We have concluded our studies
in the first chapter, which for the most part is given over to
Paul's praise and thanks to God for the mighty work of his grace
in establishing a witness to the gospel and bringing sinners
to himself there at Thessalonica. In chapter 2 and verse 1, which
we have already considered, he rejoices as he looks back in
retrospect that his ministry to these people was not in vain. And so we consider Paul's great
fear of a vain, an empty, a fruitless, profitless ministry. And now
as we move on in our studies, beginning with verse 2 this morning,
we do so to consider what we might well call the marks of
a true servant of Christ. For just as surely as chapter
1 and verse 2 to the end of the chapter is a paragraph of praise
to God for his work in the Thessalonians. So chapter 2 verse 2 through
to verse 12 is a beautiful description, biographically granted, Paul
describing his ministry and the ministry of his companion Silas
when he was at Thessalonica. of what makes up a true servant
of Jesus Christ. Now there is a very vital relationship
between the truths of chapter 1 and these truths of chapter
2, verses 2 through 12. Having shown that the success
of his ministry was due to the election of God, verse 4 of chapter
1, knowing brethren, beloved of God, your election, Having
shown very clearly that the success of the gospel rested ultimately
in God's eternal purpose and in the power of the Spirit, verse
5 of chapter 1, our gospel came not in word only, but in power
and in the Holy Ghost. Paul now is going to show us
that though the success which made his ministry something other
than a vain ministry was rooted in the eternal counsels of God
and came to pass by the sovereign activity of the Spirit, it was
vitally linked with the human instruments by which this work
came to pass. And whenever God works in the
salvation of sinners and in the establishment of His church,
these two things are invariably present. His working is always
rooted in His own sovereign and eternal purpose. but is invariably
tied to human instrumentality. And so if we are to be balanced
in our understanding of the work of God in our own lives, in our
own church, in the lives of others, we must hold to these two principles
with equal tenacity. We must never so regard the instrument
in such a light that we feel, well, if I become holy enough,
if I become zealous enough, if I become bold enough, then the
gospel will succeed, and it all depends upon me. No, that would
be a terrible thing, and it could lead to nothing but frustration,
and then if you did see some success, you'd be bowing down
at your own footstool and praising yourself. We must ever recognize
that if God is pleased to work in the salvation of souls, whether
it be our children, our neighbors, through our church, through any
movement, mission board, whatever it is, it is due ultimately to
the eternal purposes of God and to the mighty work of the Spirit.
We must never relinquish that truth. And when I preach through
the first chapter, I sought to do justice to those words as
they are found. But on the other hand, If all
we do is hold to the truth of chapter one, that God must do
the work and His eternal purposes cannot be frustrated, and the
work of the Holy Spirit in converting sinners is an efficacious work,
a work that when God puts forth His arm, none can stay, if we
hold that truth at the exclusion of what is taught in chapter
two, and are not earnest in longing to be pure vessels, longing to
be zealous, bold witnesses, we will not see the pleasure of
the Lord prospering in our hands. These two things are inseparably
joined, the eternal, sovereign purposes of God, and the purity
and zealousness and boldness of the human instrument through
which His work is done. And you see that brought out
so clearly in these verses that we shall begin to study this
morning. But even after, verse 2 of chapter
2, but even after that we had suffered before and were shamefully
entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak
unto you the gospel of God with much contention. For our exhortation
was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile. But as we were
allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak,
not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth our hearts. For neither
at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak
of covetousness, God is witness, nor of men sought we glory, neither
of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome
as the apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you,
even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately
desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not
the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were
dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our
labor and travail, for laboring night and day, because we would
not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the
gospel of God. ye are witnesses, and God also. How wholly, and justly, and unblameably
we behaved ourselves among you that believe, as you know how
we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as
a father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God,
who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. When is a
church established? When are sinners converted? When does the work of God prosper? The answer of Paul is it prospers
when God purposes that it shall prosper. When he sends his gospel
with power, that's the answer of chapter 1. But his answer
is incomplete until we get the answer of chapter 2. God works
when he has vessels that are pure. Vessels whose motives are
right. Vessels who proclaim a proper
message from the base of a proper motive and with a proper end. in view. What are the characteristics
of a true servant of Christ? What are the factors that make
up a faithful ministry and should characterize a faithful minister? That's what we're going to extract,
God helping us, from this section which I have just read to you.
