Let us turn tonight to 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and tonight
we will look at the first 12 verses in this chapter of the
Lord willing. Let's read them first. For yourselves,
brethren, know our entrance unto you, that it was not in vain. But even after that we had suffered
before, and were shamefully entreated. As you know, at Philippi we were
bold in our gospel 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 man, but God, which strieth our hearts. For
neither at any time used we flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak
of covetousness, God is witness, nor of man 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 imported unto you not
the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were
dear unto us. For you 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. You 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 you should walk worthy of God who hath called
you unto his kingdom and glory. We saw last week how many good
things the apostle was able to say about this church at Thessalonica. If you look back into chapter
one, just a moment, in verse seven, he said that they were
examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. The church at Thessalonica was
in Macedonia, but so was the church at Philippi. And then
in Achaia, the church at Corinth. So think of the commendation
that the apostle made of this church. You became examples to
all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. And then in verse
eight, he commended them because they had not only received the
gospel, but they had preached the gospel or sent the gospel
out. For from you sounded out the
word of the Lord, not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but also
in every place your faith to God were to spread abroad. So
after commending this church and saying so many good things
about them, Yet we know from Acts chapter 17 that when the
enemies of the gospel raised such a turmoil, such a riot actually,
such a riot in Thessalonica, that for their safety, the believers,
the church in Thessalonica, they sent Paul and Silas away by night. They sent them to Athens. We begin now with verse one,
and I point this out to us because as we look at these verses here
tonight, we see that the problem didn't end when Paul and Silas
left town. The problem didn't end. And I
believe we may learn by reading between the lines, really, and
looking at the words of the apostle Paul that we've just read, how
that the enemies of the gospel of Christ, how they attacked. They attacked, first of all,
the gospel itself. They attacked the gospel itself.
And secondly, Paul and Silas, the men who had preached the
gospel unto them. Notice in verse one, for yourselves,
brethren, 1 Thessalonians 2 verse one, for yourselves, brethren,
know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain. The
apostle calls on these believers to acknowledge what was certainly
known to them, what they had seen. These men are criticizing
myself and Silas and calling us false prophets and speaking
evil of us. He calls them to testify to what
they had seen, what they had witnessed, what kind of men they
were. And so, as he says, you had every
opportunity while we were with you, you had every opportunity
to observe us, the way we lived, the way we conducted ourselves,
and the message which we preached. The enemies of the gospel, they
could slander him, yes, and no doubt they did, but they of all
people, Paul said, you of all people know and can testify what
kind of man we are, what kind of man we were. You know, he
did something similar and that was the way the enemies of the
gospel seemingly always, always worked. Paul and his men who
labored with him would go into a town and they would preach
the gospel. God would raise up a church there
and they would move on to preached in other places, but always these
false teachers would come in and try to undermine the ministry
of the apostle, try to bring reproach upon the gospel itself
and upon the man who had preached the gospel. Look with me in 1
Corinthians chapter 4. We see the same thing here in
1 Corinthians chapter 4 to the church at Corinth. These false
teachers had come into the church and they were detractors of Paul
and Barnabas and Silas. Notice he says, for we are fools
for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. In other words,
you know more than we do, even though we were your teachers,
yet now you've been taught and you've listened to these false
teachers come among you. We are fools for Christ's sake,
but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You're honorable, but we are
despised. Even unto this present hour,
we both hunger and thirst and are naked and buffeted and have
no certain dwelling place. and labor, working with our own
hands. Being reviled, we bless. Being
persecuted, we suffer it. Being defamed, we entreat. We
are made as the filth of the world and are the off-scouring
of all things unto this day." That word off-scouring is interesting. You know, when you cook and the
pan gets Maybe some black marks on the bottom of it and something
burned and you scour it. You clean it. Well, Paul says
that's the way we apostles appeared. We're the off-scouring of the
world, the refuse of the world. That was our lot. But now he's
calling on these Thessalonians back in our text. He says, you
know, For yourselves, brethren, know, you know this. Other people
might be deceived who we've not labored among. Other people who
do not know us and have not had the opportunity to observe us. But brethren, you know. You know
our entrance in unto you. And you know that our entrance
among you was not in vain. The word vain, of course, simply
means empty. You know that the gospel that
we preach, the gospel that you receive, the gospel that you
believe, it was not empty of truth. It was not vain. It is the very truth of God. That's the gospel that we preached
unto you. Then in verse two he goes on,
but even after that we had suffered before and were shamefully entreated,
as you know, at Philippi. We were bold in our God to speak
unto you the gospel of God with much contention. And they were
shamefully treated at Philippi. They took Paul and Silas and
they beat them. They laid many stripes upon them.
