Our scripture reading this afternoon is taken from 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 1-9. For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our gods to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. For our exhortation does not come from error, or impurity, or by way of deceit. But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaim to you the gospel of God. In our message this afternoon, we've come to take a look at chapter 2 and verses 1 through 9. And here in chapter 2, we see the Apostle Paul affirming to the Thessalonians again that the apostolic teams coming to them was not in vain. And we saw that this morning, how it was not in vain. It wasn't empty-handed. And it wasn't empty-handed in the sense that it produced results in the lives of the Thessalonians. We're told again in verse 9 of chapter 1 that the Thessalonians had turned from idols to worship the living God, and again, considering the culture from which they came out of, this was no insignificant thing. The fact that the Thessalonians had continued steadfast in the Spirit despite the serious riot that had occurred in the city and the fact that they were remaining steadfast is again an amazing thing and demonstrated the fact that they were really the elect of God. And let us not forget again how the Gospel was brought to the Thessalonians. It was amid much tribulation as the Apostle says. Paul had reminded them that the apostles, he and Silas, had been greatly mistreated in Philippi. They had been beaten with rods, they had been cast into jail, and then, to make matters worse, the fact that they shouldn't have been beaten because they were Roman citizens. Paul makes a big issue of this, and it was an embarrassing thing to the city officials of Philippi to find out that they had beaten these men who were Roman citizens. They could have gotten into a lot of trouble, and that's why they were wanting to get them out. The city officials wanted to get them out of town secretly, and Paul said, no, no, no. Now, you're going to have to come down here yourselves, and you do it. In other words, he wanted to drive home to them that they were beaten unjustly for being Roman citizens. But this is what the apostles had to put up with. So the apostles, they come to Thessalonica, and as we've said on other occasions, because of their preaching, a riot occurred in the city. And we are just reminded, and Paul says here in verse 2, he says, after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amidst much opposition. So, they had this opposition in Philippi, they had paid a price for it. They come to Thessalonica, they preach and they're paying a price for it in Thessalonica as well. And we're just reminded of the fact that in the preaching of the gospel, this is to be expected. Persecution is to be expected of those who preach the gospel. Jesus told his disciples in John 15 verse 20, he says, if they persecuted me, the slave is not greater than the master. They persecuted me, they're going to persecute you. And so it was. And also, Jesus predicted in Matthew 10, verse 23, he had said to his disciples, he says, you're going to flee from one city of Israel to the other. Now, Jesus was speaking to the disciples of what was going to be the case in Israel, that they had to go from one city to the other. But this is what it transpired in the ministry of the Apostle Paul, where he went. People were upset with the preaching and they caused trouble. So we need to understand that Paul was experiencing much trouble wherever he went to fulfill his specific calling to be the apostle to the Gentiles. And we ought not to ever forget this. Someone could say, well, Paul was just an unlucky guy. I mean, just wherever he went, there was people. This was in the ordained plan of God. I want you just to remind you, turn to Acts chapter 9. Take a look at verse 15 and 16. Paul has met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Ananias is a disciple who is living there in Damascus and whom God, Jesus, reveals himself to Ananias and says, there's going to be a man by the name of Saul coming to you. And here's what the Lord revealed to Ananias about Saul, whom he had just converted. It says here in verse 15, this is Jesus speaking to Ananias. Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my namesake." Therefore, with Paul's calling to be an apostle, his calling came with, you're going to suffer for my namesake. And so was the case. Not only did he suffer, not only did he experience shipwreck, and there in Corinthians Paul goes through all the things that they had to put up with, But in every city, someone was upset with the preaching. Someone would either beat them, run them out of town, and then the Jews in that one city would follow them oftentimes to the next city and cause a riot in that city. So this was just the way of life for the apostles. It was no different in Thessalonica, that Paul preached to them amidst great persecution. Now even though we cannot expect necessarily to experience the same persecution of the magnitude of the Apostle Paul because he was ordained to that end, we nonetheless can expect to be persecuted because in 2 Timothy 3.12 we're told, Yea, all those who seek to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. So if you try to live a consistent godly Christian life, expect to be persecuted. Have you ever wondered why people would pick on Christians? Or they have a tendency to make fun of you and you may wonder, why are they doing this? Well, someone once said this, John