Now, why should we do this? Why not sort of just skip over
this? That applied to the apostle and maybe a little bit to preachers,
but we're lay people sitting here in our pew and we have such
great needs. Why spend our time looking at
this in some detail? Well, I hope I can convince you
that this is a necessary study. First of all, from the standpoint
of evaluation. Let me ask you a very personal
question this morning. What do you think characterizes
a true servant of Christ? When you hear a preacher, and
when you're privileged to walk, talk with a servant of Christ,
as you think of your responsibility as a parent, as a witness, what
do you think should characterize a true minister? Whether he is
a preacher, in the sense that we would use it, a pastor, whether
it's a parent, whether it's a person witnessing to his neighbor, what
constitutes a true ministry? If you had paper and pencil and
were to write down a half a dozen things that should characterize
a true minister and true ministry, what would you put? In what order
would you put them as far as importance is concerned? Now,
the second question I'd ask you, would your list be biblical?
Would your idea of what constitutes a true minister simply be the
projection of your own prejudices? Or would it be a projection of
biblical concepts? It's amazing the ideas some people
have of what constitutes a true ministry and what constitutes
a true minister. I heard just yesterday of a woman
who was talking, talked with a woman who was talking with
someone else in that church who professes to be a Christian and
is rather zealous and active and they were talking about witnessing
to one's neighbors and she said, Oh, I would never talk to my
neighbors. They have their religion and I wouldn't dare offend them.
You see, her concept of a true witness was this, above all things
thou must not offend. That's the first, second, third,
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth, tenth commandment
of being a true minister, a true witness. Thou must not offend.
Now, where'd she ever get that concept? Did she get it from
the Bible? Of course not. She no doubt thinks she got it
from the Bible, got it from the Bible, but she didn't. Now, what
are your concepts of a true minister, of a true ministry? Now, where'd
you get your concepts? Did you inherit them from your
mother and father? Did you pick them up along the
way? Like clean up day in Caldwell? Things are out in the street
and you just walk by, pick up this, pick up that. Where'd you
get your concept? Just sort of pick them up as
you move down the street of life? And you picked up a little here?
How do you know your concept? How do you know whether or not
I'm a true minister? Oh, you say, you must be, I like
you. No, no. Or, you must not be,
I don't like you. Either basis is very invalid. Now I hope, after we complete
our study of verses 2 to 12, you will have indelibly inscribed
in your heart and mind the biblical concept of a true minister and
a true ministry. Not only do we need it for evaluation,
but we need it for emulation. Paul said, Be ye followers of
me, even as I am of Christ. What is it to be a true minister
as a parent? For as a parent, you're a minister
to your children. How are you going to frame your
concepts of what you ought to be? I trust after we've gone
through these verses, there'll be some of you as parents that
will be utterly different parents, that you'll be transformed. I
hope you'll be transformed as witnesses to your neighbors.
I hope that I shall never be the same again as a pastor. I hope you Sunday school teachers
will never be the same again, that as we see the standard of
a true ministry, the ministry that God owns, to make a vessel
of the power of His Spirit in saving and blessing men, we will
cry out that God will make us that kind of a minister regardless
of where we minister. Well, I hope that's convinced
you then that this is a necessary and, I trust, will be a profitable
study together. Having then looked at the setting
of this passage in its larger context, compared it with chapter
1, Having, I hope, convinced you of why we ought to study
this passage for a basis of evaluation and for a standard of emulation,
we ought to emulate. Now, if time permits, I want
us to study just verse 2 this morning, and we will confront
the first two marks of a true minister. But even after that we had suffered
before and were shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi, we
were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with
much contention. Do you see the first two marks
of a true minister and a true ministry in verse 2? Do you see
them? What are they? Here they are. But even after we suffered We
were bold in our God. The first two marks of a true
ministry are these—opposition leading to suffering and abuse,
boldness leading to a full declaration of the truth. If you are not
experiencing, to some degree or another, Opposition leading
to suffering and abuse in your ministry as a Christian witness,
as a parent, as a Sunday school teacher, as a pastor, as a work
associate. If you do not know now or have
not known in the past opposition leading to suffering and abuse,
you're not a true minister. And if you do not know boldness,
which leads to a full declaration of the truth, to that extent,
you and I are not true ministers. For those are the two characteristics
that the Apostle sets before us in this second verse. Now,
what incident is he referring to when he says to the Thessalonians,
but after that we had suffered before and were shamefully entreated,
as you know, at Philippi? We'll turn back very briefly
to Acts chapter 16, and God has recorded for us what he's talking
about. Here Paul and his companion Silas
have come to the city of Ephesus. I mean of Philippi, I'm sorry.
with no motive but to deliver the poor, blinded, sin-bound,
hell-destined sons of Adam from that terrible plight and to bring
them into the glorious liberty and possessions of the sons of
God. Can anyone ever have a more noble
mission than that? He hasn't come in to stick his
hand out and get a nickel from them. He wasn't coming to drum
up votes so he could be prime minister. He wasn't coming for
anything but to do them good. He came into that city knowing
that the judgment of God is upon all men by nature. And he had
the one message that could avert the judgment of God. And so he
comes with nothing but good upon his heart. And what happens?