These are representatives, if you please, these are ambassadors
of God, ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ. And how were they
treated? They were beaten and they were
placed into the prison. And I believe it says into the
lower part of the prison, the bottom, the basement, if you
please, and all the waste. of the upper floors and levels
would fall down upon them in the inner part of the prison.
And that wasn't sufficient. They put their feet in stocks.
Now, that's the way you would treat a murderer. That's the
way you would treat a robber, not someone who was preaching
the gospel. But Paul says, you know, and
they were aware of this. how that they were shamefully
entreated in Philippi. Well, when they came to Thessalonica,
did that cause them to change their message? Did it cause them
to take off the rough edges, smooth off the corners? Oh no,
Paul says, we were bold. We were bold in our God. We didn't
change our message so that we would not receive the same treatment
there with you. If it turned out that way, we
were not going to change our message. I remember years ago,
Brother Ralph Barnard, when he came to Texas and one of the
churches he preached in that I was familiar with, I was not
a member of this church, but I remember how he said, when
he got up the first time, how do you want me to preach this
week? You want me to preach the world round or flat? Whatever
you want, that's what I'll preach. Of course, you know Brother Ralph
Barnett, he was joking, or that was a way of irony. He wasn't
gonna preach anything but the gospel. He knew people were gonna
get mad because everywhere he preached, people got mad. But
he was pointed out by saying that, what kind of a preacher
he was. He wasn't someone who, if this
church pays more, I'll pay what they want to hear. If this church
pays more, I'll preach what they want to hear. No, just like Paul. Yes, we were shamefully entreated
in Philippi. But that didn't mean when we
came to Thessalonica and began to preach that we were going
to take the offense out of the gospel. We're going to preach
the gospel as it has been given unto us. They were shamefully
entreated, but he said we were bold in our God. The gospel of
God distinguishes itself from the false gospel of man. He calls it the gospel of God
because it originated with God. The gospel, it's not the product
of human ingenuity. It's not the product of human
wisdom. The gospel is a revelation from
God. It is the truth, the wisdom of
God. And we see it in these thoughts. God will punish sin. God must
punish sin. If He doesn't punish sin, then
He abdicates the throne of God. He's no longer God. Why? Because of His holiness. He must
punish sin. We're all sinners. We're all sinners. We all deserve
God's wrath, God's judgment. How is it then that he's going
to receive us into his bosom? How is it that he's going to
forgive us? He provided a substitute. And that substitute was his own
dear son, who sat at the wisdom of God. Man could never have,
have Imagine such a gospel of substitution as the gospel is. And if man, think about this,
if man could have come up with the gospel, he could not have
put it into power. Only God could do that. Only
God could send his son. Only God could come and give
himself as a sacrifice to put away the sins of his people.
The gospel originated with God, and it is a testimony to the
wisdom of God, and not only to the wisdom of God. It certainly
is that, the wisdom of God. But the grace of God, the grace
of God. It sets forth the grace of God
in election, in redemption, in justification, in adoption, regeneration, glorification,
the gospel of God. Notice verse three. For our exhortation
was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in God. Notice he's still
appealing to their knowledge. He's still appealing to what
they knew about him and Silas. His preaching was in no way like
the preaching of the false prophets, false teachers, the pagan philosophers. You know, there are some who
teach that the ends justify the means. You've heard that, haven't
you? The ends justify the means. And so whatever means people
come up with to use, And over the years, we've seen quite a
few, haven't we? I was reading the other day about
a so-called church, and they had determined to have, I think
it was 300 people in their anniversary service. And they counted them up, and
they had 298. And so one of the deacons went
out and paid two kids $5 each to come in. make up the number,
the 300. Different means and methods of
people, and their motive is, I assume, it's good to reach
people with the gospel, but they believe that the means justify
the end. We've heard of churches where
they had the pastor, you know, if we don't have so many here
on a certain day, then we're going to see the pastor be kicked over, thrown over the
building, the outside of the building to the other side. Well,
everybody comes to see that. Would you come if you heard Brother
Fletcher is going to be somehow pushed up in the air and land
over here on the other side of the building? I would imagine
we could fill this building with some trickery like that. I remember
this is back years ago, but one man said to get people saved,
you've got to, you've got to slip up on their blind side to
get them all kinds of foolishness. Paul said, you know, you know,
that was not our, our way of operation. Our exhortation was not of deceit,
nor of uncleanness, nor of God. You know, the false gods of the
pagans, even the philosophers, the Greek philosophers, have
you ever read much about those so-called gods that they believe
in? They were all pretty much very
mean. gods and wars and all kinds of
sexual uncleanness and everything opposite, really, to the true
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse four, 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. Paul, and this must be true of
every man that God calls and puts into the ministry, it must
be true of each and every one of us, we must see that the gospel
is a sacred trust that God has committed unto us. And our responsibility You know,
if you are entrusted with someone else's money, let's just use
the example of money, most likely you will be more careful with
that person's money than you are with your own money. Why?
