Watchman Radio Hour

David Scholtz: Welcome to the Watchman Radio Hour. Coming to you from Portland, Oregon, here in the beautiful Northwest. This is David Scholtz, 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 1. First Thessalonians chapter 1. We'll begin reading in verse 1. Let us hear the Word of God.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the Bible that you've given to us. We thank you that it's Your infallible Word and that we can put our full confidence in everything that it says. And I will, Father, we pray that You will send forth Your Holy Spirit in great convicting power. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

A popular teaching among evangelicals today is that the church will soon be raptured out of this evil world. Many believe that this can happen at any moment. Once the church is taken out of the way, a time of great tribulation will come on the Israel and the world. Satan will have his day as all kinds of trouble come upon the Earth during that period.

And then after that period ends, the Lord Jesus Christ will return and begin His reign. Of course, we all believe as Christians in the second coming of Jesus Christ. And we look forward to that day with great anticipation. The whole New Testament points to that glorious appearing of the Lord when He returns.

The problem with much of today's popular teaching about the end times is the low view and vision for the church in this age. It seems that so much of today's teaching gives us a very pessimistic view of the church, as far as this age is concerned.

It's as if the church will barely survive this age and go down in defeat, having to be raptured out of the way, leaving this world to Satan and his forces. However, this seems so contrary to the view of the Old Testament prophets and the teaching of the New Testament itself. Jesus Himself said concerning the church in Matthew 16:28,

"And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

That is, Satan and all his forces will not be able to stop the church's forward momentum. It will be such a mighty force in the Earth that Satan will not be able to stop it. How different is that view from today's popular teaching on the church? The church will wax weaker and weaker and eventually only a remnant will remain and have to be raptured out of this evil world controlled by Satan.

In other words, this popular view gives Satan the victory over the church in this age. One popular teacher puts it this way: All the prophecies that deal with the condition of the institutional church just before the coming of Christ portray it as a time of evil and apostasy.

The believing remnant of the church will be snatched out of a Christ rejecting world to meet the Lord in the air. Most of those who are left behind in the counterfeit church will become part of the man of lawlessness's one world religion and government.

And yet, is there not a view of the church that is much brighter than this one that I've just read? It seems to mean that there is. And that it's found throughout the Bible, especially in the prophets of the Old Testament and in the teachings of the New Testament itself.

Our text today is 1 Thessalonians 1:1, which again says, "Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you."

The church is God's church. And if the church is God's church, He will carry out His purpose through it. And He will not allow it to go down in defeat in this age. God has a plan for the church, and He will carry it through. We must believe that.

Now let us see, in the first place, that God established the church. It says to the church of the Thessalonians in God. He established the Old Testament church. The church began in the Old Testament. God called out a people to be His own. The roots of the church are in Abraham, whom God called to be the father of His people.

That calling was carried on through Isaac and Jacob and then the people of Israel. Israel is God's called out people prepared the way for the Messiah who would come. We cannot separate the church from its Old Testament roots. It began there. And it continued on even until the coming of the Messiah for which the faithful remnant looked forward to.

Jesus refers to this Old Testament church in Matthew 8:5-12. It says, "When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him asking for help. 'Lord,' he said, 'my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.'"

"Jesus said to him, 'I will go and heal him.' The centurion replied, 'Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I tell this one, "Go," and he goes, and that one, "Come," and he comes. I say to my servant, "Do this," and he does it.'"

"When Jesus heard this, He was astonished and said to those following Him, 'I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.'"

"I say to you that many will come from the East and the West and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Now we can apply this verse to the future eternal kingdom, or it may also be applied to the gospel age itself in which people from all over the world will come into the church and have fellowship with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, showing the continuity from the Old Testament church on into the New Testament church.

Then let us see that God has established the New Testament church. Jesus and the apostles established this New Testament church. It was a continuation of the Old Testament church that had already been established by God long ago.

And yet, it was new and that it would be made up not only of the Jews, but from peoples all over the world. This was shown at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to the New Testament church to equip it for its mission. When the Holy Spirit was poured out, the disciples immediately began to proclaim the gospel in many languages, showing that now the gospel would go out to all the world.

Paul as one of the apostles, went as a missionary to the Roman world, planting many churches. And among these churches was the Thessalonian church to which he addresses his letter. They were the called out people of God. They now had fellowship with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, serving the same God and being a part of the same people of God.

John Calvin writes on this passage, "The church in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. By these words, unless I am mistaken, he affirms that the church of God truly exists among the Thessalonians. This mark, therefore, is a proof of a true and lawful church. At the same time, however, these words inform us that we are to seek the church only where God is head and where Christ reigns."