Well, notice carefully verse 19. Having cast the demon out
of this demon-possessed girl, who was an instrument of money-making
to some of her masters, when her masters saw that the hope
of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and drew
them into the marketplace. Better translated, they dragged
them into the marketplace unto the rulers. Get the picture.
Here's a poor girl, so possessed with the devil that she has these
unusual powers of telling the future, a fortune teller, a medium. And these people didn't care
that this human being made in the image of God was nothing
but an instrument upon which the devil played his tune and
through which he accomplished his purpose. And that this girl
should have been delivered from this demonic influence and power
didn't concern them in the least. Their love of money was so deep
that they would utterly disregard the release of this human being
from the captivity of the devil. And so they take the servants
of God and they drag them into the marketplace. Then verse 20
says they bring them to the magistrates and then they lie about them.
They said they do exceedingly trouble our city. Yes, isn't
that terrible? They deliver people from the
power of the devil. They deliver people from the
chains of sin. They deliver people to live holy
lives. They deliver people to honor
God. Isn't that a terrible crime? That's the worst crime in the
world. They exceedingly trouble our city. What a terrible lie.
Verse 21, more lies. They teach customs which are
not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.
That's right, if you're Roman, it's not right to love God and
love his law and serve him. That's a terrible thing. You
see the parallel in our day? You seek to get people to honor
the law of God, you're un-American. You seek to cry out against the
sins of the nation. You're not loyal, you see. The
same thing. So they were not only physically
abused, dragged into the city, then they were lied about. Then
they were abused even more physically. Verses 22 and 23 say that the
mob rose up, they beat them, laid many stripes upon them,
and they cast them into the prison, charging the jailer to keep them
safely. There they are, verbally abused,
physically abused, shamefully treated, and all of this was
illegal because later on Paul faced them with their illegalities.
He said, we're Roman citizens and you've treated us contrary
to the law. They wanted to sneak them out of town by night and
early in the morning. I love the way Paul said, he
said, nothing doing. You've treated us wrongfully, you bring us out,
we're going to make you eat crow." That's what he was saying. Because
you've done wrong by the laws, and as a Christian, Paul was
committed to the upholding of the laws of state. And so the
story goes on how they were brought out. Now, what does Paul call
this treatment? You'll notice in 1 Thessalonians,
now we're back in 1 Thessalonians, He calls this treatment received
in Philippi, which we've just read from the 16th chapter of
Acts, two things. He says we suffered and were
shamefully treated. The word suffering is the general
word which can refer either to physical abuse or to physical
abuse and to insult. It's the word used of Christ,
the Son of Man must suffer. It's the word used in Acts 9
when it says, Paul must suffer many things for my name. But
the word shamefully treated should be shamefully treated, not untreated. is a word that means to act insolently,
insulting abuse, and it refers more to that verbal abuse, the
lies that they told, the insults that they heaped upon them. It's
to treat something in a way that is beneath the dignity of their
position as the creatures of God. And so Paul experienced
both suffering, physical agony, and this shameful abuse verbally. Now it was unlawful. It was unreasonable
treatment. There was no reason for it whatsoever
except that the heart of man is so opposed to God and to His
truth that it will do the most unreasonable thing in all the
world. Here come the messengers of the
message of mercy. who tell of the way of deliverance
for time and eternity and such is the perversity of the human
heart that it turns on these messengers and abuses them and
commits them to prison. And yet this is precisely what
God promises to all of his children, suffering and shameful treatment. Philippians 1.29, Paul said to
the church at Philippi, for unto you it is given on the behalf
of Christ not only to believe on his name but to suffer. for his sake. Our Lord said in
Matthew 5, blessed are ye when men shall revile you, there's
verbal abuse, and persecute you and say all manner of evil against
you falsely for my sake. He gave it negatively in Luke
6, 26 when he said, Woe unto you when all men speak well of
you. Woe unto you when there is no
verbal abuse. Woe unto you when there is no
insolent talk about you as a child of God. Now, what was the effect
of this abuse upon the apostle and his companions? Notice verse
2, After we suffered and were shamefully treated, We were bold
in our God to speak unto you the gospel. The effect of suffering
was to embolden them to speak the truth. Now, suffering and
abuse will have one of two effects upon the professing Christian.
