Well, we looked a couple of weeks,
some weeks ago now, at what Paul knew of them. He says that, in
verse 4, he says, Knowing, beloved, your election of God. Paul spoke
of things that he knew. But also in this passage of scripture
and especially in chapter 2 that we'll look at more closely later
on, Paul talks about things that they know. And the title of my message tonight
is about the entrance of the Gospel. And I was looking at
the entrance of the Gospel this week from almost a human point
of view, but it's obviously not a human point of view. It's just
from the point of view of Paul as a pastor, Paul as a preacher,
Paul as a missionary. This is a challenging passage
of scripture. For me, my trust is challenging
for you, but it's encouraging as well. It's obviously about
what God has done. Paul claims that he is what he
is by the grace of God and he worked harder than all of them,
but it wasn't he who was working. It was the grace of God working
within him does the work. But this Gospel is a Gospel that
is powerful and it's a Gospel in verse 5 that came. It came
to them, our Gospel came. In verse 6, they received the
Word, the Gospel came and these people received it. And then
this Gospel came in such a way that in verse 9 it says that
all over Macedonia and Achaia they show what manner of entering
in we had among you. And Paul in verse 1 of chapter
2 talks about our entrance in unto you. And he talks about
what these brethren know and he reminds them He's delighted,
as we saw earlier, he's delighted to hear the report from Timothy
of the faithfulness of these people. And they know, they know
things, and it says in verse 5, they know what manner of men
we were, they know what entrance, they know the history of Paul. and Silas in Philippi. And they know, 2 verse 5, they
know the way they spoke. They know that they didn't use
flattering words. They know that they didn't put
on a cloak of covetousness. They know, verse 11, how we're
exhorted and comforted and charged, every one of you as a father
does his children. There are things that they know
and he's reminding them, isn't he? He's reminding them of that
entrance of the Gospel into their lives. And it's a good thing
to remember, isn't it? It's a good thing to remember
how the Gospel came. God's children will know how
it came and they will know that entrance. that God has brought. And of course, this may be the
first letter, the first written book of the New Testament. Isn't
it remarkable? What did those Thessalonians
think as they got this letter from Paul? What would it have
been like to be in that church? No wonder he reminded them, doesn't
he? He takes them back to their beginning. He takes them back
to their history. And of course, He takes them
back to the Gospel and we saw a couple of weeks ago, the Gospel
is not a what but a who. In Acts chapter 17 we had that
brief but incredibly significant description of Paul's activities
among them. He passed through Amphipolis
and Apollonia, verse 1 of chapter 17, they came to Thessalonica
where there was a synagogue of the Jews and Paul, as his manner
was, went in unto them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them
out of the Scriptures. He reasoned with them out of
the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered
and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preached
to you is Christ." And then wonderfully. And some of them believed. Some of them believed and consorted. They associated, they joined,
they fellowshiped with Paul and Silas. And there were more of
them. Isn't it remarkable? Paul, who
wrote But there is none that understandeth, is there? He knew
that people naturally didn't understand. He knows that the
natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them
because they are spiritually discerned. Paul knew that, he
wrote it. Paul also wrote that the carnal
mind is enmity against God. But here he is reasoning. Why did Paul reason? with unreasonable
men? I think the simple answer is
that the entrance of the Gospel is God's ordained means of reaching
chosen sinners, and the elect are made reasonable. They're made to be people who
can be reasoned with. This book becomes the very Word
of God. And it lays out who the Lord
Jesus is with great clarity, and it lays out who we are with
great clarity, and it lays out the meeting of God and us with
great clarity. And that's why reasonable men
can be taken back to history and they will see in that history
that confrontation, that climactic meeting that they had with the
Gospel. Those people in Acts 17 were
all religious people, weren't they? They're in a church, Jews
and Gentiles gathered together in a synagogue, talking about
Almighty Sovereign God, talking about His Christ who will come. They're still talking about them.
