Let us turn again to the Word
of God and in that second portion we read 1 Thessalonians in chapter
1 and I'll read again the last two verses of that opening chapter
verses 9 and 10 observe the connection with what's said previously at
the end of verse 8 where he's spoken of how from the Thessalonians
it sounded out the word of the Lord not only into those parts
of Greece, Macedonia and Achaia but also in every place he says
your faith to God would be spread abroad so that we need not to
speak anything. And then the words in the verses
9 and 10, For they themselves show of us what manner of entering
in we had unto you. And thou ye turned to God from
idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his
Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which
delivered us from the wrath to come. and to say something principally
with regards to what he declares there in verse 9 how he turned
to God from idols to serve the living and through God's deliverance
from idolatry. It was of course the experience
of that people and we know how in scripture, idolatry was a
great sin, it was certainly a great sin in Israel and how we find
the prophets in their ministry time and again reproving the
people because they wanted to have idols like all the nations
round about Israel they departed from the ways of the Lord their
God, He had made them a nation, He had taken them out of Egypt
He had directed them through the wilderness wanderings. He
brought them into the land of promise. The land he'd promised
to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And there he settled
them and there they were to worship him. But as they saw the nations,
they wanted their idols, their gods. And what followed, how
they were many times then reproved. by the Lord God in the ministry
of those faithful servants, men like Isaiah and Jeremiah and
Ezekiel and the prophets, calling them away from their idols. And when we come to the New Testament,
the amazing thing is, of course, that when we come to this part
of God's Word, we see that the Gospel is now to go out to all
the ends of the earth. In the Old Testament God would
say of Israel, you only have I known of all the families of
the earth but he comes to his own, does Christ and his own
receive him not? But as many as received him to
them gave him power to become the children of God and we see
certainly in the Acts and we were reading there in the Acts
of the Apostles in that 17th chapter where we have the record
of the Gospel first coming to the Thessalonians. Well in the
portion that we read we saw how the Jews rejected that message
they persecuted Paul and Silas and eventually Paul asked to
depart and go to Berea but they pursue him the Thessalonians
there were those who had embraced the truth he was preaching there
but there were many who rejected the message certainly among the
Jews he'd gone to the synagogue and they pursue him and Silas
when they've gone on now to Berea and they're there in the synagogue
but again the persecution follows them and so Paul is sent off
to Athens and then we see him there in that great city the
seat of the great Grecian philosophers really and yet he sees that city
full of idols full of idols, he's amazed at the sight even
an altar to the unknown God and he takes the opportunity, he
will tell those Athenians just do the unknown God that they
superstitiously are thinking they're worshipping him, he'll
tell them just do that God is and he preaches to the Athenians
the Lord Jesus Christ and Remember what he says to them there, as
he addresses those people. He tells them who the true God
is, the one in whom we live and move and have our being. We're
his offspring, he's our maker. And he says, for as much as we
are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead
is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by the heart and
man's device. In the times of this ignorance
God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
They are to repent of their idolatrous ways. They are to acknowledge
that there is but one true living God. And why must they do this? Because God is going to judge
all men. He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained, whereof
He hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised
him from the dead. Here he tells them plainly then
those Athenians in the midst of all their idolatrous ways
that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is that guarantee
there will be a general resurrection. There will be a day of judgment.
Men are to turn from their idolatrous ways and to acknowledge the one
living and true God. It's not a cry to them really
for evangelical repentance. It's more like that of the Ninevites
in the days of Jonah, remember? When we come to the end of that
book and Jonah is recommissioned, he wouldn't go at first, but
he's made to go. And what is the outcome? Well,
the Ninevites repent. It was a national repentance.