It will either do what we read in Matthew 13, the parable of
the soul. The Lord said, some are like
the seed that falls on stony ground. It springs up, but when
the sun arises, it withers and it dies. In the interpretation,
he said, the sun is like persecution. When persecution arises because
of the word, what happens? Some people, they wither beneath
it and they say, if this is the price I must pay to be a Christian,
receiving verbal abuse or physical abuse, it isn't worth it. And
so their mouths are silenced and their witness is cast off.
But the true Christian Just like the sun upon a true living plant
that has roots, the same sun that withers the plant that has
no root nourishes the plant that has root. And so all persecution
could do to the apostle, because he was a true child of God, was
to nourish him and nurture him in his Christian experience.
So he says, though we were abused and shamefully treated, we waxed
bold to proclaim unto you the gospel of God. We have said that
one of the marks of a true Christian is not only suffering, but boldness. What is this thing called boldness? Well, perhaps we can define it
by saying what it's not. It is not brassiness. When we
say, boy, that guy's really brassy, what we mean is he's kind of
impudent and haughty. He's just always shooting off
his opinions and acts as though the Son of Truth rises and sets
upon his head and upon his head alone, that the whole rest of
the world is in absolute darkness. Brassy, bold, haughty. That's not the boldness Paul
is speaking about. Neither is it what we call bombasti. Bombasti is when a person doesn't
have too much worth listening to, so he tries to make it up
by noise. He doesn't have much content, so he sort of pads it
with noise. As someone said, it's the empty
cart that makes the loudest noise. And this is often true. We see
someone who blusters about and is always, we say, maybe witnessing
or talking about the Lord. If you really just take away
all that flash and fire and get down to what they're actually
saying, you realize what it is is a lot of froth. There just
isn't much substance to it. It's sort of like the spun sugar,
you know? And you get that big cone and you say, boy, isn't
this going to be wonderful? And when you're all done, there
just ain't much left to it, is there? You take a big wad of
that and put it in your mouth and you can hardly wet your molars
with it. Well, this is not boldness in
the biblical sense. Well, what then is biblical boldness? Well, the word is translated
in Mark 8.32 as openly, speaking openly. In John 10.24, it's translated
to speak plainly. In Acts 2.29, Peter says, let
me speak unto you freely. In Acts 28.31, Paul is said to
have spoken with all confidence. Now, the same root word is translated
openly, plainly, freely, confidently. Putting all those thoughts together,
what is the biblical concept of boldness? I think it's this. Listen carefully. It means to
speak with unfettered openness and freedom. Paul said the effect
of persecution was to enable us to speak with what? With openness and unfettered
freedom. The Gospel of God. It's translated
in the New English Bible, we spoke frankly and fearlessly. I think they've captured the
thought of the word in the original. To speak with unfettered openness
and freedom. Paul said, when we came to you,
fresh from that abuse and that suffering it filled us by, we
were unfettered by the fear of our reputation, we had no reputation
left. Well, Paul, how'd your last campaign
go? Well, ended up in jail, as usual. Well, what's your reputation
amongst the people? I'm nothing but a rabble rouser.
Well, Paul, did they give you the key of the city when you
left? He said, yeah, they inscribed it on my back. Look at my stripes.
So he had no reputation left, he had nothing to lose, nothing
to lose. So Paul said, the effect of the persecution was what?
To give me boldness. I have no fear of reputation,
I had none left. I'm counted as the off-scouring
of all things now, hallelujah. I've gone over the dam, no return.
I might as well be a fool for Christ's sake here at Thessalonica.
He utterly liberated. He had no reputation to protect.
That's what produced, or was the factor in his boldness, no
fear of reputation, no fear of his skin. It had already been
welted enough with stripes and abuse. And he had no fear of
the face of man. When this little hook-nosed Jew
faced people in the eye, he cared not what men thought of him,
what men did to him. The theme that comes out, and
we'll develop it in future weeks, the Lord willing, he speaks of
aloud of God. We speak in the sight of the
God who tries our hearts. We are witnesses, and God also. O beloved, when a man is so conscious
of the presence of his God now, and the fact that he shall stand
before his God then, what is the face of a puny little creature
of the dust? What is the face of man in the
light of the awesome face of God? What does it mean to speak
boldly? It means to speak unfettered
by the fear of reputation, by the fear of our skin, by the
fear of our fellow man. And I want to say by way of application
at this point, this is the mark of every truly God-owned ministry. Though it will be met with opposition
which leads to abuse and suffering, it will simply make the servants
of God more bold. to proclaim the message of God. Now, of course, this applies
to the pulpit, and I would say to any of you young men who have
any aspirations whatsoever of being God's ministering servants,
assuming the awesome responsibility of a teaching, preaching elder,
stay out of the pulpit until God has so saturated your soul
with the consciousness that all that matters is the glory of
God and the propagation of the truth of God, and the humbling
of man in the dust before God, that you can speak with unfettered
freedom. You're never free to minister
to people's needs until you're freed from the fear of their
faces. The preacher who has an ounce
of the fear of man is fettered. For the scripture says, the fear
of man bringeth a what? Bringeth a snare. And in his
study, he comes to a passage and he says, oh, no, I can't,
I can't. That'll devastatingly strike
right to Sister So-and-so. Why, Mister So-and-so will think
that I've chosen that just for him. And so what does he do?