Lofton, who was a columnist for the Washington Times, he was known to be quite blunt and he was a reconstructionist. One time he was speaking at Bob Jones University and he was speaking on political issues and nice sweet girls there raised their hand and asked a question to him. He says, Mr. Lofton, why is it that people just in the realm of politics, why do they act the way they do? Why do they give us such hard times? And he looked at him and says, my dear, it's because they hate your guts and wish you were dead. And so that is true. They hate us because of the cause of Christ, and that is to be expected. Now, consider as well this apostolic theme. Paul says here in verse 2 that he said to the Thessalonians, we have preached to you, Thessalonians, amidst great opposition. Now, this shows really the courage that these men had. It takes courage to proclaim a message to a group of people who have the power to hurt you. But nonetheless, they would keep it up. And remember, when Peter said what he did there in Acts 4 or 12, he says, There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he, as we said last week, he took on the city officials when he said that. Because remember, there was a A Roman inscription that says the exact same thing, except it says, there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved except by Augustus Caesar. So these men were courageous. All the apostles were courageous. And what would be the tendency if you knew that a message, that your message was going to stir up people, to get them angry and hurt you? Now, the human tendency would be to what? The human tendency would be a hesitancy to say something. If you knew, if you said to preach a certain message, that you were going to probably die. Joe Morecraft says when Stephen could have turned his sermon ten minutes to live, there were many priests in Acts 7. because they were upset with what he said, that's when they got the stones and they stoned Stephen to death. So the human tendency would be to recoil if you knew that people were going to react that way. But here we see the apostles said, no Thessalonians, we've come to you and we've preached the gospel to you amidst much tribulation. And brethren, there are those right now in the world who Even this day, boldly preach the gospel in some countries at the peril of their own lives. This still goes on. It's not so much here in the United States, but there are places in the world where preaching the gospel is perilous. For example, in Muslim countries, it's been this way for years. Not to say what's happening right now in world affairs, but for years, You have to be very careful in Muslim countries. I know there's a gentleman that's a friend of Chalcedon that have been missionaries over in one of the Middle Eastern countries. I forget which one it is. It's one of the smaller countries. And he's been an engineer over there. And his primary purpose is to be a missionary. However, he can't say a whole lot of things public. Otherwise, he'd have the city officials down on him in no time. And in Muslim countries, it is perilous to preach the gospel. There are Christians in Iraq. Can you imagine what Christians, and there are Christians in Iraq, what kind of persecution they're facing? We already know what goes on in the Sudan and other areas, and the Christians that are being murdered there. So to, even today, it takes a lot of courage for people to preach the gospel. But what is our obligation? Our obligation is to obey the exhortation that Paul gives, that he gave in the Colossians. And he demonstrated what he exhorted the Colossians to do. He demonstrated it before the Thessalonians when he told them to be devoted to prayer. Again, I want to draw your attention to Ephesians chapter 6. Turn over to Ephesians 6. And look at verses 17 through 20. Here he's given this exposition on the armor of God, and then verse 17 he says, Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. And with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. And pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in change, that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." Paul says, this is what I want. He says, I want you to pray constantly for me. For what? To be bold. He said, pray that I be bold as I ought to be bold. He knows he ought to be courageous. He knows he needs to say what needs to be said, despite what the impact it may be. He says, you pray for me that I will be bold. Remember what Romans 15, 30 said, that when Paul says to wrestle, to struggle with Him in His ministry by praying for Him. And we looked at that term. It's an athletic term. Meaning that you wrestle that, and I made the emphasis when we talked about prayer a while back, that we really are there with these preachers of the Gospel when we pray for them. That we really are in a joint ministry with them. And it is very important that we be devoted to prayer for the Gospel's sake. And we must not leave these men out there on their own. As I said it before, I'll say it again. We are not never to abandon your soldiers of the cross, the soldiers of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and strand them on a spiritual battlefield by not praying for them on a daily basis. Because that's what it is. This is serious business and it is a great sin to desert our brethren in time of need. Let me phrase it this way with an appropriate common analogy. And I'll use my son, Brian, in this one. Can you imagine how Brian would feel if he was engaged in a gunfight there in Iraq, and during the