In many ways it's a natural repentance. They're turning to acknowledge
the true God. Well, Here we see how these Thessalonians,
they were brought to a true evangelical repentance and a real faith,
a saving faith. And that's the subject really
that I want to take up. Their deliverance from idolatry
in terms of how they were brought to a true repentance and a true
faith. And first of all, to observe
the order as we have it in the text. It's interesting, he says,
ye turned to God from idols. He doesn't say, ye turned from
idols to God. And the authorised version is
rightly following the syntax, the order of the words as we
have them there in the original. First of all he says, ye turned
to God. in turning to God they turn from
their idols but there is significance in that order faith is first
because faith must always have that preeminent position whatsoever
is not of faith is sin without faith it is impossible to please
God and so first of all to say something with regards to their
faith And who is it they have this faith in? Well, they turn
to God to serve the living and true God, it says. Who is the
living and true God? Well, when we read in John's
first epistle, remember how he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ
as God's Son, His Son Jesus Christ, this is the true God. This is
the true God and eternal life. What is it that Paul preached
to these people? He preached the Lord Jesus Christ
to them. And Christ is that one who is
the great object of faith. And we see the message that he
made known to them there in verse 10 to wait for His Son from heaven,
whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come. Lord Dr. Gill remarks here concerning
the content of this 10th verse, that many articles of faith are
contained in this expression. In these few words that we have
in verse 10, Dr. Gill says there we have great
articles of faith and I want to mention three articles of
faith that he sets before us in this 10th verse. First of
all he sets before us the truth of who Jesus of Nazareth is and
he declares his deity to wait for his son. Whose son is he
speaking of? Well the one that he has mentioned
there that they turn to. The end of verse 9, the living
and true God. The living and true God as a
Son is natural, is essential, is eternal Son. That is the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father in truth and in love. If God is an eternal Father,
there must be an eternal son. It's no good speaking of the
fatherhood of God in terms of his creatures, in terms of all
men. That's how some people like to
speak of God and the fatherhood of God. They speak of God as
the father of all men. They're universalists really.
But there was a time when there was no man. Who was he the father
of then? If He is an eternal Father, He
must have an eternal Son. And remember those words that
we have again in the writing of the Apostle John in that short
second epistle, that great ninth verse, "...whosoever transgresseth,
as he says, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, he hath
not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son." Are we in the doctrine
of Christ? we believe, if we believe in
the doctrine of Christ we believe that he is the eternal son of
the eternal father who's going forth of being from of old from
everlasting. Oh he is that one you see who
is indeed eternally begotten he's going forth of being from
of old from the times of eternity eternally begotten the word that
was made flesh and dwelt among us and John says we beheld his
glory the glory as of the only begotten the only begotten Son
of God that one who was in the bosom of the Father there's a
wonderful unity isn't there when we think of the doctrine of God
there's one God and yet one God is three persons and I can't
explain that It's beyond human comprehension.
How can one be three? How can three be one? And yet
that is the truth that we see in scripture. In the Godhead
there are three persons and yet there is but one divine essence.
It is the first and greatest of mysteries. That is the only
true God. And the God that the Jew worships
today is not the true God. They have denied the true God.
They rejected his son. And certainly the God of the
Mohammedan is not the true God. He is not a Trinity. It is only
the God of the Christian religion. It is Christ who is the image
of the invisible God. And there you see how Paul sets
forth his deity. The living and true God, his
Son, the eternal Son of God. But then also in this, he declared
to them the truth concerning the work that Jesus of Nazareth
came to accomplish. When in the fullness of the time
God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law,
what was it to do? To redeem them that were under
the law. And what do we read here? We
read of Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come. He
came to deliver sinners and deliver them from that just wrath of
God. They were the transgressors. They were the ones who had broken
the law of God and God's law. Demands that the penalty must
be paid. And what is the penalty of the broken law? The soul that
sinners shall die. The wages of sin is death. and
Christ came and died in order to deliver from the wrath to
come. But all the wonder of his work,
he's not only paid the penalty that they owed God's law, they'd
broken the law and the law must be satisfied in all its terrible
penalties. But in order to stand before
God, the sinner, if he's going to be righteous, must have a
righteousness. It's not enough to, as it were,
wipe the slate clean and say sin is forgiven, sin is gone. He's got to have a righteousness.
And the Lord Jesus not only died in the place of the sinner, but
he lived for the sinner. He honoured, he magnified the
Lord of God both in terms of its commandments and his precepts
as well as with regards to all his terrible penalties and punishments. He not only died, he lived. And
all the life that he lived, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners. And in him, these who are delivered
from the wrath to come, they are accounted righteous. Justified by his blights, we
shall be saved from wrath through him says the apostle writing
to the Romans being now justified by his blood we shall be saved
from wrath through him and this is the great message of course
that these apostles were preaching they preach Christ by him all
that believe justified from all things that they could not be
justified from by the deeds of the law He was made of a woman. He was made under the law. He's
answered for his people in every sense. That's his great work.