The fear of man will snare his tongue. It'll snare his mind,
but he won't be able to develop that passage in his study. It'll
snare his tongue, but he'll not be able to speak it from the
pulpit. The fear of man, bringeth the snare. And if there's anything
that's absolutely basic to the requirement for the Christian
ministry, it's that a man, by the grace of God, is enabled
to wax bold in the gospel. Now, let me apply this in the
other realms. You parents, listen carefully
now. You will not. It's a rare case where God so
works by his spirit and has worked in terms of the genes that he
put together and the temperament that he gave the children that
from the time they're born to the time they take their place
in society, they love and welcome at every stage all the counsel
and teaching and instruction and direction you give them as
a parent. Now, this might have happened a few times in the history
of the human race, but it's the rare exception. Now, as a parent,
face it. There are times when your little
darling just ain't going to like your advice. Furthermore, he
isn't going to like it when you enforce your advice. He won't
mind too much if you blow off steam. When you put some barriers
behind that steam, and say, not only is this my counsel and advice,
but this is my command to you as a father and a mother, and
this is what we do. As for me and my house, and as
long as you're under the roof, you're part of that, we will
serve the Lord. And it's not debatable. And we
don't have a vote on it. And you can make a sign and hang
it around your neck and picket the front of the house. But this
is the way we operate. I may come into this table and
seeing something I didn't like, making a face, my father reaching
over and saying, son, as long as you're under this roof, you
eat what's put before you and do it thankfully. Your mother's
not a short order cook. When you're old enough to go
and sit at a restaurant and pick through a menu and pay for it,
fine. Until then, get that look off your face and eat cheerfully
what God has provided and your mother has set before you. And
when it was said, it was said. And you put the smile on. Maybe
it didn't come from here, but brother, it better get this far. I didn't particularly like that.
I didn't run down the city hall and draw up a petition to make
my dad mayor. I didn't like it. Didn't like
it. Opposition. Opposition. Opposition. You'll be in at 11
o'clock. Oh, but dad, nobody else has
to come in at 11. You'll be in at 11 o'clock. Yeah,
but you'll be in at 11 o'clock or I'll know why. All right,
dad. And I look back now and I can think of a mountain of
iniquity from which I was kept because of some parents who feared
God more than they feared the frown of their little boy. and were willing to run the risk
of alienating his affection for a while in order to do what?
To discharge their ministry as parents. That's what Paul's talking
about. The suffering, the abuse, all
it did was make us more principled to speak unfettered the truth
of God. This will happen to your neighbors.
I hope I'm not reading things in, but I think I detect even
an added coolness with one or two of the neighbors since I
put several good, pointed gospel tracks in the Christmas cards.
Because they couldn't read those tracks without getting the impression,
you know, neighbor Martin thinks we're lost and need to get saved.
That's exactly right, I do. You got the message. And I may
be reading something in. But I think I've detected when
people are right out within a few yards and don't even as you're
getting in their car and you're looking ready to say hi to them and they
don't even look up enough to grunt. And this happens a few
times you begin to get the impression maybe they just aren't too interested
in looking up and even grunting out a hello or a hi. So what
are you going to do? You fear your reputation with
your neighbors so much that you'll be ensnared? from giving that
tract, from speaking that word, from taking an aggressive stance?
What about your work companions? You see, you can carry this into
so many areas. William Gurnall, the old Puritan,
said, a minister without boldness is like a smooth file, a knife
without an edge, and a sentinel afraid to shoot his gun. And
I say a Christian, a Christian without boldness as he seeks
to witness to his neighbor, is like a smooth file, a knife without
an edge, and a sentinel afraid to shoot his gun. How many times
there have been ideal opportunities for you to speak a bold, direct
word, but through fear of what your neighbors might think, your
tongue has been ensnared. Mr. Gurnall went on to say, if
men will be bold to sin, ministers must be bold to reprove. You're
sitting in that barber's chair and the guy next to you is bold
to go ahead and pour out his profanities? You'll be equally
bold to say, hey Mac, did you ever hear the third commandment?