There's a great big synagogue, one of the biggest synagogues
in Sydney. It's not very far from Lucy's mother's house and
you can actually walk into the sort of open big area. And I
think it says, this is the gateway to heaven. And they have a sign
outside saying, He's coming soon. 2,000 years they've held on to
those traditions. But God's children, God's children,
as we saw some little time ago, God's children will see that
all of that was idolatry. They can be reasoned with. They
are made willing in the day of God's power, and they respond
to the call of the Gospel. The Gospel comes, it's part of
the evidence of their election, that the Gospel not only comes
in words, but actually comes in power. And they're reasonable. God says, come, let us reason
together. You can read it in Isaiah chapter
1. Come, let us reason together. Who's going to come and reason
with God? What of God that calls His people
to come and reason together? And what does He say about that
reasoning? Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord,
though your sins be scarlet." So it's only those who know that
their sins are scarlet are reasonable. They shall be white as snow. That's God's reasoning to reasonable
people. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. They say God makes men reasonable,
teachable, movable, submissive. As we saw in Acts chapter 17,
He makes them to be ones that want to fellowship with the apostles. But to fellowship with the apostles
is to fellowship with God, fellowship with Him. through His Son, the
Lord Jesus. And look at the result of it
in 2.13, if you just look down there briefly. For this cause
we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the
Word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the
Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God. which effectually works also
in you that believe. For you, brethren, became followers
of the churches of God, which are in Judea, which are in Christ
Jesus." You see, they became imitators. They received the
word of God. Paul preached. In Acts 17 he
says that he opened and alleged, this Jesus whom I preach to you
is the Christ. He just declared the gospel to
them. He explained and demonstrated
the Christ of God. Who is this man, Jesus of Nazareth? Why did he come? What did he
do? Where is he now? This man, the Lord Jesus, has
ushered in this Gospel age and he has, as a reigning monarch,
I was really struck by a verse in Romans 16 that I've read many
times, but like lots of verses, we read them and read them and
we never see them. But in Romans 15, verse 12, He talks about Isaiah's prophecy
and he says, there shall be a root out of Jesse and he that shall
rise to reign over the Gentiles. Isn't that remarkable? He's risen
to reign over the Gentiles. It's so hard isn't it, so hard
for us through these natural eyes to think that he was reigning
over the Gentiles from all times beginning. But he reigns over
the Gentiles now in this Gospel age of grace. He reigns. He sent Paul, he raised up Paul,
he directed where Paul would go, he directed where Paul would
not go, he directed Paul to this group of believers in Thessalonica,
and then he directed Paul, commissioned him to preach this Jesus, this
Jesus. is Jesus who just won't go away. And he preached Jesus of Nazareth
as the Eternal God. He preached Him as the Ancient
of Days. He preached Him as the Mediator
who mediates perfectly. He preached Him as the Redeemer
who redeems. He preached Him as the King who
rules. He preached Him as the Prophet
who speaks. And when He speaks, when He speaks,
Man here. He is the priest who intercedes. He has appeared. at the end of
the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. What did
he do? He entered in once into the holy
place having obtained, having in his hand eternal redemption
for us. Where is he now, Hebrews 1 through
3, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right
hand of the Majesty on high, expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool. This Jesus was the Jesus who
is the treasure. He is the motive. The love of
Christ constrains and the glory of Christ constrains and compels. And if we're not constrained
and compelled by his glory and who he is and what he's done
for us, no amount of rules and law keeping is ever going to
get people to follow Him and be obedient anyway at all. You
see, it's just a wonderful thing, the Gospel, isn't it? Paul says
that he declared it. He declared this Gospel. What
he received, he passed on, he just declared who he was. He declared from the Scriptures
who he is. And he says to them, you know,
you know, brethren, these things, you know, our gospel came. He says those remarkable words
in verse 1, verse 5, chapter 1, he says, our gospel came unto
you, our gospel entered in unto you, not in word only. It's an interesting thing, isn't
it? What is it? to hear the Gospel
in word only. Many do. They all in that synagogue
heard exactly the same words. He preached the same thing week
in, week out. He opened this book from Genesis
to Malachi and he preached the Lord Jesus Christ as God. And some heard, for some it entered
in. It actually invaded a foreign
territory, as it were. It's an invasion of the land. of man's soul, the Gospel. Some hear in word only. I think
there are three and probably more reasons you might think
of. But people hear it only in word only when they don't hear
it as a sinner. They hear it to critique. Paul talked about the way he
spoke. He spoke as an ordinary common
man. He was this man who had the most
extraordinary brilliance and the most extraordinary learning.
