1 Thessalonians 1, we'll be looking
at verses 8-10 this morning. 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 8-10,
and the title of the message this morning, a clear and distinct sound. a clear and distinct sound. As you pray for me this morning,
I pray this morning that God would be honored, that God would
be praised through the blood and righteousness of Christ.
And I pray this morning that when you leave this building,
you will have no question as to what I mean by the gospel
of Jesus Christ. When you leave here today, I
pray that every one of these points resonate a distinct sound
as they should. I pray that I do not muddy the
waters. The gospel is plain and clear and I do not want to make
it muddy. I want it to be as plain and
clear to every one of you as I possibly can. And I know the
Spirit of God must apply it. 1 Thessalonians 1 and verse 8
says, "...for from you sounded out the word of the Lord." Sounded
out the word of the Lord. Paul here reminds these believers,
he tells them, you remember how it is that I came to you. You
remember the Apostle Paul came from Philippi. And he went from
Philippi because of the persecution of the Jews. And he was gone
into Thessalonica to preach the gospel to them. And in Acts chapter
17 and verse 2 and 3, we read that Paul went into the synagogue
and the Scripture says he reasoned with them for three days. Three
Sabbath days. He reasoned with them out of
the Scriptures. opening and alleging that Christ
must suffer and rise again from the dead, and that Jesus is the
Christ. That's what manner he's talking
about when he says in verse 5, he says, you know what manner
of men we were when we entered into you. We were preachers of
the gospel. We declared to you what God's Word says. And this
is very important for us to understand. Our message, our gospel is not
the Word of men. It is indeed the Word of God. When I preach from this book
to you, I am declaring to you what God says. What I say don't
matter. What you say does not matter. What matters is what God says. It's an important theological
principle here. Most religion tells you that
if A is true, if God says A, if God says B, then they say,
well, C must be true. No, C must not be true. C is
not always true. Not if God did not tell us. We don't go out on a limb. We
don't make up our doctrine as we go to fit what men think God
should say or do. It doesn't matter what I think.
It matters what God says. And if God doesn't say it, I
can't allude to it. I can't tell you that that's
what God says if He didn't say it, if He didn't tell us. It's
important that we understand that this is the Word of God
we are handling and not the Word of men. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians
2.13, he said, you received it as it was the Word of God. This
book, I tell you, it was penned by men. We know that. We know
that men wrote down these words that we have before us today.
But the Scriptures tell us in 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture
is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction or instruction in righteousness.
And Paul, he said, you know when I came to you, I did not come
on my own authority, I came on the authority of the Word of
God declaring the Gospel to you. Declaring it to you. Even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
when He was raised from the dead and He was walking with His disciples, what did He do? He took them to the Scriptures. The Scripture says that He, beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, expounded unto them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself. He showed them from
the Scriptures. Friends, I'm not going to move
off of Christ's example. Christ showed them by the Scriptures.
Paul showed them by the Scriptures. And if we are to declare the
Gospel, it must be by the Scriptures. It must be by the Word of God. How can we know God, but God revealed Himself to us? All men by nature know there
is a God. Everybody in this building knows
there's a God. Everybody. Everybody knows there's a God.
But how do you know the God? How can you know the God who
created all things? How can you know? Men by nature
think God to be much like themselves. They think Him to be weak, changeable,
and powerless and unjust. That's what men think about God.
In time past, men worshipped gods by the name of Zeus, Odin,
Baal. They put different names on Him.