God hears every word you're saying and one day he'll hold you into
account for it. Well, things may get deathly silent in the
barber shop like they have on a few occasions for me, but so
what? Sat on the plane flying to Pittsburgh the other day,
and the two people sitting next to me, they were bold to chain-smoke
their cigarettes and blow all that smoke in my face and permeate
my clothes. Bold to sip their cocktails!
And I found when I reached down to get my Bible to do a little
study, that fear of man came on me, and then I got so ashamed
of myself, I said, what in the world is wrong with you? They're
not ashamed to blow their smoke in your face, and turn and talk
with their liquored breath! I just got mad enough to put
my biggest Bible right out where they all could see it. And hope
maybe they'd read something. See? You get the principle. I don't want to labor the point.
But you see, it carries over into so many areas. The mark
of a true minister, as an individual witness, as a neighbor, as a
parent, as a preacher, is this matter of boldness. Now, what
was the source of this boldness of Paul? Persecution helped to
strengthen it. helped to refine it. But what
was its source? He tells us here. Notice, we
were bold in what? Well, if you ask some people
what the source of boldness is, they would say, well, if only
I had more ability. I just can't talk. It seems to
me that argument was given a long time ago. Lord, I can't speak. Remember Moses? Jeremiah? If
only I had more ability, then I'd be bold. Is that what Paul
says? We were bold in our abilities? No. Others would say, well, if
I just had more training. You see, I just know so little
Bible that if I just knew more, I'd feel more free to open up
because I'm afraid now if I say anything, I'll get hung up with
questions I can't answer. Oh, isn't the human heart clever
to excuse its silence? Come on, be honest. You know
why you don't open your mouth? It's your fear of the face of
man. Isn't it? Come on, be honest.
Isn't that it? You know a hundred times more than that poor pagan
knows. That poor pagan you work with, they don't know for nothing
about the Bible. All they know maybe is that Genesis is the
first book. And there's a couple of Gospels named Matthew, Mark.
They might know Luke and John, but even there, they may not
know that anymore. Boldness is not rooted in knowledge. Boldness
is not rooted in ability. Oh, others would say, well, if
I just had more experience. Well, great deal. How are you
going to get it? Here's the fellow who says, well, you know, I'd
love to learn to drive, but I have so little experience. I'll have
to wait till I get experience before I learn to drive. Now
here's a woman, she gets married, she says, boy, I'd love to be
a good cook, but I got no experience. So I'll just send him on out
to buy hamburgers at the White Tower till I get some experience.
Well, where are you going to get the experience, you see?
If we carry that same argument over into other areas, we'd be
hopelessly stymied in every single endeavor that we undertake. And
yet when it comes to being bold to speak, we say, well, if I
just had more... Well, where in the world are
you going to get the experience if you just don't open up your mouth and
start speaking? Where is it going to come? Experience
comes by doing. But Paul doesn't say that that
was the route. of his confidence, experience.
Well, others would say, well, you know, I think just like the
stars never say anything, they witness to the glory of God by
just sort of being out there silently speaking. I'm silent. Some people are like the waves
of the shore, who when they come dashing up on the shore with
all their noise, that's the way some people are. They can witness
by their noise, by their mouths. But I'm like the star. I'm just
a silent being. It's just not my temper. Well,
did Paul say we wax bold in our aggressive temperament personality?
No. Beloved, will you notice his
words? He said, having been shamefully treated and suffered at Philippi,
we were bold, and here's the source of all boldness, we were
bold in our God. The source of boldness is not
any of these things I've mentioned, but it is a God-initiated, God-sustained,
God-impulsed boldness. It was the consideration that
he was united to the living God, joined to him, bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh, of Christ. that He was drawing upon that
strength and courage, looking to Him alone. If you read the
account in Philippi, singing hymns of praise down there in
that jail at midnight, conscious that they were not there alone,
but they were joined to their sovereign God, and that they
were there by His appointment. This is the thing that produced
the boldness. And so if you and I would be
bold, it must be rooted in a disposition of such love to Him Such regard
for His glory, such confidence in His power, that those considerations
overshadow our natural timidity and our natural reticence. And
may I speak here personally, I think you people know me well
enough that this would be in order. When I go out in meetings,
it happened even these past two days, Almost generally, someone
will say something to indicate, well, you've just got a special
gift of being bold and not fearing the face of people and all the
rest. And I resent that, if I may use the word resent. Apparently,
I think there's sometimes you ought to resent things. If not
resent, I reject. I refuse that. For unknown to
some of you, and if you want a verification, you ask my dear
wife, I'm an unusually sensitive person. So sensitive that when
my teachers would ever had to holler me as a kid, I would be
upset for three or four days afterwards. If a teacher ever
had to speak cross to me, I was that sensitive to what people
thought of me and wanting to be loved and received. Whenever anyone tells me off
good and proper, it shakes me up sometimes for days. I want
to be loved and accepted as much, if not more, than any person
in this room today. There are visitors here, and
by nature I'd love to have you go out of here thinking, oh isn't
he a wonderful person and a wonderful pastor. But I've got to tell
you the truth about yourself. I don't know you. You may be
Christians. You may be lost. This may be my one opportunity.