But he came as humble as he possibly could. He came with as little
of Paul, the man, in his preaching as he possibly could and as much
of Jesus Christ. And so people who are here to
critique him had every opportunity to critique him. He was an ordinary
speaker it seems. His letters are waiting. But
his speech was pretty ordinary. You might have listened to Paul's
sermons even in Thessalonica and you might have gone away
saying, dear oh dear, we've got a Jewish bloke here who preaches
far more powerfully than him. But Paul kept reminding them
that he spoke from God. See the gospel is only precious
to sinners. Grace is only precious to someone
who has absolutely no righteousness of their own and cannot possibly
manifest any righteousness in anything they do. Free grace
for them is good news. Free grace is the only good news. The Gospel comes in word only when it's
not heard as absolute truth. You see, God didn't write this
book for people to debate it. I was speaking to a fellow today
who had been challenged to ask his pastor about Romans 9 and
he did ask his pastor about Romans 9 and they do the normal thing,
yeah, but, yeah, but. And he said, I have to go away
and think about that some more. See Romans 9 wasn't written for
him to go away and think about. Romans 9 was written for him
to bow to it. He'll bow to it as Pharaoh has
now been bowing to it for three and a half thousand years or
he'll bow to it here. He won't be there debating it.
I just don't really get troubled about so many Christian debates.
It's almost as if we sort of have an object that we're talking
about rather than a person who is a sovereign Lord. The Gospel comes in word only
when sinners don't hear it as sinners, when it's not heard
as a word of absolute truth. And when you don't see it as
good news, it's a sinner. See, the totally depraved love
the election of grace. They just love the election of
grace. For God has not appointed us,
he says in 1 Thessalonians 5.9, has not appointed us to wrath
but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for
us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with
Him. For those who need redeeming,
the only redemption that is going to be any good is a perfectly
effectual and perfectly accomplished redemption. For sinners, sinners'
love, Invincible grace that God keeps and preserves. Sinners
love the fact that God's grace is irresistible. My sin not in
part, but the whole. He's taken it away. He's nailed it to the cross. It's gone. It's gone. So given
those things, this word came, there was an entrance that came,
and Paul in chapter 2 talks about this entrance unto you, and I
just wanted to look very briefly at the positive aspects of it.
because he lists, he has two lists here as it were. He talks
about how he behaved and when you are a recipient of grace
and when the Gospel has come to you then it creates a response
in the person that is bringing the Gospel. And for these Thessalonians
not only did it come in a particular manner to them, it actually went
out from them in a particular manner. It does the same both
in the preacher and in the hearers. And so in verse 2, chapter 2,
he says, he says, You yourself, brethren, you know our entrance
unto you, that it was not in vain. That means that it wasn't
empty. God sent him there. God's Word
comes, God's Word works, God's Word returns to Heaven, and God
is perfectly satisfied. It wasn't empty. It wasn't empty. But even that after we had suffered
before and were shamefully treated as you know at Philippi, this
is the first aspect. We were bold in our God to speak
unto you the Gospel of God." There he is. If you read in Acts
16, you see how he spent that time in Philippi. It's not a
pleasant thing to be put in stocks in a Roman prison. held out as
far apart as they possibly could. It was excruciatingly painful. And he was beaten in very many
places. He must have turned up in these
places, looking like a pretty sore and sorry sight. But you
see, he says we were bold. just means that God has closed
the door there for a time and it means when He's closed that
door, He has another door. And so God's preachers, God's
missionaries, God's spokesmen, when they are knocked down, they
just turn around and just go to the next door. I think it's
in Acts chapter 18 where Paul had a tough time of it in one
of the cities and he just left that sit and he went to the house
next door and he hired the house next door and just kept on preaching.
