Watchman Radio Hour

David Schult: Welcome to the Watchman Radio Hour. Coming to you from Portland, Oregon here in the beautiful Northwest. This is David Schult, 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's 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 two and we begin reading in verse one. Let us hear the word of God. You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know. But with the help of our God, we dared to tell you this gospel in spite of strong opposition.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the Bible that you've 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.

Sometimes it seems useless to proclaim the gospel to a society that does not want to hear it. Many churches aim at seeker-friendly services and try not to do anything to offend non-Christians. Other churches concentrate on social work and put the preaching of the gospel in the background lest it drive people away. Yet is it not to be our priority as the church to put the gospel first before men?

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." He goes on to say in verses 23 through 24, "But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

And then he goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

Paul also faced an ungodly society as he went into the Roman world with the gospel. And yet he preached it, and with great boldness empowered by God. As a result, the New Testament church was planted and the gospel went into all the world. Today we must not shirk back because the world opposes us or our message. We must press forward and boldly proclaim his message, the one that we have been entrusted with. We must not water the message down to please men, but rather to proclaim God's truth by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our text for today is 1 Thessalonians 2 and verses one and two. Again we read, "You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know. But with the help of our God, we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition." We must proclaim the gospel in spite of difficulties.

Paul could have given up because he faced much difficulty in Philippi. And yet he pressed on to the next place and there took a bold stand for the gospel and found success. God will bless his word and bless us if we are obedient to his command. We must press on with the gospel in spite of opposition.

Now let us see in the first place, the mission to Thessalonica was a success. Again our text says in verse two, "We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know. But with the help of our God, we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition." In verse one it says, "You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure."

They left Philippi after being persecuted. We know this because it says in Acts 16, beginning to read in verse 16, "Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us shouting, 'These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.'"

She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her." At that moment the spirit left her. When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.

They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These men are Jews and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice." The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

But eventually they were freed from prison and they pressed on to Thessalonica. They did not give up or shirk back from their ministry in spite of difficulties. They kept on. What a lesson we can learn from them. We must not give up preaching the gospel just because there's opposition. We must press on.

And then let us see that the gospel was successful. The gospel could not be stopped. Paul went on to the next place and the gospel prevailed. God opened the hearts of the Thessalonians to receive the message and he gave them favor in the eyes of the people there.

William Hendrickson writes, "It is the apostle's contention that this entering in had not been empty. The word used in the original also means empty handed. According to this meaning of the word, what Paul is saying is this: Far from aiming to take something away from you, we brought you something. When we came to you, our hands were not empty. It harmonizes beautifully with the preceding context, where it says in one and verse five, 'Our gospel did not come to you in words only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit with full assurance.'"

The message had not been empty. It was filled with divine meaning, being the good news which came from God. It was accompanied by power and the Holy Spirit and it was presented with firm conviction. It also matches the following context, in which Paul stresses the fact that he and his associates had come to Thessalonica with good news from God, with courage, and with real deep-seated concern for the people.

Leon Morris writes, "Paul is affirming as a well-known fact the purposeful manner of his visit." And then he goes on to say in another place, "In a masterful understatement Paul goes on to say that his entrance was not in vain. The Greek perfect tense giving the idea of a continuing result. It was not only that there was an impressive result at the time of the preaching, but a permanent change was wrought in the lives of the believers."

The word kenos, rendered "in vain", carries the idea of emptiness and is a strong repudiation of any thought that Paul had frittered his time away in aimless pursuits. He had come with a definite aim and he had secured what he had aimed at. This preaching of the gospel was not in vain. It was successful because God was there and he had gone ahead and prepared the way.

Now let us see in the second place, in spite of opposition, the gospel prevailed. There was difficulty, strain, agony, persecution. In Acts 17:5 and 6 and verse 10, it describes what happened in Thessalonica: "But the Jews were jealous, and so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd, but they didn't find them. As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea."

They came bringing the gospel and there was opposition and difficulty. William Hendrickson writes, "Paul and his companions had exerted themselves to the utmost, as an athlete who is aiming for the prize, in order that they might do the will of God and might win these people for whom they yearned so earnestly."

