THE SOUNDING OUT OF GOD S WORD I Thess. 1:8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord There is no truth like the truth that is the Word of God! It is the most precious gift He has given for the building up and for the bringing to maturity of the child of God. It has been proved the case down through the centuries, in all types of situations, in all kinds of circumstances, Ps. 33:11 The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. In the opening verses of this epistle we saw presented the three missionaries, - Paul, Silas and Timothy. Paul emphasised the three Persons of the Godhead and the direction they gave to the three missionaries. And then Paul set out the three basic marks of the believer, - faith, love and hope. These were a redeemed people in Thessalonika, - a people that God by grace had saved unto Himself despite the opposition of the Jews that threatened their very foundations. Paul encourages them not with empty words but he supported their enthusiasm in the Lord. THE WITNESS THEY PROCLAIMED For from you sounded out the word of the Lord Wouldn t this be a tremendous recommendation to any pastor or preacher when they come to stand before the Throne on Judgement Day! from you sounded out the word of the Lord. Indeed, wouldn t it be a fantastic way for the Lord to greet everyone of us here in Heaven! Does He see you sounding out the word of the Lord? These Christians in this city were very aware of the opposition of the Jews and the apathy of the Greeks to their message. Evangelism in those days wouldn t have been any easier than evangelism in our day. People would not have been interested. They were far too busy. They had any amount of gods they needed to suit their whims and desires. Christ was an unwelcome addition because worship of Him demanded too much! But Paul commends these believers, from you sounded out the word of the Lord the preaching of God s Word!
D.G. 2 There is absolutely no substitute for the preaching of God s Word and it is beautiful how Paul describes it here, sounding out the word of the Lord. He s not holding back, - he is preaching faithfully that which the Lord laid upon his heart for the people to hear. You know, it s not my responsibility to save souls, - that is the work the Holy Spirit does, - it s my responsibility to preach faithfully God s Word! It s not my responsibility to fill this church to overflowing, - it s my responsibility to preach faithfully God s Word! and I would trust and pray that God would save souls and indeed add to the Church but it s my responsibility to preach God s Word faithfully! It s your responsibility and my responsibility to - in whatever way we can - preach and live out faithfully God s Word Think what this would have meant This would have been the first time the inhabitants of Thessalonika heard of Jesus. His Name would have been unknown to the great majority. He was a foreign God, - a new God from a faraway land. There wouldn t have been any problem introducing another god to the Greeks, - after all, they had so many already what s another one! But they wouldn t have wanted to be confronted with the news that there only is one God! And these new Christians would have been speaking about Jesus Who was a complete stranger to their countrymen. We ve got to say, - with great shame to the Church, - the Jesus of the Bible is a stranger to the great number in our land today. The only time many of them mention the Name of Jesus is when they use it as a swear word, The Jesus they sometimes hear about at times like Christmas isn t much better than a kind of a fairy story, And the Jesus of the cathedral is too full of pomp and ceremony and high traditions that He is not relevant or has nothing to say to people personally. It s not hard to imagine what these early Christians had to put up with, - the opposition and the apathy. And Paul s words are beautiful, from you sounded out [resonated] the word of the Lord. They didn t keep quiet until they were heard and listened to.
D.G. 3 Where do we fall down? Where are we falling short these days? Surely it s because we give up far too easy, - it s as if we have a message that s not really all that important whether the unsaved listen to it or not. Just to think that Paul travelled thousands of miles in his ministry to tell people about Christ and many believers nowadays find it almost too much bother to speak a word for Christ when the Holy Spirit so graciously opens up the opportunity. These believers in Thessalonika were enthusiastic for Him and it affected the way they lived before their neighbours in the witness they proclaimed. THE WARNING THEY PREACHED so that we need not to speak any thing. It was a strange doctrine they taught to their fellow-citizens. They taught them that a Jew died on a cross in faraway Jerusalem to defeat the power of sin, and if they, - the Greeks, - placed their trust in Him and repented of their sin they would enjoy victory over their sin and escape an eternity in hell. Now think how foreign such a Gospel would have been to those people: Jerusalem is so far away that it is of no value to me to know anything about what happened there. If this Jew, - Jesus, - is as powerful as you say He is why did He allow Himself to be put to death, our gods would have stood up and defended themselves and fought off their enemy. The story of a Saviour dying is no victory story that should related to and god, - it s pathetic! Listen to the stories of our great gods: Zeus is our great god, Poseidon is our god of earthquakes and the sea. We can t believe in a God Who died on a cross! And they would tell you too you don t become a better person by giving in repenting, you become a better person by standing up for yourself and winning your own victories! And hell? Yes, some of the Greeks believed in an afterlife. They placed a silver coin in the mouth of the dead to pay the ferryman of the Styx for passage across the river. You see, these were religious people among whom the church at Thessalonika was placed.
