If you want to follow along in
your Bibles this morning, I'm looking at the book of 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, and
I'm going to read the first four verses. The Apostle Paul is writing
to the church at Thessalonica, to the brethren. and says, For
yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you. Speaking
of Paul and Silas and Timothy and other preachers of the gospel.
He says, You know our entrance in unto you that it was not in
vain, but even after that we had suffered before and were
shamefully entreated or mistreated, as you 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, which trieth our hearts. Now,
no one is saved by a man's preaching, or that is, no one is saved by
a man's speaking ability, his powers of persuasion, his charisma,
his natural abilities or way with people. nor his outline
or alliteration or any such thing. God's word alone is the power
of God unto salvation, the gospel. And yet, God says in His Word,
in 1 Corinthians 1.21, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. The foolishness of preaching,
that is not the preaching of fools. God's true preachers are
not fools. Now, I know there are many out
there who claim to be God's preachers yet act like fools. It is not the preaching of fools,
nor is it the preaching of foolishness. But he said that because the
world calls true preaching, calls the truth foolishness. That's
what he said in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, "...the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him." Neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned. That is, the Holy Spirit must
reveal them unto that natural man. Well, the world thinks that
preaching is foolishness, the preaching of the truth. But yet,
God is pleased. He pleased God by this medium,
by this means, to plant the Word of God in the hearts of His people. Why does God use preaching? Let me give you several reasons
why I believe or what I believe the Scripture teaches concerning
preaching. Why the Lord uses preaching. Number one, it is a humbling
thing to sit and listen to a man preach to us. It's a humbling
thing. Quite often we have to sit and
listen to a man who is maybe younger than we are, who is perhaps
not as educated as we are. The people, that is the leaders
of the people, had a hard time listening to the apostles because
they knew these men, that they had no formal education. They were but fishermen. And
that's what they said. These men have no learning. They
have no letters. They said that of the Son of
God Himself. And so it's a very humbling thing
to sit and listen to a man preach to us with authority. And another
thing, the reason God has chosen this
means of preaching is we must sit down and shut our mouths
and listen as the Word is proclaimed to us. We must sit down and shut
up. Or as the scripture says, we
must be swift to hear, or that is, ready to hear, and slow to
speak. Everyone is so talkative in our
day. One of the most popular things
around is these talk shows. It's amazing to me that people
will sit and watch people talk. Well, this is a talkative generation. Yet what we need to do, more
than anything else, is to shut our mouths. And what the Word
of God first says to human beings, to proud human beings, it says
in Romans 3.19, Whatsoever things the law saith, God's Word saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. We must shut our mouths and sit
and listen carefully. Another thing, if a man has truly
sought God's message for the people and studied, given himself
to prayer and the study of God's word and rightly dividing the
word of truth, and if the Holy Spirit is present, and He must
be in order for anyone to get anything out of the preaching,
then Most of our questions will be answered. We can't get anything
really one-on-one with somebody because we're thinking too much
about what we want to say, the questions we want to ask. But
if we sit and carefully listen, and if God the Holy Spirit takes
His word and rightly divides it, most of our questions will
be answered from God's word. Another reason is, The wind,
the Holy Spirit, is often likened to a wind. Spirit. Well, the
wind bloweth where it listeth. Our Lord said that. That is where
he purposes to go. That's where he goes. And no
man knoweth. No man knoweth where the wind
is going to blow. Neither does anyone know about
the Holy Spirit. And no man is going to get the
glory. I hear these foolish, foolish people say things like
this. Foolish preachers, so-called,
say things like this. Come tonight. Come to our services
tonight and you will receive the anointing. That's utter blasphemy
and presumption. The wind bloweth where it listeth.
