance into the goodly land, which the Apostle desired for his friends, was one which mere insight, wit, knowledge, or instruction could never give them. If so, he would have directed their minds that way at once. But the perception of the heavenlies is only given to heavenly faculties. The attainments which Paul desired for his friends were not beliefs of the head but indwelling of the heart. To return to our figure of sailing up the creeks and rivers into the center of the glorious country—that delicious voyage was only possible to the more refined and spiritual powers of the soul. Those sweet waters could only be navigated by the heart and the heart itself would need Divine direction before it could find the entrance to them.
There is a path which the vulture’s eye has not seen and the lion’s whelp has not trod—only God sees and knows it. The Beulah country of spiritual wisdom, especially in its higher reaches, is a matter for personal Revelation from God to each one of His own. We are here hopelessly in the dark if we have no light from above. And even with that light we do but see the difficult nature of our way and fail to enter upon it until the light becomes a force and He whom we desire to know directs our hearts into communion with Himself. Yes, yonder are the radiant coasts and the rivers of life up which our boat might sail into the center of “the island of the innocent.” Yet our great Apostle does not rush into the office of pilot but humbly acts as intercessor, crying, “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God.”
All this whets our desires! Who would not wish to go where only choice spirits can enter and where these can only come as the Lord directs their hearts? Paul could give his converts external directions, he could guide his more advanced Brethren in the work, walk and warfare of life. And he did so with all simplicity and earnestness. He urged them to abound in this grace and to avoid that folly. But he felt that his exhortation would be inefficient unless their hearts were touched. Here he felt his own powerlessness and so he cast the grand matter of heart-work upon the Lord Himself. As the heart naturally baffles all physicians so spiritually it is far beyond our knowledge. Who among ministers can guide you? Therefore, may “the Lord direct your hearts.”
God alone knows the heart and God alone can rule it—for this ruling Paul makes request. “The Lord direct your hearts.” Let us borrow his prayer and turn it to our own personal use—“Domine dirige nos.” The place for God in reference to the heart is that of supreme director. When the Lord lays His hand on the heart, which is the helm of the ship, then the whole vessel is rightly directed—this, therefore, is what we beseech Him to do. When the Holy Spirit comes into
the heart and takes supreme control of the affections, the whole life and conversation are after a godly sort, Oh, that He may prove this fact to each one of us! Some think much of liberty—I long far more to be in perfect subjection to the Lord my God. Oh, how I wish for a Master, a Dictator, a Director! Oh, that my Lord would take the reins and bring my every thought into captivity to His own will, henceforth and forever!
What a heavenly content I feel in yielding myself to the sacred Trinity! The God who made us may most fitly be called upon to govern us. When we recognize the glory of the whole Godhead we perceive the perfect suitability of such direction as will come from the Three in One God. Albeit that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in this verse by name, He is mentioned by His operations, for it is the Spirit of God that deals with the hearts of Believers. I take rare pleasure in our text, because we have the blessed Trinity in unity in these few words, “The Lord”—that is, the Holy Spirit who dwells within Believers—“direct your hearts into the love of God (by whom I understand the Father) and into the patient waiting for Christ.”