Because of the trust, the trust that they've put in you to let
you take care of their money. Well, we would like to believe
that's true of all people. But that's the way the Apostle
Paul looked at the gospel. God had committed the gospel
to him as a trust. And his desire and prayer, no
doubt, was when he laid down his life, that the gospel that
had been committed to him was handed to the next man in line,
the man who would follow his steps in preaching and the gospel
would be intact. Not one syllable, not one line
would be subtracted from the gospel that had been committed
unto him. Look in First Timothy over just
a few pages. First Timothy chapter one. First Timothy chapter one in
verse 11. The apostle says, according to
the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my
trust. And I thank Christ Jesus, our
Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry. Now, you can read that and misunderstand
that very easily. He's not saying here that, well,
God saw I would be faithful, and so he put me into the ministry.
No, that's not what he means at all. He's saying God counted
him faithful. God made him faithful. God made
him faithful. God gave him the faithfulness
that he had. You know, one of the first qualifications,
one of the main qualifications of a gospel minister I assume
that the first qualification would be that he loves Christ,
that he loves Christ. And I say that because our Lord
asked Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And a man who
preaches the gospel, number one, He should have a great love for
Christ, but very close, if not equal, faithful, faithfulness. He should be a man who is faithful
to the trust that has been committed unto him. Paul, we know, had
a sense of the importance, the reality of the gospel. And he
could never resort to deceit or craftiness and things like
that in preaching the gospel. And he was very much aware, as
every man should be, that one day the Lord will call us to
account. We must render an account to
him for the gospel truth that he has committed unto us. Verses five and six, for neither
at any time used we flattering words, as you know, nor cloak
of covetousness, nor of man sought we glory, neither of you nor
yet of others, when we might have been burdensome as the apostles
of Christ. In those two verses, he names
three things that must never be true of a preacher. Not a true preacher. not a preacher
of the gospel of the grace of God. The first thing, we should
never use flattering words. Flattering words. You know, in
Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan had to include Mr. Flatterer. Mr. Flatterer, didn't he? And
Christian and hopeful were warned That is, they left that particular
place that they would probably meet up with Mr. Flatterer. And
sure enough, they came to a place where there was sort of a similar
to a fork in the road, a slight deviation off the road, and they
didn't know which way to go. So along comes Mr. Flatterer. And he shows them. He tells them,
this is the way. And it's an easier way. And so
they follow him, they go in that road, and you know it wasn't
long before they're completely turned around. And instead of
heading toward the celestial city, they're heading back to
the castle of the giant. And they come to a place where
they're taken in a net, Mr. Flatterer's net they're taken
in. The road, it veered just a little
by degrees. I'm assuming tonight if we were
flying, if you were a pilot and you were flying from Houston
to New York City, let's say, you'd be going northeast. But if you set your controls
to go directly to New York, to the airport there, but you turned
He turned it off just a little, just a hair, just a little degree. Before long, instead of going
northeast, you'd be going north, and eventually maybe even to
the west. And that's the way Mr. Flatterer works. And preachers
should never be guilty of using flattering words, telling people
how much God needs you, how blessed the Lord is to have you come
and worship him. All the qualities that you have,
all the talents that you have, and just brag on you. Mr. Flatterer. A preacher should
never use flattering words, and the gospel doesn't flatter us.
It really doesn't. I try to remain faithful to the
message, and sometimes I think I'm the worst person in this
building. I mean, the most sinful person
in this building. But I know the scripture says,
answer to faith in water. You look in the water and you
see your reflection back. And the preacher preaches and
he knows his heart is depraved and sinful. And we must preach
what the word of God says. And I look out upon you and I
think surely there's the best people in the world here. Best
people in Houston, Texas here in this congregation. But I've
got to be faithful to the gospel. The gospel doesn't flatter us,
it tells us what we are. By nature, we're dead in trespasses
and sins. By nature, the natural man understandeth
not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them,
for they are spiritually discerned. The second thing we see here, a cloak of covetousness. A cloak, of course, means a covering,
a covering, a pretense to, to get people to give. I saw the
wealthiest preachers in America, the wealthiest preachers, I didn't
bother to look at it, but I have in days gone by, and they're
men who are millionaires. And yes, there's even one who
is a billionaire, the wealthiest preachers. But if you listen
to them preach, no doubt they would tell you that, you know,
you've got to do this to serve the Lord. Use a cloak of coveted
covetousness. I've got to have a new airplane.