gunfight, his company just pulls back and leaves him out there to fight on his own? And can you imagine what that would be like, to pull back and leave a soldier out there fighting an enemy by himself? Can you imagine what it must have been like in that deplorable situation with David and Bathsheba, when he had Bathsheba's husband murdered. And what was that like? When he gave word to his commanders, he says, when you're pressing on the enemy, pull back. Now, you wonder what went into the minds of Uriah when he's out there and all of a sudden everybody pulls back. What might have been the last thoughts in his mind, he looks back, sees the enemy and says, Oh no, and he's the only guy. My brethren, what real difference is that when we understand when the apostle says, pray for us, wrestle with us, that in our ministry and pray that we will be bold. We've got to pray for these people. We cannot strand these men on the spiritual battlefield. I don't mean it to be any less serious the responsibility for praying for ministers of the gospel, especially those who are in dangerous places of the world when they preach it. Paul mentions in chapter 2 here, verse 3, there is another trial that they have to put up with. And there are those who are accusing them of preaching from impure motives, who are telling them that they are preaching from deceit. Notice what it says here. Our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit. And yet there was a great number of people, there were people apparently that were accusing the apostles of this very thing. Now in the apostles' time, There was a great number of itinerant preachers and philosophers of various religions that would go around and, quote, they would rip people off, taking their money. It wasn't unusual. There were those holy men of various mystery religions that were common in that day, popular philosophers, magicians, sorcerers, astrologers, all sorts of crackpots who were out there touting their latest belief. And the problem was, people had a tendency to lump the apostles with these kinds of people. And if it wasn't bad enough to be beaten unjustly, thrown into jail, have riots formed against you, people looking to hunt you down, now the apostles are saying, we're being accused of preaching out of deceit. I mean, that's like rubbing salt in a sore wound, isn't it? An open wound. They're getting persecuted for the preaching of the gospel, and then to be accused of doing it for gain, financial gain, and for other purposes. Well, Paul mentions in the following verses, and he assures the Thessalonians that their motives were godly motives when they preached to the Thessalonians. Paul says that, and he appeals to the Thessalonians that their preaching did not result in or as it were spring up from delusion or error. He said we didn't preach to you from error. We weren't ballooning. We weren't crackpots. We were truly ministers of God. And he says here in verse 4, he says, we have been approved by God. God has put his stamp of approval in our ministry. Now we got to to realize as well when Paul says we weren't deluded, and he says we didn't preach out of impurity. Now they were being accused of immorality. We must remember that in times in which Paul lived, there were those mystery religions of the ancient world. And these mystery religions, really, which are the precursor to the Freemasonry, right? Because the parallel is exactly there. In fact, the Masons do look to the mystery religions as their precursors. And it wasn't uncommon in these mystery religions to be known as fertility cults, whereby there were ritual prostitutes. And sexual immorality was part of this ritual. And the Jews were oftentimes bringing charges against the Christians for being lumped into this group. And rumors were being spread that Paul and the others were guilty of these kinds of practices, and that's what they had to put up with. And it says they were being accused of being deceitful, that the means that they were using were those means of trickery, trying to convert the Thessalonians and get all their money. Paul addresses this in verse 5, he says, we didn't come with flattering speech, as you know, nor did we come with a pretext for greed. God is our witness. He says, we weren't out to try to flatter you. We weren't out for your money. And here when he talks about flattering, he says, we behaved in a proper way towards you. He says, did we flatter you? Where did we flatter you? In other words, did we try to butter you up in order to get to your pocketbook? That's what he said. He said, we didn't come to you. He said, you know that we didn't come to you that way. He said, where is our greed? Nowhere does Paul ever mention that he requested money from the Thessalonians. Now, of course, other people cannot see into men's hearts and they can't see their motives, but Paul says God is our witness that we did not preach to you from impure motives. We were not flattering you to try to get to you. We did not ask for money. We didn't demand any of these things from you. And so here in verse 6, we see that Paul says, we didn't seek glory either. We went out to be famous. And when you think about it, it's a funny way to try to be famous, to get yourself beaten, thrown in jail, and run out of town, from town to town. Now, I could think of better ways to try to pull some wool over somebody's eyes than that way. Paul says, just think about it. We've had people hunting us down from town to town. Did we come to you? Were we seeking glory? Now, there are those who