Watchman Radio Hour

David Sholt: Welcome to the Watchman Radio Hour. Coming to you from Portland, Oregon here in the beautiful Northwest. This is David Sholt, your announcer. The Watchman Radio Hour is a production of Watchman Radio Ministries International, an evangelistic ministry reaching out to the peoples of the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now here is our speaker, Alex Dodson, to bring you this week's message from God's word.

Alex Dodson: For our scripture reading today, let us turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, and we will be reading verses 10 through 12. Let us hear the word of God. "You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory."

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the Bible that you have given us. We thank you that it's your infallible word and that we can put our full confidence in everything that it says. And now, oh Father, as we come to study your word, we pray that you will send forth your Holy Spirit in great convicting power. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

How should we then live as Christians? Some live as Christians on Sunday morning and then seem to forget who they are the rest of the week. Some even live as Christians on Sunday morning and forget who they are on Sunday afternoon. Christians even go to and join in worship at other events on Sunday apart from the church and worshipping God. Christians fully participate in Super Bowl Sunday events and totally forget what the Sabbath day is supposed to be like.

We join in with the crowd for great commercial events on Sunday and think nothing about it. When we do this, are we living lives worthy of the kingdom we have been called into? Christians go to and support movies filled with words former generations would not allow to be uttered in public. Yet today, Christians ignore immoral content in movies and join in with the crowd to view them and support them with their dollars. When we do this, are we living lives worthy of the kingdom we have been called into?

Young Christians listen to music filled with words God forbids and think nothing about it. What we allow to go into our minds matters. When we fill our minds with filth, are we living lives worthy of the kingdom we have been called into? Christians live together outside marriage and think it's okay. Yet by so doing, they trample marriage in the mud and do what God forbids. When we do such things, are we living lives worthy of the kingdom we have been called into?

Young Christians, especially, go along with the majority, it seems, in condoning and approving of lifestyles the Bible forbids. When we do such things, are we living lives worthy of the kingdom we have been called into? We could go on and on. There's so much being done today by those who call themselves Christians that are not worthy of the kingdom to which we have been called into. Paul urges these young Thessalonian Christians to be careful how they live and to purposefully live lives worthy of the kingdom of God.

Our text again is 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 10 through 12. And I read again, "You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory."

We are called to live lives worthy of the kingdom of God. So many Christians today give lip service to the Bible and yet do not live out its precepts and don't even know what its precepts are. We need to get back to the Bible in a serious way if we are to live lives worthy of the kingdom we have been called into. A lot of the compromising of Christians today stems from the fact that they just don't know what the Bible teaches about how they should live.

Many live just like the rest of the world with little difference in their lifestyles. Yet Paul calls on all of us to live differently from the rest of the world because we are being called into the kingdom of God. Today we need a national repentance to take place, beginning with Christians who hold to the name of Christ but do not live up to that name. Repentance needs to begin with the house of God in this nation and then spread outwardly to everyone else in the nation.

We live in troublous times and this nation is sinking deeper into sin as each day passes. How can God withhold his judgment any longer? Yet even now, his warning judgments have begun and we don't even realize it. The time for a national repentance is now, before it's too late. God will not always withhold his judgment if we keep sinking deeper into sin. His judgment has already begun and will expand and continue unless we repent.

Yet until the Lord pours out his spirit from on high, our country will continue to sink. And so we need to pray for a great revival to come that will turn this country around. Now let us see in the first place the example of Paul and his helpers. Verse 10 says, "You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed." They lived holy lives among them. Paul and his companions purposefully lived holy lives among the Thessalonians.

The people saw their lives up close and knew they were different. They were modeling the lives of those who are called into the kingdom of God. John Calvin, the great reformer, wrote: "You are witnesses in order to affirm his integrity. He again calls God and the Thessalonians as the witnesses of an acknowledged fact. We behaved," Paul says, "holily and righteously with a genuine fear of God and faithfulness and lack of offense towards men. We behaved in the third place unblameably, by which he means that he had given no occasion for complaint or contradiction."

The servants of Christ cannot avoid slanders or misrepresentations. For since they are hated by the world, they must have a bad reputation among the wicked. Paul therefore confines this remark to believers who judge with integrity and uprightness and do not willfully or groundlessly detract from the reputation of others. And William Hendriksen, in commenting on this passage, says Paul and Silas and Timothy had carried on their work among them with devotion to God, piously, holily, as men separated unto God in his service.

Ever striving to do what is right according to his law, hence in an irreproachable manner. But inasmuch as man's judgment is after all fallible, for man looks on the outward appearance but Jehovah looks on the heart, the statement "you are witnesses" is immediately followed by "and so is God." The Thessalonians had witnessed the godly lives of Paul and his companions and they knew that they were living in the presence of God who also witnessed how they lived. They were careful to model the gospel before them.