D.G. 4 They weren t unbelievers, - they believed in their own form of religion but their own religion was condemning them to a lost eternity. In their city, as the consequence of the activities of the three missionaries, God raised up a body of believers and gave them a burden for the salvation of their own people. They didn t leave it to foreigners or to someone else, they themselves shared the Gospel in every way they could, taking every opportunity to speak of Christ that s what Paul was referring to, v.8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing. What makes you tell other people about salvation in Christ? Surely the underlying factor is that you want to tell them there is a God in Heaven that loves them; He loved them so much He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem. Love nowadays is so mismanaged and can mean a whole of things true love doesn t mean at all. People need to know there is a God in Heaven Who loves them with an immeasurable love. Surely before you tell them about the wrath of God you need to tell them about the love of God and how His love was planned in such a way as to bring about their salvation. Yes, you tell them about the love of God but you also need to tell them about the wrath of God and the outcome for all those who reject His love. God demands our attention and we either accept His love or reject it. There is no middle ground. If you re not saved, - as far as God is concerned, - you are rejecting His offer of love. And when you reject His offer of love, - that was paid for at such a high cost, - you remain under His wrath. And there is no other means by which the wrath of God can be escaped except through that way He has provided when He loved you so much that His Son died on Calvary. You see, if all you tell the people about is the love of God you are giving them a warped, empty Gospel that will save no-one. If you keep telling them about the love of God they won t realise they have to repent of their sins and believe in Christ for salvation.
D.G. 5 Similarly, if you only tell them about the wrath of God you are presenting a God that is frightening, terrifying and terrible! These people in Thessalonika would have presented the Gospel in a simple way like this: that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved (Rom. 10:9). Paul commends these Thessalonian believers in the Gospel in the witness they proclaimed and in the warning they preached. And as he remembered their faithfulness he reminded them of THE WISDOM THEY PRESENTED how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; 10 And to wait for his Son from heaven There were only a small number of Christians in that city compared with all the idolaters. Their voice would have been small but that didn t hold them back because of the burden they had for the souls of the people. They knew out of what they had been saved, - they had worshipped gods of stone and wood. They were foreigners to God s grace but, said Paul 5:9 God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. And He turned them round from looking at the gods to looking at God! The gods they used to worship only had plans to further their own pleasure; but the God they now believed in promised them the hope of the coming of His Son, v.10 to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. All the gods of the Greeks were out for their own enjoyment at the expense of the people who worshipped them. With Jesus it is the other way round: Christ paid the price that we would enjoy Him forever for He delivered us from the wrath to come. When you are sitting with your family and you are talking about ordinary, everyday, mundane things do you ever think there is coming a day when you will be parted? Does it ever dawn on you with such a heavy weight that those people whom you love with all your heart are going to close their eyes in death and that you will never ever see them again? They re not saved, nor neither would they want to hear they need to be saved. But do you realise that those people whom you
D.G. 6 love are heading towards a lost eternity in the everlasting fires of the torment of hell?! You don t need to be at them all the time with the Gospel because sometimes that can drive them further away but do you pray that God the Holy Spirit would force down their walls of opposition to the Gospel and they would be saved? Do you pray they would be convicted and convinced of their sin and that they would be made alive in Christ for time and eternity? That s the kind of burden the people in this church had, - it s the burden we need to have back again! This was the type of the wisdom they presented and it was a wisdom completely different from the world s. I love what Paul wrote in I Cor. 1:27, But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. The wisdom God gives far exceeds anything man can give for His wisdom makes us wise unto salvation. Jesus is coming again soon. The Bible says the world won t last forever and even the scientists can t see how it will keep going on indefinitely but Jesus said at the end of time He will return for His people. The Church in Thessalonika were looking forward to that day, - I trust you are too and you are prepared to meet Him! CONCLUSION It s good to see a church motivated by their faith in God. It seems to be getting rarer and rarer these days. We need to learn from the Thessalonians and see the witness they proclaimed as they sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad. And they were faithful in its proclamation in the warning they preached to the people in their city. And the wisdom they presented was all about Jesus and the difference He had made in their lives and how they were looking forward to His coming again. Two thousand years later and we re still talking about this church and the legacy it has passed on. May God bless our study this evening of this passage and may He use it to encourage us in our walk and service before our friends and family for Him.