say, well, these people had a martyr complex. They put up with this so as to get a name for themselves. Well, I could think of better ways than that to get a name for yourself. But Paul says here, rather than boasting to them to look at who they are, he says here in verse 7, he says, we came to you in none of this way. He says, we could have exerted our apostolic authority, but we didn't exert that. And he says, we did none of this. We didn't try to be heavy handed in you. And he was a great apostle. God had done marvelous things through him and is going to continue to do marvelous things through him. He says, we didn't come and say, look at us, look at who we are. You better listen to us. He said, we didn't come that way to you at all. How did he come to them? And this is quite amazing. At verse 7 he says, but we proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenurily cares for her own children. over against this assertive authoritarian manner that he could have come to him, stands this idea of gentleness. Instead of being stern and authoritative, He is gentle, it says. And here you have the great apostle, the one through whom God had done mighty miracles, the one who'd gone through shipwrecks, the one who'd gone through beatings after beatings, the one who spent time in jail. Here was a man's man, if there ever was one. All right? But Paul, what does he choose, his analogy, to demonstrate their ministry with the Thessalonians? His analogy here is a nursing mother, and this is what he wants to conjure up. Now, just get in your mind a newborn babe in the arms of the mother, the tenderness that the mother has for the baby. Paul says, this is how we came to you. This is the care that we showed to you. when we were in your midst. We weren't heavy-handed. We didn't talk about the great apostles that we are. One of my favorite pictures is the painting of the great war general, Robert E. Lee, with a young child sitting on his knee who has fallen asleep in his arms while reading the Bible. That's a real touching painting. showing here the great general who sees death and war all the time, here showing the tenderness of the general in reading the Bible and this child falling asleep in his lap. Real rugged men don't have to prove anything to anybody. They're not ashamed of displaying loving affection that some might associate with female traits. Because the analogy here that Paul uses of his ministry is directly a female analogy, if there ever was one. Far from trying to promote his own interests among the Thessalonians, the apostolic team has become not only a father, but a mother to the Thessalonians. And in verse 8 here, Paul says, he clearly says, we've had a fond affection for you, a fond affection for you like a nursing mother for her children. The apostolic team was anything but pretentious. And I want you to look at verse 8 very carefully. He says, Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives. Because you had become very dear to us. Paul says, we not only gave you the gospel, but we gave you our very lives. And the reason he gave them their very lives, he says, because you had become very dear to us. These ministers of the gospel were not distant, they were not cold, They did not minister to the Thessalonians in some formalistic manner. The apostolic team truly loved their flock. They loved them with the same intensity that a mother loves her child whom she is nursing. They were not hard to get to know. They, as Paul says, we imparted our own lives to you. That is, they gave it their all. They withheld nothing from the Thessalonians for the cause of Christ to reach these people. And in this passage, we have a great lesson for really all preachers, all ministers of the gospel, all those engaged in the ministry, whether they're teaching elders or ruling elders, anyone engaged in ministry. There's a great lesson here. We must never become detached from the lives of those to whom we're ministering. We must pour ourselves into the ministry of God's flock. We must do all we can to get to know people. If we find ourselves looking upon the sheep in any other way than what we've got to do, we've got to repent of this lethargy and beg God to give us a genuine love for people. Because that's how Paul says we came to the Thessalonians. If anybody could have exerted influence and said this is the way it's going to be, it was the Apostle Paul. But he didn't. That is not how he ministered to the Thessalonians. I remember when I was in college, I was involved with a parachurch organization that at the time God used it in a mighty way in my life. I know at our ministry, we never did have an official representative of this organization on our campus. We were always on the fringe element. We were the hippie hillbillies is what they referred to us as. And I can remember one time one of the official representatives from another town said to me concerning one of the leaders of our ministry, he said, Because this person had gone up to him and said, you know, we've got this situation going on in this person's life, and we've got this situation going on in this person's life. And the person says, you know what? They're just like a big mother hen. And I never was quite sure what the motive was, but he says, he went ahead and told this campus leader that they ought to become a pastor one day, because they're like a big mother hen. He's always concerned about what's going on in the lives of somebody. Well, actually, I thought that was a compliment. Now, I don't think he meant it not as a compliment. He