In these cities in what is now Greece, he was actually hunted
out of the towns. And he was hunted out of the
towns by the people that he preached to so often. But he was bold. He'd suffered before. He'd been
shamefully treated. But he says to the Thessalonians,
he says, these things have happened to me and they've happened to
you in Chapter 3. He says that no man should be
moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that
we are appointed thereunto." The reality, brothers and sisters,
is that one of the marks of the Gospel is that it offends the
natural man, and it particularly offends the natural religious
man. and it incenses them in ways
which are beyond our imagining and they are beyond rationality. You cannot rationally understand
the response to the Gospel. Just in terms of normal human
understanding you cannot rationalise it. That's why Paul says at the
end of Ephesians, he says, our fight's not against flesh and
blood. So you cannot understand, we cannot say 1 plus 1 equals
2 in the terms of the rationality of human beings and especially
when the Gospel comes. The Gospel exposes the heart
of man in a way that nothing else ever will. And it raises
the ire of men. And so, not that we ever wish
it to happen, but we just know that it's going to happen. But
does it stop us proclaiming the Gospel? You see, the Lord Jesus
says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before
it hated you." John 15, 17, 18, 19. If you were of the world, the
world would love his own. But because you are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hates you. And exactly as happened to Paul
in chapter 16 of John's Gospel, the Lord Jesus said, they shall
put you out of the synagogues. Yea, the time cometh when whosoever
killeth you will think that he does God's service. Just preach on. They were bold to speak, verse
2, with much contention. with much contention. There are
two sorts of contention there. The contention is reference to
sort of athletic games, sort of an exercised thing. There is of course an internal
contention isn't there, longing, Paul is longing for the Gospel
to have its work in the lives of people. Or he says in Colossians
2, for I would that you know what great conflict I have for
you and for them at Laodicea, and as many as have not seen
my face in the flesh. There is that ongoing contention. that he has in his heart. He
longs and that's why he sent Timothy and he's so thrilled
that he's let us come back and these people that stood by him
and fellowshiped with him have actually stayed fellowshiping
with God by the grace of God in their lives. He says in Philippians 1 verse
29, for unto you it is given in behalf of Christ, not only
to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the
same conflict which you saw me in, and now here to be in me. He was bold. In the face of opposition
he preached on and just preached on, because God was calling,
had called him, and God had commissioned him, and God was directing him,
and God was using all of those things for his purposes. I love what he says in chapter
2, verse 2 of 2 Thessalonians, it's called the Gospel of God.
Three times in those verses he says it's the Gospel of God.