But the one characteristic about all mythology and all of the
gods of this world, there's one thread that goes through every
one of them. They put their own traits on
their god. Their gods were cruel. They were powerful, more powerful
than men, not all powerful, but cruel. That's a trait of man,
not of God. They were petty and unjust. And
I tell you, modern religion has done the same thing. Only they've
taken the name away of Zeus and Odin and Baal, and they've placed
the name Jehovah and Jesus on the same false deities. Most false religion today call
their God by the same name we call our God. You see, their
God, with a little G, not with a big G, their God, He's sovereign
over everything except the will of man. They believe that God
is sovereign except when it comes to you. The Jesus of false religion,
He died for everyone without exception. and secured salvation for none
of them. Their God has made salvation
possible, but has no power at all to save anyone that He supposedly
loves. Their God is unjust. Because
they believe in a God that Jesus, their God, paid for their sins,
and yet God will demand payment for unbelief at their hand. That's
an unjust God. He cannot demand twice payment
or He's unjust. But this is not my God. That
God I just described, that's not my God. My God is sovereign
in all things, including over my will." God is sovereign. God is sovereign in everything
He does. He does everything according to His own will and purpose. The Scripture says, "...our God
is in the heavens, and hath done whatsoever He hath pleased." Our Christ. That's not our Christ
who died for all men, our Christ died for the elect. And that's
not our gospel because it was made by the imagination of men. The gospel we preach must be
clear. Salvation is of God and none
of you. You cannot save yourself. God must save you or you will
not be saved. The gospel we preach must be
clear, not a message of salvation possible. I don't preach salvation
is possible. I preach salvation is accomplished.
Finished! Salvation is completely done. Finished! By the hands of Jesus
Christ. It's not that we add anything
to His work at all. Salvation is not by merit, not
by works, not by the religion or will of man, but by the sovereign
will of God. Not a message of works, but a
message of grace and mercy. That's a message of the gospel. And these believers here, Paul
says, from you sounded out the Word of the Lord. sounded out
the Word of the Lord. This sound that we bring from
this building, from this church, it must be a clear sound. It cannot be muddled with compromise
or confusion. Let this be our sound. Salvation
is of the Lord. Behold, the Lamb of God." That's
my message. Behold, the Lamb of God. He alone
can save you. He alone can save you. This is Christ. that His life
and death and resurrection is the sum and substance of all
salvation. Now, this word, sounded, that's
here in our text, he said, from you sounded out the word of the
Lord. It's as he's alluding to the
blowing of a trumpet. The blowing of a trumpet. This idea of a trumpet, this
instrument today is just used for musical purposes in our day.
I mean, if you blow a trumpet, it's because of music that you're
trying to play. In this day, that's not what
it meant. It did not mean blowing a trumpet in a musical sense. What it did was, when you sounded
a trumpet, you were giving us a message. A message. I'll illustrate this like this.
If a king had a message, and he wanted the people to hear,
he would sound the trumpets. And the people would hear that
distinct sound and they'd say, ah, the king's got a message,
let's go hear it. There would be another sound.
If you had soldiers on the walls and the enemy was coming and
they blew a trumpet of warning, the people would say, enemy's
coming, let's find shelter. When the king was coming into
town, it was altogether different than just sending a message.
There was a different sound of a trumpet. Hey, the king's coming
to town. He would blow a trumpet. And
friends, the gospel message, when we preach the gospel message,
what we are doing is blowing the trumpet. We are making a
distinct sound of communication. We are telling you the Word of
God. This is God's Word and not mine. And I ask you to pray for me
as I go through these three things. Three things this morning concerning
this gospel sound. In every gospel message, there
are three distinct sounds you will hear in every single message
of the gospel. Three trumpet sounds, and I've
put these three in trumpet sounds. The first trumpet sound that
you will hear is a sound of warning. When the Gospels preach, you
will hear a sound of warning. You will hear a sound of jubilee,
a trumpet of rejoicing. And then you'll hear a sound
of the trumpet of resurrection. These three sounds are distinct,
and they will be in the Gospel message every time it is preached. In the days of the Old Testament,
you remember that they had set up walls for their kingdoms. And I told you that men had trumpets
to sound for the enemy. And this is illustrated for us
in Ezekiel 33. Turn over to Ezekiel 33. Ezekiel
33 and verse... I'm going to go ahead, for time's
sake, and we're going to go down to verse 7. Ezekiel 33 and verse 7. The Lord
says unto Ezekiel, So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman
unto the house of Israel. Therefore, thou shalt hear the
word of my mouth and warn them from me. And here's the warning in verse
8, "'Say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die.'" Friend, if you don't understand
that, there's nothing I can do to make you understand that. God has set His preachers as
watchmen. And what are they watching for?