And this is the message you see. He speaks of the deity then of
the Lord Jesus. He is the eternal son of God.
He is God manifest in the flesh. And he has accomplished a great
work. And he's died to bring sinners to God. But he's not
only died, he's risen again. Again, you see why Gil says this
10th verse is just so full of great doctrinal truth. Whom he raised from the dead.
He is risen again from the dead. And how this truth was so important
to the apostles. You know, there in Acts 17, that
latter part, we didn't read the whole of the chapter, but the
latter part, when he's at Athens, he's preaching, and what do they
say of his preaching? They said he was setting forth
strange gods, because he spoke of Jesus and the resurrection.
He was setting forth strange gods, speaking of Jesus, and
the resurrection. These men, these apostles, that's
what they did, they bore testimony continually to the fact that
Jesus of Nazareth died but he rose again or the blessed truth
of his resurrection from the dead. And when the apostle is
giving instruction to Timothy, young Timothy, he tells him what
he's to do in the course of his own ministry and It's one of
the pastoral epistles, as we call them. He's instructing a
young pastor, we might say, and he says, remember, Timothy, remember,
that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, Jesus Christ, the son
of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel.
What is the gospel that Paul preached? The resurrection. you read it there in 2nd Timothy
2 and verse 8 remember that Jesus Christ of the seed
of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel and
you know how he he says exactly the same doesn't he there in
the opening verses of 1st Corinthians 15 that great chapter that speaks
so much of the resurrection and the truth of the resurrection
read the opening verses of chapter 15 there in that epistle again
in the opening verses of Romans we find this man Paul telling
them what the gospel is and this is the gospel you see that they
believe when they turn to God they believe the message that
this man was preaching they believe this truth concerning Jesus of
Nazareth that he is God the God-man that he has done a remarkable
work, he has paid the penalty for all the sins of his people
and he's established a righteousness for them and he's not only died
for them, he's risen again from the dead and in the opening words
of the Epistle to the Romans he again is defining the Gospel
that he was separated to the Gospel that he has to keep on
preaching And what is this Gospel? Well, it concerns God's Son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord, declared to be the Son of God, with power,
according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead. He's declared, he's marked out. That's the force of the verb
there, to declare, is to mark something out, to distinguish
it. Here we see Him as the Son of
God. Why? Because He was raised again from the dead. I am He
that liveth and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore
and have the keys of hell and of death. The very words that
the glorified Christ says to John, there in the opening chapter
of the book of the Revelation. Those remarkable words as the
Lord speaks to John, prostate, there at His feet. I fell at
his feet dead says John and he put his right hand upon me and
said fear not I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am
alive forevermore and have the keys of hell and of death all
the message you see that they believed in they turned to God
believing these things concerning the person the work the death,
the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and another truth, the fourth
truth. I said four truths, I mentioned, what is the fourth one? The blessed
truth of His coming again, His second coming, and to wait for
His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus,
which delivered us from the wrath to come. How are they to wait? Well, they
are to wait in the spirit of real expectation. That really
is the force of the word that's being used. Waiting in anticipation. Waiting with expectation. You
know when you've got an event before you and you're
so looking forward to it, so longing for it to come. in a
sense you can't wait this is the force of the word that we
have here to wait for his son from heaven are we those who
are looking and watching and waiting and yearning for that
blessed day when he will appear again oh what a day will that
be and there's comfort in it there's a great deal of comfort
in it see how later in this very epistle In chapter 4 we find Paul reminding
them of that second coming. The end of chapter 4 at verse
13, I would not have you to be ignorant brethren concerning
them which are asleep, them that have died, that ye sorrow not
even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus. will God bring with Him. There'll
be a general resurrection. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain under the
coming of the Lord shall not go before, that's the meaning
of the word prevent there, to go before us Him. We shall not
go before them which are asleep. They'll be raised from the dead.
There'll be a general resurrection. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with
the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. And what does Paul say? Wherefore
comfort one another with these words. Oh, there's comfort there,
you see. What a blessed consolation that
is. The Lord is going to return.
It's not the end yet. There's something yet to come.