Paul and the others with him set an example for the Thessalonians to follow. They modeled for them what a Christian should be like and how a Christian should live. Matthew Henry, the old Puritan commentator, writes: "You are witnesses and God also. They were observers of their outward conversation in public before men, and God was witness not only of their behavior in secret, but of the inward principles from which they acted."

Their behavior was holy towards God, just towards all men, and unblamable, without giving cause of scandal or offense. And they were careful to give no offense either to those who were without or to those who believed that they might give no ill example, that their preaching and living might be all of a piece. Herein, said this apostle, do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense towards God and towards men.

And then let us see in the second place they dealt with them as a loving father. Verse 11 says, "For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children." They dealt with them personally with each of them. They had a personal interest in each of them. They probably had personal conversations with individuals and helped them thereby. They brought the gospel to each of them personally.

John Calvin writes: "We dealt with each one of you as a father. What he means is that he was concerned for them as a father is generally concerned for his children, and that he had taken pains like a true father to instruct and admonish them. No man will ever be a good pastor unless he shows himself to be a father to the church entrusted to his." Paul does not state that he had been a father merely to the whole body but also to the individual members.

It is not enough that a pastor in the pulpit should teach all the people together if he does not also add particular instruction as necessity requires or occasion offers. Hence in Acts 20:26, Paul declares that he is pure from the blood of all men because he did not cease to give public admonition to all and private instruction to individuals in their own homes. Instruction given to all is sometimes of little service, and some cannot be cured or corrected without particular medicine.

Leon Morris says this: "On this occasion, the knowledge is of the personal dealings the evangelist had had with their converts. Each one of you implies attention to individuals. It may even signify house to house visiting as well as public preaching." And he goes on to write: "His loving care is brought out in this insistence that he had brought the message to everyone. In other words, he had not contented himself with giving the message in general terms to the Thessalonian public at large, but he had been sufficiently interested in individuals to bring it home to them one by one, evidently in private conversations."

It was a personal gospel that they brought to the Thessalonians and they showed them the care of a loving father as they gave it to them. And then let us see that they were gentle toward them. They encouraged them and they comforted them. They dealt with them as a father deals with his own children. John Calvin says, "exhorting you. He shows how genuinely he was concerned about their well-being and says that when he preached about reverence to God and the duties of the Christian life, it was no halfhearted manner, but he employed exhortations and earnest requests."

Hendriksen writes, "Paul, Silas and Timothy while in Thessalonica had loved these people like a mother loves and cherishes her own children and had admonished them as a father. They had admonished them so that they would act freely, encouraged them so that they would act gladly and testified so that they would act reverently, with a proper sense of respect for the will of God as expressed in his word, hence with fear." They had dealt with each one of them having done individual pastoral work among them.

The stay in Thessalonica must have lasted more than three weeks. They had also dealt with all of them as a group, addressing them collectively, teaching them, explaining the word of God to them and exhorting them to accept it by faith and to live in accordance with it. They had factored with the immaturity of these people and had loved them dearly. Both of these ideas, immaturity and love, are implied in the term children.

And then Leon Morris says, "encouraging is from a verb which in the classics means much the same as does the preceding verb. In chapter 5, it is used of comforting the fainthearted and in the Johannine passages of comforting the bereaved. Clearly the verb is well adapted to the thought of consolation. We shall not be far wrong in assuming that here it is used with special reference to those who found it difficult to live the Christian way in the face of the opposition they encountered. To them the apostle spoke words of cheer and inspiration."

And so Paul and the others with him treated these Thessalonians gently as a loving father to them. And then let us see in the third place that they urged them to live lives worthy of God in his kingdom. Verse 12 says, "encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory." He urged them to watch how they lived. They set an example for them to follow and then they urged and encouraged them to live lives worthy of the kingdom that they were being called into.

Matthew Henry writes: "He mentions their faithful discharge of the work and office of the ministry, verses 11 and 12. Concerning this also, he could appeal to them as witnesses. Paul and his fellow laborers were not only good Christians but faithful ministers. And we should not only be good as to our general calling as Christians, but in our particular callings and relations. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians not only informing them in their duty but exciting and quickening them to the performance of it by proper motives and arguments."

"And he comforted them also, endeavoring to cheer and support their spirits under the difficulties and discouragements they might meet with. And this he did not only publicly but privately also and from house to house. And charged every one of them by personal addresses. This some think is intended by the similitude of a father, father's charging his children. This expression also denotes the affectionate and compassionate counsels and consolations which this apostle used. He was their spiritual father."

"And as he cherished them like a nursing mother, so he charged them as a father with a father's affection rather than a father's authority. 'As my beloved sons I warn you.' 1 Corinthians 4:14. The manner of this apostle's exhortation ought to be regarded by ministers in particular for their imitation and for the matter of it is greatly to be regarded by them and all others, namely that they would walk worthy of God who hath called them to his kingdom and glory."