The wrath of God that is to come upon men. There is a wrath of
God. Men don't like to talk about
that. That's too negative. Don't talk about wrath or judgment. Just tell God loves everybody. That's not true. God has a wrath
and His wrath is coming. It's coming. And the wicked,
he shall surely die. That's what God said. That's
not what I said. The wicked shall surely die. In Revelation, we see that, Revelation
20, 12, it says, "...and I saw the dead, both small and great,
stand before God." And listen to me, listen to me, because
if you don't ever hear another preacher in this world, you'll
be accountable for this. I told you, God is coming in
judgment. I've sounded a distinct, clear
sound to every one of you this morning. And I am free of your
blood. I am free of it. God is coming. And He will and He must punish
all sin. Otherwise, He is not God. He
is not just. And He is not to be worshipped.
God is holy. God is righteous. God is just.
And He must punish all sin. Every sin. Every sin. To you who think that you have
enough to stand before God, I'll give you a word of warning. In
verse 12 of Ezekiel 33, it said, Therefore, thou son of man, say
to the children of the people, the righteousness of the righteous
shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression. In other words, you could be
righteous all of your life, That's not true, we all know that. Smallest child, you don't have
to teach him to lie, he already has, he already does. But if you could, if you could
honor God's law all of your life, And at your last breath, your
last word, be evil or have a motive of sin in it. God says all of
your righteousness doesn't count anymore. And I will punish you
forever for that one iniquity, that one sin. Friends, do not look to your
own righteousness. You have none. I have no righteousness
in me by nature. I am altogether nothing but sin
from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. This shows us that God is not
up there with a scale weighing your good deeds and your bad
deeds. The scale is tipped in this way. If there is one dust of sin,
all of the good has been wiped away and He will punish you because
of that one sin. I tell you, God is coming in
judgment and hell is closer today for the wicked than it ever was. Psalm 14 verse 1 says, The fool
hath said in his heart, No God. And that word there is in italics
and it's not in the original. It says, no God, I will not have
you to rule over me. The fool has said that. If you've
said that in your heart, you are a fool. You are a fool. They are corrupt. They have done
abominable works and none doeth good. Friend, the wrath of God shall
come on the children of disobedience, and the soul that sinneth, it
shall surely die. Therefore, I am sounding the
trumpet this morning. Flee from the wrath to come."
Flee. Flee from the wrath to come.
To those who would trust in their free will or works religion,
flee! Flee and turn to God. Those who are trusting in their
preacher, their priest, or their pope to save them, turn to God
from such false preachers who cry, peace, peace, when there
is no peace. To those who trust in their good
works, turn to God for mercy. Mercy. Do you need mercy? I need mercy. And all who are full of iniquity
and sin, our best works are as filthy rags." Now friends, if
I left that, there would be no hope. That is a solemn message
and that is true. That is true. But if I left there, Oh man, but there's another sound. There's another sound that must
be made, and this is a sound of jubilee, a trumpet of jubilee. Now in the Bible, the trumpet
was not only used as a sound of warning, but also rejoicing. Look at this in Leviticus chapter
25. Leviticus chapter 25. 25 verse 8, And thou shalt number seven Sabbath
years unto thee, seven times seven years, and the space of
seven Sabbaths of seven years, and shall be forty and nine years. And thou shalt cause the trumpet
of jubilee to sound in the tenth day of the seventh month, in
the day of the atonement shall you make the trumpet sound throughout
all your land, and you shall hollow the fiftieth year and
proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof, it shall be a jubilee unto you. And you shall return
every man to his possession, and you shall return every man
to his family." There was a trumpet sound at this time of the year,
49 years. By the law, if a man was sold
into debt, he lost everything. He lost everything. He lost his
property. He lost even himself. He became a slave. And during that 49 years, that
master could use that servant as he pleased. But in the 49th
year, in the 49th year, there was a trumpet! And I know that every servant,
every indentured servant that lost everything, don't you suppose
that he had his ear ready to hear that trumpet on the 49th
year? You bet he did. And when he heard
that trumpet, it was a time of celebration. Why? He was set
free. He was set free. And all was
restored to him. Well, this is the sound of the
gospel message, friend. This is the sound to which those
who have heard will first come and find deliverance. Now, according
to this law, it would blow the trumpet. And in the 50th year,
they would declare to all the people that the captives have
been set free. Friends, by nature we are enslaved
to our lusts and passions. By nature we are ruled by the
darkness and unable and unwilling to deliver ourselves from the
wrath of God that is to come. How then can we be set free?