It's God's Gospel. God's Gospel, He's determined
how it will go out, He's determined who it will go out, He's determined
who it will go out to, He's determined who will receive it, He's determined
who will oppose it, He's determined that their opposition will be
a seal of the faithfulness of the Gospel in their lives. It
will cause them to be humbled and to be thankful. And it says,
not only is he bold, but our exhortation is an extraordinary
word. It means to move, to motivate,
to have a persuasive discourse. It can in some context even mean
to incite a riot. When Paul came there he wasn't
preaching things that were pleasing to these people in these synagogues. No wonder they did the things
they did and hunted him out of town. He was actually preaching
to move and to motivate. He was preaching for a decision. He was preaching Christ in such
a way that there is a decision made by people. He wasn't preaching
two ways to live and the four spiritual laws. He was just preaching
Christ and the preaching of Christ. exposes people, it brings them
to a crisis because they are confronted with the living God
who is sovereign. You see, he's challenged and
moved, but you see in verse 4 he describes his ministry, he says,
we were allowed of God. Tested and proved, it means. Tested and proved to be the genuine. We were allowed of God to be
put in trust with the Gospel. And because of that they speak
to please God and not man. in their speaking an audience
of light. And that's the only audience
that matters to them. I've often read those verses
to you out of 2 Corinthians 3 and it says that God hears the Gospel. So we were a saver unto God,
a sweet saver of Christ. in them that are saved and in
them that are perished. To one we are the saver of death
under death, to the other the saver of life under life. And
who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many which
corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity and as of God,
in the sight of God, we speak in Christ." I don't want for any of us ever
to think that speaking here or in any other place the Lord appoints
us is anything other than the most serious of matters. It demands our concentration
and it demands our efforts. Galatians 1 is a verse that should
send terror through so many preachers. I think it was Philpott who said,
or maybe Huntington, if most of the preachers in England in
his day, if they knew how he saw them through the lens of
the Word of God, they would wish that they had never been born.
What does Paul say of his ministry? 1st Galatians 1.10, For do I
now persuade men, or God, or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should
not be the servant of Christ. God's preachers have an audience
of one. They just are made to be faithful. And the reason is that they've
met him, and they know him, and they've been saved by him, and
they love him, and he constrains and compels them. You see, he
describes in every ministry, we're allowed of God. But not only that, Paul has those
things in a Godward activity, but then he speaks in verse 7 of how he came to these people. He was gentle among you. It means to keep warm, to cherish
with tender love. He was gentle among them as a
nurse with a baby. Being so affectionately desirous
of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not only the
Gospel of God, but also our own souls, because you were so dear
to us. As we read in Acts 17, they joined
with him in fellowship, but it was a deep and abiding and real
and warm association and fellowship. And you remember, Brethren, verse
9, You remember our labour and travail. We laboured night and
day. They were financially independent. Paul worked to be financially
independent, not to burden them. And we preached. He came there
to preach. It means to herald, it means
to proclaim loudly, to lift up the voice, to speak from the
walls. We heralded, we preached. 10. You are witnesses, and God also. They can bear witness and testament
to what Paul preached, but also God was bearing witness. So they
speak as if God is there witnessing what they are saying. He says, how holily. So he first
talks about his relationship towards God, how holily and righteously,
justly, his actions before men and unblameably we behaved ourselves. There is this notion, isn't it,
that you preach free grace and it allows for licentiousness. When free grace comes as a gospel
to chosen sinners, licentiousness is not going to do the impact
of it at all. God's children want to adorn
the gospel, and when they sin and they stumble and fall, and
they'll be the first to confess it and the first to admit it,
and the last to ever parade any righteousness of their own, they'll be hurt by. Seeing is painful. And so they
exhorted, verse 11. They exhorted and encouraged and they charged,
they witnessed and they testified as a father does his children.
He starts in verse 7 talking about him being as it were a
nurse to a nursing baby. In verse 11 he's talking about
how he is as a father to his children. So they become dear
to one another. God's children are dear. There is a love. God teaches
you, teaches his people. If you turn over to chapter four,
verse nine, he says, but as touching brotherly love, you need not
that I write unto you, for you yourselves are taught of God
to love one another. When God's Spirit enters in,
they are taught of God. He, by His Spirit, works all
things. It's interesting how he finishes
the letter. He talks about how they're going to be, by verse
23 of chapter 5, the very God of peace. When God comes, and
brings grace and peace. The very God of peace sanctify
you wholly. That's why it says in verse 12
of chapter 2 that you would walk worthy of the Lord who has called
you into his kingdom and glory. The truth embraces truth. and seeks more and finds delight
in it. But error must always go in crooked
paths. It slithers like a serpent. He
is a liar and the father of liars. And let's just look at the things
that Paul didn't do. And we'll see that these are
the things that the false teachers must do. You see, the Gospel
comes with the power of God and it forces God's children at the
time of His love to kiss the Son. It forces everyone else
who rejects the Gospel to live the rest of their days as a hypocrite. They must live the rest of their
days as a hypocrite when the Gospel has come to them. You
see, in verse 3 he says, it's not of deceit. It's not of deceit. They didn't preach out of deceit
or uncleanness, nor in God. They don't have to be deceitful.