Leon Morris says the opposition at Philippi of which Paul has spoken in the first part of the verse did not cease when he came to Thessalonica. There too as he preached it was in much conflict. The word conflict is a vivid one. It is part of the vocabulary of athletes, where it means a contest or race. It is that from which we derive our word agony. It denotes not a token opposition, a tepid struggle, but a very real battle.

The use of the word here reminds the Thessalonians that the opposition which Paul had met was intense and his preaching had not been easy. Matthew Henry writes, "The apostle was inspired with a holy boldness, nor was he discouraged at the afflictions he met with or the opposition that was made against him. He had met with ill usage at Philippi, as these Thessalonians well knew. There it was that he and Silas were shamefully treated, being put in the stocks, yet no sooner were they set at liberty than they went to Thessalonica and preached the gospel with as much boldness as ever."

Note, suffering in a good cause should rather sharpen than blunt the edge of holy resolution. The gospel of Christ at its first setting out in the world met with much opposition and those who preached it, preached it with contention, with great agony, which denoted either the apostles' striving in their preaching or their striving against the opposition that they met with. This was Paul's comfort. He was neither daunted in his work nor driven from it.

God was their helper. They proclaimed the gospel boldly and God helped them. John Calvin writes, "It was therefore a work of God that although Paul had suffered various misfortunes and indignity, he appeared unaffected and did not hesitate to launch an assault on a large and wealthy city for the purpose of leading its people captive to Christ. Paul does not discharge his duty to the accompaniment of applause or favor, but had to wage a fierce conflict. In the meantime he stood firm and undaunted, which proves that he was borne up by the hand of God."

This is what he means when he says that he waxed bold. Certainly if all of these circumstances are carefully weighed, it cannot be denied that God made there a magnificent display of his power. Leon Morris says Paul speaks of waxing bold in our God. Because he lived in his God, he was always at home no matter what the outward circumstances and thus always had the attitude of ready speech we have been thinking of. It was because he lived and moved in God that no hardship and no opposition was able to take away Paul's confidence and his courage.

As we proclaim the gospel in obedience to the Lord's command, we must believe that the Lord will be with us and enable us. And then let us see in the third place, the need to proclaim the gospel in spite of opposition. It is the power of God for man's salvation. Romans 1:16 says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew and then for the Gentile."

The gospel is the power of God. God goes with it and makes it effectual unto men. Leon Morris says when Paul speaks of the gospel of God, he turns men's thoughts away from anything of human contrivance to God's perfect way. This thought is one which he develops with power in this chapter and he uses the phrase 'the gospel of God' again and again. It's God's gospel and comes into man with God's power.

We're under Christ's command to proclaim the gospel. This is to be our priority. The gospel should come first. We should proclaim it to our society and call men and women and young people to repentance and faith. Our society is corrupted with sin. The gospel preached in power is our only hope.

Whether it's a sensually explicit performance presented by MTV or idolatry in its many forms, sin is rampant in our nation. In a recent speech, Megan Gurdon discusses young adult literature being produced in our nation today. She says, "On June the 4th, 2011, the number one trending topic on Twitter was the Anthony Weiner scandal. I happen to remember that because the number two topic on Twitter that day, almost as frenzied though not less humorous, had to do with an outrageous intolerable attack on young adult literature by me, entitled 'Darkness Too Visible'."

My article discussed the increasingly dark current that runs through books classified as YA for young adult. Books aimed at readers between 12 and 18 years of age. A subset that has, in the four decades since young adult became a distinct category in fiction, become increasingly lurid, grotesque, profane, sexual, and ugly.

Though our culture continues its descent into wickedness, we must not give up proclaiming the gospel. The early Christians faced a culture of wickedness and idolatry, and they proclaimed the gospel to it and multitudes were saved and changed. Today we must proclaim that same gospel to this another wicked culture. We must believe that God will honor his word as it is proclaimed. Victories can be won and people can be changed under the power of the gospel.