If God's wrath is impending and we are full of sin, how then
can we be set free? Go back to your text. Go back
to your text and look at this. In verse 10, I've been taking
this text backwards. If you'll notice at the end of
verse 10, it says, there's a wrath to come. See that? Now look at the next line up
there. It says, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to
come. This is the sound of Jubilee. Jesus Christ has come to deliver
us from the wrath of God. Jesus Christ has come to deliver
us from the wrath of God. In that text in Leviticus, it
is said that the year of Jubilee, the trumpet would sound on a
specific day. You know what day that was? The
great day of atonement. It was a specific day. You remember
in the great day of atonement they had the two goats. You had
the scapegoat and you had the blood offering. Is that not a wonderful picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ and how God imputed our sins to Christ
and He has carried them away by His righteous life and by
His death? By His blood, He has satisfied
God's vengeance, God's wrath that was coming to us. God was
satisfied when He poured it out on His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God,
the only offering for sin God has accepted. And in that one
day, that few hours from the time that He was nailed to that
cross and His blood was shed, God emptied, poured out, All
of His wrath on His Son. All hell was poured out on Christ
in our place. I told you that God will and
must punish sin. You see, God has punished my
sins. All of them. All of them, in
my substitute, Jesus Christ. That is a clear, distinct sound,
is it not? Salvation is found only in the
blood of Christ. Only by the blood of Christ can
God accept us. Only by the blood of Christ is
our salvation full and complete. Colossians 2.10, ye are complete. Where? In you? No, in Him. In Him we are complete, perfect
before the eyes of God. See, I preach a message of salvation
accomplished. When Jesus died, I died when
He died. My sins were punished when He
said, it is finished. All my sins were done away with. And yet I had not even committed
them yet. Is that not wonderful? Is that
not glorious? That I had not even taken my
first breath and all my sins were gone in Christ. That's a glorious sound to someone
who understands something about God's justice. You see, a man
that doesn't understand anything about God's justice, that don't
have any meaning to him. Christ is, you know, if I've
got time, you know, I'll tip my hat to Him. No, not me. I worship Him. I honor Him. I glorify His name because He
is worthy of my praise. He has delivered me. He's delivered
me. God says in Ezekiel 33 verse
11, when He told Ezekiel to sound out that message, He said, say
this to them, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Do
you know God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked? How
do I know that God said that? God told me in His Word right
here. What does that mean? That means
that God will never be satisfied with our death. That's why hell
is eternal. Because God's justice will never
be satisfied, no matter how much torture we feel in the flames
of hell, we could never pay for one sin. Ever. But I sound a trumpet to you
that God has by His grace chosen a people and Christ has secured
their salvation." He secured it. He accomplished it. He finished
it Himself without their help. He didn't need my help. That's
good because I couldn't give Him any. I couldn't give Him
any help. He did it for me all by Himself. Friends, I tell you this. God
did choose a people. Christ did save those people.
And the Holy Spirit will come and redeem those people. I know
that for sure. I was one of them. I was one
of them that He came to. I heard the sound. I heard the
trumpet. I heard the voice of the Son
of God saying, it is finished. And I bowed down. I know this,
God is absolutely sovereign, but hear me, every one of you
are absolutely responsible. God says this, why will you die? Why will you die? Why will you not turn to Me and
live? I've sounded the trumpet of deliverance.