When this gospel is your gospel, and this God is your God, and
this salvation is your salvation, and this redemption is your redemption,
and this Lord is your Lord, you don't have to be deceitful. It
means to be in error, to lead astray. into error. And of course, to be in error
and to be led astray is to be turned away from what Paul simply
said about who the Lord Jesus is and how he saves people. It's not of deceit. They didn't
come to be deceitful. There's no need to tell lies
about the God of truth. There's no need to massage a
Gospel that says that God has saved His people from the foundation
of the world and God will say they're in the Lord Jesus' hand,
no one can snatch them out of His hand, no one can take them
out of His Father's hand. He is reigning and ruling. There's
no need to play games with people when you have the Gospel. If
you don't have the Gospel you must manipulate people. You must manipulate the character
of God and manipulate the character of men to get something to happen. So it says in Guile, you see
it's not deceitful, not in Guile. The word Guile is to catch with
a bait. You lay out a bait, you bait
the hook and you catch them. God's Gospel is spread in a net. God will sort out of that net
the fish from the ones that need to be thrown away. So it doesn't
come in deceit, it doesn't come in guile, and it doesn't come
in uncleanness. And there was in those days no
necessary connection in the popular mind between religion and morals. was the religion of those days.
Such was the religion that I saw all about me in pagan India. Such is the religion in so much
of pagan, in inverted commas, Christianity. There was no necessary
connection in the popular mind between religion and mind. Verse
4, of course, we looked at earlier. They're not pleasing men. These
people are pleasing men in verse 5 and they do it with flattering
words. Flattering words nor a cloak
of covetousness. There's a verse in 2 Thessalonians
2 that I'd like you to look at. It's extraordinary how, as I
said earlier, those that have rejected the Gospel must live
in hypocrisy. But just in 2 Thessalonians 2,
verse 2, they're talking about the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ and then he says in verse 2 that
you're not that you be not soon shaken in
mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by
letter as from us." What they had done is caused this disturbance
in the Thessalonian church by writing a letter as if it was
a letter from Paul, signed at the bottom. They would have had
enough of his writings and known enough of what he said. When
that letter arrived, would that letter have been an obvious fake?
When that letter arrived, they would have read that letter and
said, this looks like Paul. Isn't that extraordinary? Deceit. Guile. Flattering words. A cloak of covetousness. There
is more than one form of covetousness. You can read about it in Jeremiah
6. But there's a covetousness that's not just a covetousness
for things, but a covetousness for position and for status and
for esteem among men. It's dangerous. Verse 6, nor
of men we sought glory. They didn't seek glory from any
man, neither of you or others, and they weren't burdensome.
They came to give the gospel, and now he's rewarded. He's rewarded. Chapter 3 says,
now we are comforted, brethren. You see, the Gospel has brought
us reward because God has worked in the lives of these people.
He's taken them out of religion. He's taken them out of Judaism. He's taken them out of false
Christianity, for want of a better word. He's taken them out of
legalism. And with much persecution and suffering they've been brought
to stand together and Paul is comforted. In verse 8 he says,
Now I live if you stand fast in the Lord. In verse 9 he says,
For what thanks can we render to God? He cannot thank God enough
for them, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before
our God." He came preaching before God. He came preaching the Gospel
of God. And now he's got his reward.
His reward's from God, isn't it? And it's wonderful the way
he encourages the Thessalonians. He thanks God. He cannot thank
God enough for them because they're hung in there. They're hung in
there by the grace of God. Let's pray.