You cannot tell the sound thereof. You don't know if the Holy Spirit
is going to be present or not. You may hope so. You may ask
for Him to be so. But He is sovereign. He goes
where He will. We do not call the Holy Spirit
at our, He's not at our beckoning call and our command. We are
at His. And when this thing, in this
thing of preaching, true preaching that is, a man is preaching and
he may aim God's Word at someone in particular, but they not receive
it at all. And someone else may have. That
way, God Almighty gets the glory. That man doesn't know. who it
was, but God does. Another reason God has chosen
preaching, that we might esteem preaching and the public worship
for the rest of our days, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves
together as the manner of some is, Scripture said, that we might
esteem the preaching of the gospel Highly another reason is that
everyone hears the same thing there are no private revelations
for individuals and heaven is a congregation Heaven itself
is a congregation of believers sitting and listening to the
Son of God himself the word May flesh speak to us and it begins
right here that Congregation is made up right here on earth
a congregation, and they meet together to hear the Word of
God. Now, a preacher is either called
and equipped and sent by God Almighty or he's not. There's
no halfway point. There's no gray area here. It's
imperative that we know who is a true one and who is not. Isn't
it? Well, you wouldn't go to a doctor
who you knew to be a quack, would you? Well, our Lord said many
false prophets have gone out into the world. That was 2,000
years ago, and there are many, many more now. So it's imperative,
it's absolutely necessary, vital that we know who true preachers
are, true preachers sent by God. Now, they either are or they're
not. That's what the Lord said of John the Baptist one time
to the Pharisees who wouldn't listen to him, who wouldn't be baptized by him, wouldn't
repent, confess, and listen to this rough, gruff pioneer missionary. The Lord said to them, the baptism,
the ministry of John, was it of men or God? And they thought
to themselves, well, if we say it's of God, He'll say, why aren't
you listening to Him? Why don't you heed what He said?
And if we say it's of men, then the people who believe he's God's
man, and they'll get mad at us. And so these self-righteous fellows
just answered, we don't know. We don't know. Well, a man is
either sent by God, called and equipped by God, God's witness,
or he's not. There's no gray area. Well, we
must know. We must know who the true ones
are, because God has not left himself without a witness in
our day. We need to find out who they are. Well, Paul gives
some things here in this chapter by which you may know God's true
preacher, their manner and their message. He said here in chapter
2, verse 1, our entrance was not in vain. That is, this is
life and death. This is a vital endeavor. It's
not a worthless endeavor, an empty endeavor, but he said in
another place he always causes us to triumph in Christ and makes
manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. In verse
2 he says, even though we suffered or were shamefully mistreated
at Philippi, and they were, they were beaten, cast into jail,
everywhere they went they were mistreated for the truth's sake.
That's one way you may know a true preacher. He said, we were bold
in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. We were bold in our God, he said.
That is, bold because our God said, Go, and we go. Because
our God is God. He is not a beggar. He is not
hoping for an audience. He will command men to hear His
voice. Our God's Word is final. It is
absolute. We preach as the oracles of God. Our gospel is gospel. Our Christ
is the Christ, and therefore we are bold and dogmatic and
speak with authority as if to say this is the only truth there
is. This is it. The only way. The
only faith. The gospel of God. The gospel
of God, he said, is what we preach. The gospel of God's glory, God's
rights, God's will, God's power, God's Son, God's Christ, God's
mercy, God's love, God's choice of his people, God's grace. It's a gospel of God. And that
will meet with much contention, he said. Men will contend with
you. They will hate you for saying
so. Without fail, the man who declares this gospel, the man
who insists on God getting all the glory and salvation in all
things, the man who insists that upon God's rights as opposed
to man's rights, will meet with much contention. Our Lord said
the world will hate you. They hated me, they'll hate you.
In verse 3, he says, Our exhortation was not of deceit, some hidden
agenda or ulterior motive. Our exhortation was not of uncleanness,
that is, not a womanizer, nor in guile, that is, not trying
silly gimmicks and trickery and tactics, trying to sneak the
truth up on people, gracious sake. The truth is the power
of God. You don't need to sneak it up.
You need to hit them over the head with it. Verse 4, he said,
as we were allowed of God. We didn't seek this, but God
put us in the ministry. He put us in trust with the gospel. Even so we speak, not as pleasing
men, but God which trieth the heart. Neither at any time did
we use flattering words as a cloak of covetousness. That's what
a lot of so-called preachers do. They flatter people whom
they know to have money, to keep the money rolling in. No, we
don't use flattering words. One time, well, most of the time
when religious, self-righteous people came to hear John preach,
he would call them things like snakes and vipers. That won't
get you a big hearing, but it will tell the truth. Well, he
said, Nor of men sought we any glory, nor of you, but we were
gentle. And what we wanted was you, not
what you could give to us, but you, your soul's salvation. And the message is the Gospel.
And the manner is out of truth and sincerity and a love for
men's souls and a love for the truth. That's how you may know
them. Well, I pray that you'll try
the spirits whether they're of God or not. Until next Sunday,
may God give you and understanding of His Word. Amen. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Thank you.