So I've got to tell you, you're a sinner by nature and practice,
and you're under the wrath of God until you repent. And Jesus
Christ is the only Savior of sinners, and unless you join
to Him, you'll perish. That may have you go out of here
thinking he's the most narrow, bigoted, unreasonable, dogmatic
individual I've ever seen or heard. That's almost a verbatim
quote of what I've heard about myself. Beloved, I testify to
the glory of God, the boldness comes out of the sense that He
has commissioned me, and I shall stand before Him as my judge,
and I dare not allow the frowns or the smiles of men to affect
my faithfulness to their souls. That's what will keep you faithful
as a parent with your children. If you're laboring to keep the
continual smile of your dear little children, and will not
enforce biblical principles, even if they get mad enough to
go out and slam the door and say, I won't come back. And you're
not worth your weight in salt. You're not worthy of the privilege
of being a parent, if you fear the face of your children. And
the source of that boldness will not be your experience, your
natural temperament, your personality, your training, but it will be
this realization of your relationship to God. We were bold in our God,
in union with our God, drawing upon His strength, drawing upon
the realization of our relationship to Him. Hence, you see, this
matter of boldness is not a temperamental or psychological issue, but it's
a spiritual issue. Proverbs 28.1, an excellent verse,
the latter part of the verse says that the righteous are bold
as a lion. It says the wicked flees when
no man pursues. You can remember what it was
like as a child, taking a walk at night, and you're afraid of
the dark. And I can appreciate it. Ain't you kiddies afraid
of the dark? You aren't. Well, I was. And to this day,
I still have problems with fear of the dark. I'll fess up, I
do. But it was terrible as a child. I can remember walking down the
street and just a leaf twitched. I took off and I'd go 90 miles
an hour. I was sure there was something
in that tree coming out to get me. And more than once, I'm sure,
just the sound of my own feet catching up with me, I was moving
so fast, convinced me that somebody was chasing me. Well, there's
the picture of Proverbs 28.1. The wicked fleeth when no man
pursueth. You see, he's just so full of
fears that the slightest little twitch here and little noise
here, and he's all pins and needles. Isn't that the way some of us
are? That shouldn't mark the righteous. You twitchin' afraid
every time that it looks like maybe the neighbor's gonna get
a little upset with you for talking to him as a Christian? When your
children get a little disturbed with the implementing of Christian
standards? It says the righteous are what?
Old as a lion. You ever see a lion twitch? He
just lumbers out of the corner of his den and looks out over
the situation and bellows out in a roar. I'll tell you who
trembles, all the other creatures in the jungle. The king of the
beast has come out. There's the picture, the child
of God, weak in himself, sinful in himself, but he's been shut
up with his God, and he knows that nothing matters but pleasing
his God, and he has the source of spiritual boldness. Well,
I must hurry on in developing this theme. Time is just about
gone from us. Having considered What boldness
is and the source of it, what was the subject of Paul's boldness?
And this is the mark of a true minister, whether it's a parent,
whether it's a preacher, teacher, whoever it be. We were bold in
our God to speak what? To speak our opinions? No. Paul
would have been just as timid as any of us to throw our opinions
into the arena of other men's opinions. He said, no, we were
called in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God. He said, what God emboldened
me to speak was not my own little pea-brained opinions or notions,
but the eternal counsel of the living God, the message of which
He is the author, the message that tells who God is, and what
man is, and who Christ is, and what Christ has done, and how
men must repent and believe, the message of which God is the
author, of which Christ is the focal point, of which the cross
is the great theme, He said, God gave me unfettered boldness
to speak that message. Oh, how blessed to be unfettered
to speak the message of God. And if somehow this can get hold
of us, dear ones, when you go to witness to that neighbor and
there is that natural timidity. That's why I fessed up to you
as many times as I've witnessed to strangers. When I sat on that
plane and it came to reaching in my suitcase and when you're
riding coach and you don't do anything privately. I mean, those
seats are barely wide enough to get someone my size into it.