I've got to get from one meeting to the other meeting. and I can't
travel commercially, I need my own plane. I mean, just on and
on. Paul said, you know, and he calls
God to witness to this. Not just what they knew, but
he calls God as his witness. God is witness. They didn't use
a cloak of covetousness. You notice he tells his church
that he would not be burdensome to them. Now, in reading the
New Testament letters that Paul wrote, we find that there are
two churches that he would not accept an offering from. He would
not allow them to support him. This is one of them, the church
at Thessalonica, the other is the church at Corinth. We don't
know why. We do know that he taught that
men who preach the gospel are to be maintained by those who
benefit from their ministry. We do know that from his writing
to the church at Corinth. And he even told the church at
Corinth he robbed other churches, but he wouldn't take any offering
from them. And the same thing's true about
this church here at Thessalonica. If you look back into the letter
of Philippians, the last chapter, of Philippians chapter four, verse 15, he says, now you Philippians
know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed
from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving
and receiving, but you only. For even in Thessalonica, now
this is the church he's writing to, the letter we're looking
at. Even in this place, they had communicated two times, they
had sent an offering to him two times as he preached the gospel
there. But he would not be burdensome
to the church at Thessalonica. He labored, he says, day and
night. Look back in our text. Verse nine, for you remember,
brethren, our labor and travail for laboring night and day, because
we would not be chargeable unto you, any of you, we preached
unto you the gospel of God. A cloak of covetousness. No pastor. Sometimes it It grieves me when
I've heard preachers try to justify their covetous
nature, desires of money, by saying the Lord Jesus Christ
was wealthy, when the scriptures are very clear that our Lord
lived the life of a poor man when he was here in this world.
He said, the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests,
but the son of man hath not where to lay his head. And yet sometimes they'll say,
well, you know, that coat he had, it didn't have a seam. Only
a wealthy person would have a cloak like that, that was seamless
and justify their lavish lifestyles and their covetous nature. The third thing that should never
be true of a preacher Paul mentions here. Number one, we should never
use flattering words. Number two, never be covetous. And number three, never seek
the glory, the praise of man. Notice that for verse six, nor
of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others. Many years ago, Brother Henry Mahan told me what
he had told another pastor. This other man had been called
to be a pastor of a church in another country, actually. And
that church at one time had been a large church, and they had
a large building, but it was pretty much empty. Wasn't very
many people there when they called this man. This man had been a
friend of Henry. And Henry told him this, he said,
if you make anything but the glory of God as the motive, the
end of your preaching, you will compromise the gospel. If you make filling that building
up, that's your end. If that's your goal, you will
compromise the gospel. And you know, it wasn't long
after that, that the first thing he started denying is God as
a particular redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. The last time
I saw him or heard of him, he had gone off into charismatic
teaching. But all to try to get people
to come, to have the people You know, the Lord, everyone,
every preacher would love to be preaching to large congregations. But I admire, and I know some
men, I know some men tonight I could name, who are faithful,
who know the gospel, who preach the gospel consistently, and
pastor very small congregations. But they're faithful, and their
goal isn't to fill their buildings with lost people. Their goal
is to be truthful and honest with the souls of men. We should never seek the glory
of men. Now, these last verses, let me
just read them and point out two things that Paul says that
stand out to us. In these last six verses, he
says, you know, We were among you as a nursing mother is, as
she treats and tends her child. Some of you ladies here tonight,
you know exactly how you treat your child, nursing child and
cherish that child, have that child in your bosom and care
for it and love it and do everything for it. It's helpless. And you do everything
for it because you love that child. Paul said that's the way
we were among you as a nurse, a nursing mother, really. And
number two, he says we were as a father, as a father, a good
father, not just any father, but a good father to his children,
to teach A good father teaches his children, comforts his children,
and charges them to walk worthy of their parents. This is one of my prayers almost
daily, that God will give me the grace to walk worthy of God. You say, what does that mean
to walk worthy of God? It means to live so as never
to bring reproach upon our Savior, never to bring reproach upon
him or his cause, and so as to teach the world to honor him
who has bestowed such grace upon me. God help me to walk worthy
of thee. And that's what Paul said, that
they had conducted themselves like a father who teaches his
children to walk worthy of their name, of their home, of their
family, not to bring reproach, discredit upon them. I pray the Lord would bless this
word to all of us here this evening.