A general resurrection. And these people, you see, they
believed this message. That's what it meant for them
to turn to God. They believed the truth of this Gospel. And their faith was so evident
because it was a fruitful faith by their fruits. ye shall know
them. Remember the connection with
the previous verse, with verse 8. From you, he says, sounded
out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and the regions
of Greece, the north and the south, the whole of Greece, but
also in every place. Your faith to God will be spread
abroad so that we need not to speak anything, for they themselves
show us of us what manner of entering in we had unto you.
How the Word of God must have come to them. How He came with
such a gracious authority. Verse 5, Our Gospel came not
unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost
and in much assurance. Why has the Gospel come to you
like that? Overwhelming really. These blessed
truths concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, no wonder they turned from
their idols. Joseph Hart says in the hymn,
doesn't he? Long time I after idols ran,
but now my God's a martyred man. The wonder of that is that the
man Christ Jesus is God. He's never anything less than
God and yet he's a real man. And that God-man died. That's a miracle. How could that
be? And yet this is the one who is
the saviour, the one in whom we are to believe. And the important
thing always, of course, is that blessed object. We have to look
unto Jesus. We have to take our eye off every
other object. It's looking only onto Jesus,
looking away, away from everything else. Is that what we do? We look only to Jesus. All our
salvation is there in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that's faith. All you who want faith tonight,
you say to me, if only I could believe. Well, all I can do is
say, look and live. look unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of faith. Faith is nowhere else. You turn to God. Are you those
who turn to God? That's faith. But then faith
here goes hand in hand with repentance. Because you turn to God, he says,
from idols. There's not just a turning to,
there's a turning from. And that's the repentance. And
that's the message, isn't it, that the apostles were preaching. We have the record of the preaching
of the apostles. That's the purpose of the Book
of Acts, isn't it? The Lord Jesus has accomplished
His great work. He's died, He's risen again,
He's showed Himself over 40 days to His disciples by many infallible
proofs, our witnesses. They saw Him alive from the dead.
And then, what does the exalted Christ do when the day of Pentecost
is fully come? Oh, then the promise comes, the
Holy Ghost shed abroad. And then we read of the ministry
of those apostles and the disciples with
them. The great message that is to
be carried not just to the Jew beginning at Jerusalem, the Judea
and Sumeria but really to the ends of the earth so we have
Paul, we have Paul going to Thessalonica there in Greece yes he goes to
the synagogue and that's his normal path he'll go to the synagogue,
he'll go to the Jew first but then they reject the message
and he turns to the Gentiles and what is the message? Well,
he tells us, doesn't he, what he tells the Ephesian elders
there in Acts chapter 20, where he's saying his final farewell
to them. What his message was testifying,
he says, both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, also to the
Gentiles, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ. Repentance and faith. We've said
something with regards to faith. Let me just briefly say something
with regards to repentance. This was written, it would appear,
this epistle was written when Paul was at Athens. That seems
to be intimated in what we're told at the beginning of chapter
3. Wherefore when we could no longer forbear we thought it
good to be left at Athens alone and sent Timotheus our brother
and minister of God and our fellow library in the gospel of Christ
to establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith. He's had to leave Thessalonians
but there was a sufficient who were ministered to and converted
that a church began to be established there in Thessalonians in Thessalonica
And we have these two epistles to the Thessalonians. We read,
didn't we, the opening words, Paul and Silvanus, another form
of the name Silas and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians.