Why would you not come? I had a man come to me one time
hearing the gospel, and he told me, he said, Preacher, if what
you said is true, salvation is all of grace and not of works,
then all my family is in hell. And I said, why would you go? Why would you follow them? Believe
on Christ. Come to Christ. There's hope. There's mercy. He has delivered
us from our sins. Come and believe on Him now. Don't wait. Don't wait. There's
mercy at the feet of Christ. And that man turned away, and
I don't know what happened. I don't know. Why will men die? I don't understand. Why will you go away when there's mercy to be had
at the feet of Christ? I hope that's clear. The third trumpet that's always
sounded is the trumpet of resurrection. Look at that in verse 10 again
of our text. Not only is there wrath to come,
not only is there deliverance sounded in the blood and death
of Jesus Christ, but there's also a resurrection that is to
come. Look at that in the first part
of that verse. He says, "...and to wait for
His Son from heaven." You that have heard the voice
of Christ, hear me. Right now, we are in the 50th
year of Jubilee. Remember, the trumpet had sounded
and there was a year That the people were to go about sounding
out deliverance to the captive. We are in that 50th year right
now. We must go forth and sound out
the Word of God. Make a clear and distinct sound. Don't muddle it up with relationships
and trying to please somebody or make someone think that they're
doing okay. Tell them the truth. Tell them
the truth. This church, Paul says, from
you sounded out the Word of God. We didn't even have to make mention
of you. Why? Because everybody knows you.
Everybody knows what you believe. Oh, would to God that everyone
in this city knew what we believed. Would to God everyone knew. That we sound out a clear, distinct
message of God's wrath, of God's justice, and God's mercy to all
sinners. But as we go about in this year,
I know that we are full of heaviness and groaning. Paul says in Romans, he says,
in this body we groan, waiting for the adoption. Waiting. Paul says these people,
he says, you're waiting for the Son of God. What is it to wait? Most people think waiting is
something we passively do. We sit and wait. That's not waiting. That's laziness. That's not waiting. Friends, these people in Thessalonica,
they sounded out that word. And the Scripture says that they
turned to God from idols to serve and to wait. To serve and to
wait. We do both. We do both. Waiting is not passive, but it
is active. We are waiting. We are serving
God. How? By sounding out the Gospel. That's what we're here for. The
only reason you get up in the morning and breathe is to sound
out the Gospel. That's the only reason God has
us here. Otherwise, He would take us home. He would take us
home. We are here to sound out the
Gospel and nothing else. Nothing else. And all the while we're doing
that, we do experience grief and groanings. But then we are
commanded to wait for His coming. And that means also to expect. Expect His coming. I tell my son I'm going to do
something. You know what happens on the day that I'm supposed
to do it? He's sitting there waiting, expecting it to happen. Why? Well, Daddy, you told me.
You told me on this day this is what was going to happen,
and I'm waiting. I'm waiting to go. This is how
we should be all the time. Waiting to go. Paul said to depart
and be with Christ is far better. Far better. Why? I'll show you this in closing.
Go to Revelation 21. Revelation 21, this is what we're
waiting for. And I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from
heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and I will
dwell with them. And they shall be His people,
and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, neither shall there
be any more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." I don't
know if you remember or not, but several, I don't know, quite
a few months back, I preached a message called Seven No-Mores
of Heaven. No more sea. No more separation. How many times do we feel separated
from Christ? How many times do we feel distance
between us and our Lord? In that day, there will be no
more separation between us. There will be no more distance
between us. Constantly in the presence of
Christ forever. There'll be no more sin. No more
sin in the world and no more sin in me. Scripture says, we shall come
down as a bride adorned for her husband. That's the church. That's
us. Perfect. Holy. And because there
is no sin, there is no more crying, no more grief, no more sorrow,
and no more death. That's what we're waiting for.
Is that not something good to wait for? Is that not something
good to anticipate? And God says this in His Word,
when the last trump shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise
first. and we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them, and so shall we ever be
with the Lord." Now friends, I've heard the voice of warning. I've heard the trump of jubilee
by Jesus Christ, but I am waiting for this third one. I hear about
it in the gospel, but I'm waiting to hear that last trump. To be with our Lord and Savior. This is the gospel message. This is the gospel message. Flee
the wrath to come. Where? Flee to Christ. In Him
there's mercy. And all who flee to Christ shall
be raised from the dead incorruptible. Undefiled. And so shall we ever
be with the Lord. I pray this is a blessing to
you. I pray it's clear. I pray that this message is distinct
from all others. Salvation is of the Lord.