(1) В¶ Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you: (2) And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith. (3) But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil. (4) And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you. (5) And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.
In folding up this beautiful Epistle, the Apostle makes an earnest, and an affectionate request, to be remembered by the Church at the throne in prayer, together with Silvanus, and Timotheus, whom he joined with himself in this letter. And I beg the Reader to remark with me, the great burden of his request, namely, that the word of the Lord might be blessed among the Lord's people. Paul makes use of the figure of a free course, which like an unobstructed river, runs on, and washes, and makes fruitful every place where the Lord sends it. And, observe, it is God's glory, when his people are made blessed by the free course of his word. Every child of God should remember this. It becomes a great strengthener to faith, when the Lord enables any of his to consider, that when our souls being made blessed in Christ, Christ is glorified in us. We not only bless him with our hearts, when we give him praise for his mercies, but we glorify him also when our wants give him occasion to fill into our emptiness.
And let the Reader further observe the drift of Paul's prayer, that he, and his faithful companions, who preached the truth as it is in Jesus, might be delivered from the opposers of those precious doctrines, Paul, and his brethren in the ministry, taught. Not the openly profane, but false teachers. Paul could not mean the openly profane, when he said for all men have not faith. This was too notorious a truth to need the remark. But the all men the Apostle here alluded to, which had not faith, were plainly those who preached unsent. Men who had not the faith of God's elect. Titus 1:1. May the Lord deliver all his faithful, both ministers and congregations, from such men, in all ages of his Church!
The Reader will not overlook, I hope, the very blessed prayer Paul closed up this paragraph with. He opened the first part of it with calling upon the Church to pray for him and his companions. And here, in the close of it, after assuring the Church of God's faithfulness, to stablish and keep them from evil, he recompenseth their kindness in praying for them. And what a sweet and comprehensive prayer it is. Surely none but God the Spirit could have taught it. And the Lord (said he) direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for, (or, as the margin renders it, the patience of), Christ. Reader! do observe how all the Persons of the Godhead are here included in this short, but blessed prayer. The Lord the Spirit direct your hearts. And where directed? Into the love of God. And how is this to be attained? In a patient waiting on and through Christ. And short as this direction is, if the Reader be taught of the same God who directs the heart to mark the Lord's leadings, he will discover that this is the direct way, and the only way to comfort. The child of God that goes to the throne in anything of his own, such as his experiences, or his enlargements, as men call them, or the exercises of his own graces, is going a round-about way, and wearying himself for very vanity. Whereas direct acts of faith upon Christ's Person, and the pleadings of Christ's blood and righteousness, and God's faithful covenant promises in Christ; the precious soul that doth so, is truly directed by the Lord the Holy Ghost, and led by the hand to the mercy-seat of God in Christ. Such a soul must speed well, thus led, thus fed, thus taught, and thus, enabled to plead. I warrant ye, on the authority of God's yea and Amen promises, he shall prove a wrestling seed of the stock of Jacob, and come off a prevailing descendant of the true Israel. To all such, whom I met at any time going to the pardon office of Jesus Christ, I would say, oh! remember me when you see the King, for sure I am you will get near to him. Yea, I would beg of God the Holy Ghost to direct my heart to go with them. And what might not a company of Christ's redeemed ones expect, when going together to the Heavenly Court, whose hearts were all directed by the same Almighty Lord, into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Jesus Christ?