Welcome to the Beacon Broadcast from Beacon Baptist Church in Burlington, North Carolina, featuring expositional Bible teaching by Pastor Greg Barkman. If you'd like to correspond with The Beacon Broadcast, or if you wish to support this radio ministry, write to The Beacon Broadcast, Post Office Box 159, Alamance, NC 27201, or find us on the web at BeaconBaptist.com. BeaconBaptist.com. The Beacon Broadcast is supported in part by the gifts of faithful listeners. Now with today's message from God's Word, here is Greg Barkman. Well, we continue in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and we have begun talking about the Christian work ethic that is discussed in verses 11 and 12. Something that is eroding I'm afraid in our day, but that shouldn't be surprising because Christian doctrine, Christian ethics, Christian morality, Christian perspective is eroding in so many areas in our day because we are getting away from the Christianity of the Bible and the Christianity of our forefathers. I recognize that for some people it is considered impolite and incorrect to talk about this country being founded on Christian principles, so I may need to make one or two statements about that before laying it aside. And that is, number one, I am quite convinced that not all of the founders were genuine born-again believers. In fact, I am quite convinced that not all of the founders even claimed to be Christians, though I think it's clear that a majority of them did. But there are some notable exceptions. Benjamin Franklin did not consider himself a Christian. Thomas Jefferson did not consider himself a Christian. But even those men demonstrated strong Christian influence in their thinking, in their philosophies. In other words, even though they were not Christians, the Christian religion guided their lives, guided their principles, guided the way that they thought about government. And so In that sense, I want us to understand that America was founded upon Christian principles because those principles permeated the society of that day. And that is what is eroding. That Christian ethic, that Christian perspective, that permeated early American history has now eroded the way in latter American history that we are living in today. But leaving that aside, let me welcome you to this Wednesday, September 2 edition of the Beacon Broadcast. Let me Thank you for listening today and for helping us financially, those of you who support this broadcast, and perhaps some of you will consider doing the same thing so that we can pay the bills to continue teaching God's Word on this station. All right, now, back to the Christian work ethic. I'm going to read chapter 4, verses 1 through 8. Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more Just as you have received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus." Verses 1 and 2 are a general exhortation to live as Christians are commanded to live. It's a general statement. In those two verses, he doesn't lay out what those commands are, but he impresses upon them that it is essential that those who claim to be Christians act like Christians, that those who claim to be Christians live like Christians. That's what he's saying in verses one and two. But then in verses three and following, he does give specifics. Verse three, for this is the will of God, your sanctification that you should abstain from sexual immorality. that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also forewarned you and testified for God did not call us to uncleanness but in holiness so the first specific detail to spell out what commands God has given us in regard to Christian living is to live morally, to live sexually moral lives as defined by the Bible. We don't get to define what that means. The Bible has already told us what that means, and as Christians, we surrender to the authority of God's Word. God has revealed His will in His Word. We go to His Word. We learn what His will is. Sometimes we have to study it very carefully to make sure that we understand it properly. But our desire is to obey God as He has revealed His will to us in the area of sexual morality. It's very clear. It's very plain. And yet, as you know, there are people in our day who try to change this, to twist that, to challenge this, to say that God's Word is not clear in this area, that area, to say that God sanctions things which the Word of God clearly does not sanction, there is a special judgment of God that falls upon those who deliberately distort the meaning of His Word in order to justify their unwillingness to obey His Word. Christians are those, and I'm talking about true Christians, Bible Christians, that's the only kind of Christians there are, but there are many in our day who want the label Christian, they want to call themselves Christians, they want to think of themselves as Christians, they want others to think of them as Christians, and yet they're not willing to live according to the Bible. And so they distort deliberately what the Bible says and declare that it teaches the opposite of what it actually teaches in order to justify their determination to live a sinful lifestyle in certain areas, and this area of sexual immorality is certainly one of those areas that has come under great attack today. The chapter opens saying, I remind