There was a church, and here is Paul and his concern for them,
and he's at Athens, but he sends Timothy, or Timotheus. And as
he sends Timothy, maybe He'd written this epistle and he sends
him back with this epistle and it's a wonderful epistle. It's
such a pastoral epistle. We read of him as a nursing mother. The way he speaks of his ministry
and the tenderness of it. It's a lovely epistle, 1 Thessalonians. We see something of the heart,
the pastoral heart of this man, Paul. But remember what he'd
witnessed at Athens. and his spirit was stirred when
he saw the city wholly given to idolatry Athens was full of
idols even, as I said, an altar to
the unknown God and he preached to them and calls them from their
idolatry the call, as it were, away from external idolatry but
where there's repentance, there's more than that There's a turning
from internal idolatry. How can we define what idolatry
is? I'm sure we're not so foolish
as to have gods of silver and gold. There are those who do
have images and alas, they do reverence to those images. You
go into a Roman Catholic church, you'll see many. images of the Virgin Mary it's an idolatrous
church it's full of idols but we don't have idols like
that sure we don't but how can we define what idolatry is? well
Paul tells us what idolatry is right in there in Colossians
3.5 he speaks of covetousness which is idolatry Thou shalt not covet. What is
that covetousness that's been spoken of there? It's not something
external. It's something internal, isn't
it? It's inordinate desire. It's so wanting a thing, coveting
it. Oh, such a desire for it. You know, if you put anything
in the place of God, that's an idol. There's a connection in
some way between the first commandment and the tenth commandment, and
the first commandment is, they shall have no other gods before
me. If we put anything in the place
of God, that's an idol, that's a god. God has to have the prime
place, the principal place. Or beware of covetousness, which
is idolatry, says Paul. Again, to the Philippians he
speaks of some whose end is destruction. Why? Whose God is their belly,
whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. Are we so taken up with the things
of this world? The things of this world, the
passing things of this world, they're our idols. Something
that has that prime place, that chief place in our thoughts,
in our affections, that's an idol. You can have idols in your
hearts. And the idolatry in the Old Testament
wasn't just external idolatry. It wasn't just that they wanted
to be like the nations round about. There was much of that,
but there was also heart idolatry. And now, Ezekiel clearly speaks
against that sort of idolatry. Look at the language that we
have in the 14th chapter. of the book of Ezekiel. And there in chapter 14 verse
3, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts
and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face.
Should I be inquired of it all by them, Therefore speak unto
them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Every man
of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and
putteth a stumbling block of his iniquity before his face,
and cometh to the prophets, I, the Lord, will answer him that
cometh according to the multitude of his idols, that I may take
the house of Israel in their own hearts, because they are
all estranged from me through their idols." Are you estranged
from God? because you have a multitude
of idols, you're full of covetousness our affections are to be set
on things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of
God oh are we those friends who can
say that we have turned from our idols you see men must always
worship something men have A natural religion. Man was made in God's
image after God's likeness. He's made for God. He's made
to know God, made to enjoy God. Well, if he hasn't got the true
God, he'll have some other God. The atheist doesn't believe in
nothing, does he? The atheist believes in anything.
Men will have their idols. and all the folly of the idols
that men have and long and yearn after in their hearts internal
idols at the root of all idolatry what is it? It is unbelief really
the denial of God the sin which does so easily beset us Luther
speaks of the evil of unbelief the sin of spiritual idolatry
Oh God, deliver us from that. John says, little children, keep
yourselves from idols. What is it then to turn from
the idols? Well, as we close, just to say
a little with regards, I know the word repent isn't in the
text, is it? What we read here is our the
manner of the gospel coming to them entering in amongst them
as Paul preaches the truth how you turn to God from idols to
serve the living and true God he says no mention of the word
repentance but in that turning from idols there was repentance
and it's interesting to just as we close think of the the
word that we have time and again many times in the new testament
the word that's rendered repentance and it's one of those words and
I've mentioned them before there are several of them and it's
a compound it's two words really that are welded together and
it has a very literal meaning it's the word mind or thought
and the word to change what is What is repentance in that sense
if we dig into the etymology of the word? What does it say
to us? It means really, here is an afterthought, or preferably
a change of mind. That's what it is, a change of
mind. And these people changed their mind. They turned to God
from idols. It was a change. But you see,
we'd be very wrong to think that all that repentance is, is a
matter of the mind. and just a notional thing, a
change of our thought patterns. No, it's so fundamental a change
that the person really is turned about. He's going one way but
now he's turned round completely, he's going the opposite direction.
More than that, his life has been turned upside down. His life has been turned inside
out. You see, it's such a fundamental change. it's a strong word really
it's a strong word there's a break with idols now and it all springs
from that faith oh to have that saving faith where there is that
true saving faith then there will be real evangelical repentance
they go hand in hand I said that faith has the primacy it does
but they're always together faith and repentance this is the great
message that was being preached by those apostles ought to be
those then who would turn from all our idols long I after idols
ran but now my gods the martyred man or can we say that in all
truth that Christ is all, Christ is in all. It is all our salvation
to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead,
even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Amen.