Ian Murray describes what happened in America at the time of the First Great Awakening and how our culture was changed. He writes, "Everywhere the reign of formality seemed to be broken and tears streamed down the faces of thousands under the preaching of the gospel. Before the end of that same year, all parts of the eastern seaboard of America, from Boston in the north to Savannah in the south, were expressing a stirring of religious concern exceeding anything remembered from former days."

In May 1740 it was reported there was never such a general awakening and concern for the things of God known in America before. In June Whitefield, who had returned to America the previous autumn, wrote, "Oh what wonderful things is God doing in America. What the event of the present general awakening will be I know not." In July, amazed at the spread of the work, he exclaimed, "Surely our Lord intends to set the world in a flame."

The Great Awakening continued in America until 1743 to 44, bringing thousands into the kingdom of God and establishing a new spiritual and moral outlook in the colonies as a whole. It was estimated, says Turnbull, an American writer who belonged to the generation immediately following the revival, that in two or three years, thirty or forty thousand souls were born into the family of heaven in New England, besides great numbers in New York, New Jersey, and the more southern provinces.

Of the many he personally knew as having professed conversion during the awakening, he writes, "They were constant and serious in their attendance on public worship, prayerful, righteous, and charitable, strict in the government of their families, and not one of them so far as he knew was ever guilty of scandal." Murray goes on to describe what happened in Scotland during that same period of time in a place called Cambuslang.

In January 1742, ninety heads of families in Cambuslang had requested their minister William M'Culloch to hold a weeknight service for the exposition of scripture, this type of address being termed a lecture. The night was fixed for Thursday, and on Thursday, February the 18th, after several days in which a spirit of prayer had been especially evident, some fifty people detained their minister through the night as they sought spiritual help and relief from conviction of sin.

From this point onwards, the influence and success which followed the ministry of the word was such that preaching now became M'Culloch's daily work. The whole parish with its 900 inhabitants was profoundly moved as quarrels, swearing, drunkenness, and all the other characteristics of worldliness gave way visibly to a confession of wrongs, restitution, remorse, and prayerfulness.

The report, says a contemporary, spread like fire. Vast multitudes were attracted there. "I believe that in less than two months from its commencement, there were few parishes within 12 miles that had not more or less of their people awakened by resorting there, and many who were awakened there came from places greatly more distant."

These things happen through the powerful preaching of the word of God accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit. But can such things happen again? We believe they can. Can such a culture as ours that has sunk so low be revived? We believe it can, but only if God sends a powerful revival like he has in the past.

And it's for this that we must pray. We must not rest until it comes. We must cry out as the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem in Isaiah 62:6 and 7: "I have posted watchmen on your walls, oh Jerusalem. They will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth."

We must pray for the gospel to shine in America. We must pray first for the revival of the church, that it might be a shining light in this dark land. We must then pray that the revival will spread to the whole nation of people and multitudes will be converted and come to the Lord. We must pray that God will raise up powerful preachers of his word throughout the nation to proclaim the gospel with power and boldness without promise.

We must pray for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit and that conviction of sin will come upon the multitudes and that men and women and young people will turn from their sins and turn back to the Lord. May this great revival begin with you today as you turn now in repent of your sins and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. And may you be the beginning of a great wave that will engulf the nation and spread from shore to shore.

May God grant this and may we thank him for what he will yet do in this great land. Our Father in heaven, we know that even now you are displeased with our nation. We know that our sins are piled up to heaven, and we know that even now your wrath is being revealed from heaven against us. But we pray that in the midst of your wrath that you would have mercy and that you would send your Holy Spirit in great convicting power all over this nation.

We pray that you will send a great revival to the church and then we pray that you would send a revival to the whole nation as the gospel is proclaimed with mighty power throughout the land. We ask for this and we believe that it's possible because you've done it before and we pray that you would do it again. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.

David Schult: 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. You may listen to this broadcast at any time on the internet at www.oneplace.com. In the list of ministries, just select the Watchman Radio Hour. This week's program and previous programs are always available there for listening. Our web address is www.watchmanradio.org. That's w-a-t-c-h-m-e-n radio dot org. www.watchmanradio.org.