And so let us see that he urged them to live a life worthy of their calling into God's kingdom. They had a special calling. They were being called by God into his kingdom and now that they had received that call, they must live lives worthy of it. John Calvin writes: "That you should walk. He touches briefly on the main point of his exhortation, the warning which he gives while extolling the mercy of God that they should not neglect their calling. His tribute to the grace of God is contained in the phrase, 'who calleth you into his own kingdom.'"

"Since our salvation is based on God's free adoption of us, every blessing that Christ has bought us is included in this single phrase. It now remains for us to respond to God's call, that is, to show ourselves to be such children to him as he is a father to us." And William Hendriksen writes: "Now the object of all this fatherly exhortation was that the readers would walk, that is, pass their lives in a manner worthy of, that is, in harmony with, their relation to God, who by means of preaching and pastoral care was calling them into the future realm where his kingship is fully recognized and his glory is reflected in the hearts and lives of all his subjects."

And Leon Morris writes: "The kingdom of God is not a very frequent idea in the Pauline correspondence, though in Acts 20:25 the term sums up Paul's preaching at Ephesus. In the gospels, we come across references to the kingdom again and again. It is the most frequent topic in our Lord's teaching. The kingdom is in some sense present and in some sense future. That is to say men may enter the kingdom here and now and experience some measure of its joy, but the full apprehension of what it involves cannot be attained until the end of the age."

"The kingdom is essentially dynamic. It is something that happens, not a static realm. It is God's righteous rule operating within men and over men." And then in regard to the word glory, he writes: "It stands for the manifestation of God's glory to men, the revelation of God in his majesty. Paul holds out this glorious future as an incentive to the Thessalonians to live worthily here and now. But though there is this definite note of tenderness and understanding, it is also clear that the message was uncompromising for the demand was made that you would walk worthy of God."

"Clearly, Paul had not toned down the demands of the gospel in any way and we are reminded that when we become followers of the Christ, no less a demand is made on us." And then he says he thought of the kingdom as something that happens, as God's rule in action, rather than as a realm. In a sense the kingdom is present here and now for there are those who have yielded themselves to God to do his will, and in a sense it is future, for not yet do we see all his enemies put under his feet.

Matthew Henry says: "Observe one, what is our great privilege? That God has called us to his kingdom and glory. The gospel calls us unto the kingdom and state of grace here and unto the kingdom and state of glory hereafter, to heaven and happiness as our end and to holiness as the way to that end. And secondly, what is our great gospel duty? It is that we walk worthy of God, that the temper of our minds and tenor of our lives be answerable to this call and suitable to this privilege. We should accommodate ourselves to the intention and design of the gospel and live suitably to our profession and privilege, our hopes and expectations as become those who are called with such a high and holy calling."

And so as Christians, we have a calling from God into his kingdom and so how we live does matter. We cannot live like the rest of the world because we are not members of their kingdom, the kingdom of Satan. We are members of the kingdom of God. If the rest of the world rejects the laws of God, we cannot. If the rest of the world shakes its fist in the face of God, we cannot. If the rest of the world turns its back on God, we cannot.

We are members of God's kingdom and we must live lives worthy of that kingdom. If God's people are called into God's kingdom, we must live as citizens of that kingdom. Today we see Christians with lifestyles not too different from everybody else. We see Christians spending their Sundays like everybody else, except when they go to church. We see Christian women dressing like everybody else, even though what they wear may be immodest, calling others to sin.

We see Christians going to the same movies and watching the same television programs as everybody else, even though their content may be immoral and the language indecent. We see Christians worshipping the same idols, whether they be sports idols, technology idols, automobile idols, or many other kinds of idols. So many Christians are giving only lip service to the Bible and not living lives conforming to the Bible. So many Christians know so little of what the Christian life is all about.

We live lives unworthy of God's kingdom to which we are called. This calls for a great repentance in the land. Now let me ask you, are you living a life worthy of the calling of God's kingdom? If not, then are you really a Christian? Have you really submitted yourself to Christ and begun to follow him? Look at your own life. Where are you? Are you living a life worthy of God's calling? If not, then repent and turn anew and afresh to the Lord Jesus Christ and follow him from your heart and live your life for him and not for the world.

Our Father in heaven, as we look out upon the land, we see Christians living like everybody else. And it grieves us, oh Lord, as we see that. But we pray, oh Lord, that you will send your Holy Spirit in great convicting power first of all to the church. We pray that Christians will repent of their own sins and turn back to you and live lives worthy of the kingdom to which they have been called. And then we pray for a pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the whole nation or on the nation as a whole. And we pray that this nation will come to its knees and repent and turn back to you. And we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.

David Sholt: We hope this week's broadcast has been a blessing to you. If you have any questions about Mr. Dodson's message, please write us. You may email us at info@watchmanradio.org. Our mailing address is Watchman Radio Ministries International, Post Office Box 13251 Portland, Oregon 97213. That's Watchman Radio Ministries International, Post Office Box 13251 Portland, Oregon 97213.

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