And even then you got to kind of hunch your shoulders this
way if you're eating because you're stacked in so close. And
there was that initial shame and fear of reaching in. Well,
these people think I'm some kind of fanatic. Says he's such a
big Bible. I got one even bigger than this that I had in my suitcase,
in my briefcase, and I pulled that one out. It almost looks
like a big pulpit Bible. And yet the thing that will enable
you to overcome is to recognize this is the Word of God. This
is not some crazy little opinion of a religious nut. This is simply
the creature acknowledging his Creator is spoken. And when that
realization grips you, then all your timidity goes. When you
go to witness to that neighbor, you're not giving him your opinion,
you're telling him the Word of God. When you go to witness to
that classmate, you go to witness to that person you work with.
I'm giving the message of God. We wax bold in our God, Paul
says, to do what? To speak the gospel of God. And you may be as timid as a
church mouse speaking about politics. You may be as timid as a church
mouse speaking about international affairs. But, oh beloved, you
ought to be bold as a lion when you speak the message of God.
Because it's His message! It's His message. Well, the last
thought I want us to extract from this text, because it's
there and we dare not pass it over, what was the context in
which Paul waxed bold? He refers to that situation in
which he was persecuted. He said the effect of it was
to make him bold. We've looked at what boldness
is, the source of boldness. Then we looked together at this
matter of the subject of boldness. Now what's the context in which
that boldness was expressed? Notice, we were bold in our God
to speak unto you the gospel of God. with much contention,
better translated, in the midst of much conflict. Out of the
frying pan, into the fire. You read the account in the book
of Acts. He gets beat, dragged into the commonplace, stripes
laid in his back, thrown into prison, and he gets out of prison
to do what? Start another riot at Thessalonica.
He hasn't preached long, when the people gather together and
cause a storm, and they say to one of the friends there who
was taking care of Paul and his friends, if those people don't
get out of town, we're going to hold you as hostages, and
there he was, started a riot again. Out of the frying pan,
into the fire. Now in what context was he bold?
And you see, it was in a context of more suffering and more opposition
and more persecution, more struggles, more dangers. But the wonderful
thing is that when that boldness is rooted in this strength that
flows from God and confidence in the message of God, then even
death itself cannot thwart such boldness. Well then, we're back
where we started. What are the first two marks
of a true minister and a true ministry? Opposition that will
lead to abuse and boldness that leads to a full declaration of
the truth of God. So as you think of your kind
of preacher, what is your kind of preacher? I've heard people
say, well, you know, so-and-so, he's my kind of preacher. What's your
kind of preacher? Is it the one who upsets apple
carts now and then and gets people upset? He may just be a true
minister if he does. If that which gets them upset
is declaring the message of God. Is he the minister who's bold
enough to deal with issues that he knows will not just maybe
remotely infer that you might be guilty of something, but actually
gives you a personal indictment that you're guilty? That's the mark of a true minister.
Now let us apply it to the realm of our parental responsibility. What's the mark of a true parent
ministering to his children? There'll be opposition. verbal
abuse. But you go right on. There's boldness to speak the
message of God. Now, what's the mark of a true
church? Would we like to have a church that when we go, everybody
says, oh, they're just a lovely bunch of people. They're just
so nice, kind, and sweet, and got a few crazy notions, but
oh, they're lovely people. You see, if we begin to aggressively
proclaim the message of God, there's going to be opposition,
there's going to be abuse, and you're going to be labeled as
part of that. Now, do you want it? If we're to be a true church,
that'll be a part of it. But in the midst of it, there
should be this boldness of unfettered freedom to speak for the words
of the living God. Persecution is never the enemy
of the people of God. Smug complacency is our worst
enemy. And boldness is one of the gifts
he delights to give to a persecuted people. I commend for your reading
during the afternoon, the fourth chapter of Acts, when the first
persecution arose there in Jerusalem. It drove the people of God to
seek the face of God. You remember what happened? The
place where they prayed was shaken, and they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost, and they what? Spake the word of God with what? Boldness! Unfettered freedom! Even though it meant more waves
of persecution, you see a beautiful example of 1 Thessalonians 2. May the Lord help us that we
shall have etched in our minds the marks of a true minister
and a true ministry. boldness. And if you're here
this morning a stranger to God's grace, I would boldly declare
to you, seek the Lord while he may be found. If you perish without
a vital relationship to Christ, you've lived in pain and death
shall be an ushering into a horrible state of darkness forever. May God grant that you'll be
found seeking His mercy in Christ. Let us unite in prayer.