you that Christians are to live like Christians. Christians are to live according to the commands of God. And command number one, and the one that takes up the most space in this section, is live in sexual purity. Live in sexual morality as defined by the Bible, as God has revealed it. But what else? Well, notice what verse eight says before we move on, therefore he who rejects this, what Bulger says here about the way we are to live sexually moral lives, therefore he who rejects this does not reject man but God. But God, it's so clear, it's so plain in this passage. If you reject what the Bible says about about how we are to behave, whether we're talking about sexual morality or other subjects as well, but if you reject what the Bible says about how Christians are to behave, you're not rejecting a man who is declaring to you what the Bible says, though many people view it that way, but you're rejecting God. Usually when people don't want to obey the Word of God in whatever area, they they blame the person, the preacher, the pastor, the person who is proclaiming to them what the Bible says, and they find fault with him. I still remember, I don't know how many years ago now, it's probably been 30 or 40 years ago, when I was dealing with a couple in our church who were having problems in various areas, and I gave them scripture for what I was saying to them. I was in a counseling situation with them, and I opened the Word of God, and I said, this is what the Bible says about this area that we're discussing now. And the response was, well, that's your interpretation. That's just the way you're interpreting the Bible. The implication was that isn't really what the Bible says, or that isn't necessarily what the Bible says. That's just your interpretation of the Bible. To which I replied, and I've learned to do this over the years now, to which I replied, okay, Then what's your interpretation of this verse? And I don't remember what verse we were discussing at the time, but here's what the Bible says. Here's a text, a verse, that I offer to you to help us understand and clarify what God says about this subject. Your response is, well, that's just your interpretation. That's just what you are saying. That's what a man is saying. That's not necessarily what God is saying. And so I say, okay, what is your interpretation? I'd like to listen to it. I'd like to hear your interpretation of this verse. And then we can discuss it and see whose interpretation comes the closest to to reflecting what this verse is actually saying. And their response was nothing. They didn't have an interpretation of the verse. That was just obviously a justification, a dodge, which they had used before and nobody ever challenged them on it. And some of you may be in the same boat. That's just your interpretation and you throw that out and use that to to avoid what the Bible says in some area that you don't agree with, that you don't want to submit to. That's just your interpretation. Well, before we just accept that and move on, agree to disagree and go our separate ways, let's hear what your interpretation of that verse is. You explain it to me. What do you think that verse is saying? And if you can't do that, it should be very obvious that this is just a ploy when you say that's just your interpretation. And verse 8 of chapter 4 nails it. Therefore, he who rejects this, what Paul just said about how we are to behave in regard to sexual behavior, sexual morality, Therefore he who does he who rejects this does not reject man That's what you think you're doing but God Now the sad thing about it is in sexual immorality, as I presume in probably every area of God's commands, you can always find someone who claims to be a Christian, always find someone who claims to be a Christian teacher, or pastor, or Christian leader of some kind, who will tell you that the Bible actually says what you would like for it to say, rather than what it actually says. You can always find somebody like that. And that's what many people do. they will choose their churches, they will choose their pastors, they will choose their Christian leaders, not on the basis of who is most careful in handling God's Word and most faithful in telling me what the Bible actually says, but who is telling me what I want to hear so that I can justify myself in disobeying the Bible and salve my conscience in doing that. In other words, the Bible has described that for us, too, when it talks about in the latter days, and we are in those days, that people will, using King James English, will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. Heap to themselves! There's lots of them! You could heap them up! Teachers who have itching ears, in other words, they listen to what people want to hear, and then they give it to them. And that makes them popular, and that gives them a following, that gives them financial security, and sometimes financial wealth, and everybody's happy. They tell people what they want to hear, and people reward them accordingly, and thus the Word of God is disregarded. Don't let that be you, because you'll have to answer for what the Bible actually says in the day you stand before God. Until then, until next week, until tomorrow rather, Greg Barkman saying good day, may God give you His eternal peace.