was just recognizing, you know, that's the way the trait is, then that is true. That is what the pastorhood is like. And so we see here that Paul told the Thessalonians in verse 9 that they really should recall How the apostolic team worked, he says, day and night so that they wouldn't be a burden to the Thessalonians. Now, it's evident here that the Thessalonians had the apostle team, that they weren't out for their money because he says, you know how hard we worked night and day while we were in your midst. Now, Paul knew he had a right to make a living. of the ministry, from the people to whom he was ministering. He makes this very clear in 1 Corinthians 9 verses 6-15. In 2 Corinthians 11-8, Paul at times took wages from already established churches. We know in Philippians 4 that he received gifts from established churches, but he was always concerned about when he would go on to other towns so as not to be a burden on people. So in the case of New Converse, which the Thessalonians were, he didn't want to give any impression that he was out for their money. So to a large degree, he engaged with the others in tip-making so as not to be a burden on the Thessalonians. He let others to head the funds to finance the ministry. And oftentimes, I think to a large degree, that is all the reasons why missions is the way it is. And there is some merit to this because when you have missionaries going to an area, the general rule is they would be supported by other churches who have the finances to send them out to these other areas to preach the gospel for several reasons. Obviously these other groups, they're not going to have the means to finance it. Somebody does, and so the other churches will finance it. So that's been a common way to finance missions, to do it. Paul says not only did he receive finances from other established churches, but that he worked himself. If that's what it took, that's what he did. So Paul operated off the principle that he said elsewhere. That while all things may be lawful, all things are not always helpful. There are many good things that he had a right to, but that he chose not to avail himself of that right. And we have a great insight into what Christian ministry is all about. It's all about pouring your life into it. It's all about enduring great hardship in order to preach the gospel. It's all about genuinely caring for people. You know, it's such men like this that God continually uses to change the world. They don't, and our responsibility is not to leave them on the battlefield. This is why we need to pray for them every day. We need to pray for the preachers of the gospel, wherever they are, that God will not only keep them faithful, but they, and notice what he's always asking for, he says, I want you to pray that we might be bold the way we need to be bold. We need to be courageous. We need to tell people what they need to hear. Even if they're going to be people who are upset with what we've got to say. Because there are going to be people upset. And this goes to demonstrate that I don't know if you're aware that anytime someone is ordained to the gospel ministry, one of the part of the vows that they take, part of that vow is that they voluntarily entered that ministry upon pain of whatever opposition might occur to them as a result of that ministry. In other words, I had to take that vow and everybody else had to take that vow. I've got to be faithful to preach what needs to be preached, even if I know I could get killed for it. That's what the vow is. You've got to preach the truth regardless of what will come. Now, the sad thing here is I'm afraid there's not that kind of preaching going on. And in other places in the world, I can imagine those ministers of the gospel in Muslim countries and others who, when they're out proclaiming Christ, they realize what's at stake. And you can imagine what their attitude would be of American preachers who are concerned about, well, maybe ruffling a few feathers of people in the congregation of what they think. Say, no, we're over here, we can die for what we're preaching, and you're concerned about maybe upsetting a few people by preaching the truth? Come on. But this is what the apostles faced. And we see, Paul said, when we came to the Thessalonians, he says, you know how we behaved among you. We weren't out for your money. We had a genuine interest for you. We poured our lives into you. We did it because we loved you. And those kind of people, they need to be prayed for on a constant basis, because there are those who put a lot at risk to preach the Word of God. But even then, when your life is not at stake, sometimes, even here, you have to preach certain things when you know, well, there's going to be somebody that's not going to like what's about to be preached. But you've got to preach it anyway. And the whole idea of the theological controversies that we're talking about that are going on, We've got to be willing to say what needs to be said, knowing there's going to be some people who aren't going to like it. But you see, we say what has to be said because hopefully we love people and we know what's spiritually best for them. And any parent knows You want to do things for the child, the child doesn't like, but you know you do it anyway because it's in the best interest of the child. So, tough luck, kid, if you don't like it. And so, in ministry, we have to do that which is necessary to be faithful to the Word of God, regardless of what opposition may occur. Well, does anybody have any questions?