"In short, there is no other church than that which is founded upon God, gathered together by the protection of Christ and united in His name. It's God's church, for He established it."

And William Hendrickson writes, "It is certain, however, that the expression, 'the Thessalonians,' indicates all the members of the church, which had very recently been established in and was still in existence by virtue of its vital union with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The combination of both terms 'in,' that is, grounded in, would seem to indicate that the two are entirely coordinate, that is, that the reference is to the first and to the second persons of the Holy Trinity."

And Leon Morris comments the following words, "In God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are almost certainly to be taken with the church. And they bring us the characteristic of a Christian church. Christians are not simply people who have heard about God and trust Him. They live in Him day by day, and all their deeds are done in Him."

And then Matthew Henry writes, "The persons to whom this epistle is written, namely, the church of the Thessalonians, the converted Jews and Gentiles in Thessalonica. And it is observable that this church is said to be in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ."

They had fellowship with the Father and His son Jesus Christ, as it says in 1 John 1:3. They were a Christian church because they believed in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gentiles among them were turned to God from idols, and the Jews among them believed Jesus to be the promised Messiah.

All of them were devoted and dedicated to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. To God is their chief good and highest end, to Jesus Christ is their Lord and Mediator between God and man.

John Gill comments on this Thessalonian church when he writes, "This church is said to be in God the Father. That is, they were interested in His love and free favor as appears by their election of God in 1 Thessalonians 1:4. And they were in the faith of God the Father as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the profession of it, and so were distinguished from an assembly of heathens that were in the faith of idols, and not of the one true and living God. And especially as the Father of Christ, they were in fellowship with God the Father, and they were drawn by the efficacy of His grace to Himself and to His son, and were gathered together and embodied in a church state under His direction and influence."

"He was the author of them as a church, and they were plants of Christ's heavenly Father's planting, not to be plucked up. And they were, as the Arabic version renders it, addicted to God the Father. They were devoted to His service. They had His word among them, which they had received not as the word of men, but as the word of God, and His ordinances were duly and faithfully administered among them and attended on by them. This church of the Thessalonians was not their church only, but it was God's church. He had brought it about and He would preserve it."

And so let us see in the second place today that God has preserved the church. Again our text says to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father. He preserved it through early persecutions. The New Testament church was established in Jerusalem and spread out everywhere as soon as it began. And yet Satan did not sit by idly, but began almost immediately to persecute the church.

There were wave upon wave of Jewish persecution. Up until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, this was the primary persecution of the church, although Roman persecution had already begun. And then the great Roman persecutions tried to stamp out the church in the years and centuries ahead.

There were ten great Roman persecutions of the church up until the time of Constantine in the fourth century, who brought these persecutions to an end and Christianity became the religion of the whole Roman Empire. And then God preserved His church through apostasy and false teaching.

After the Jewish and Roman persecutions had ceased, another attack on the church came in coming centuries through apostasy and false teaching. And yet God was there preserving His church. And there were always those who were faithful to His Word.

And then He sends the powerful Protestant Reformation. Though the church had sunk into apostasy and false teaching and idolatry, God revived her through the powerful Protestant Reformation, through His servants, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other reformers. The church was reborn and continued on in a powerful way, exalting the Word of God and proclaiming it throughout Europe.

The 16th century saw this great work of God take place. God preserved His church. It was about to die, but God raised it up in a mighty and powerful way. And then God sends revivals and raises up a great missionary movement. The Reformation continued to spread in the 16th and 17th centuries, and then in the 18th century, God sent mighty revivals, such as the Great Evangelical Revival in England under John and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield, and the first Great Awakening in America under Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield.

These revivals shook the English speaking world and empowered His church for what would begin in a tremendous way at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century in the far reaching modern missionary movement led by William Carey and many others. The gospel spread out and went to places and nations that it had never gone before.

And God sent forth further revivals in the 19th century to empower His church for this great work. And God continues to preserve His church today. Today the church is still here. The gospel is still being proclaimed. Great movements have begun in the 20th century that has carried the gospel to peoples never reached before, and this movement continues.

And yet the church in many ways is weak, especially in the West, and has lost the vision that it once had in former times. And yet the gospel still goes out. But we need to recapture the vision that those pioneer missionaries such as William Carey had of reaching whole continents for Christ.

Carey wrote from India, "I would not abandon the mission for all the fellowships and finest spheres in England. The work to which God has set His hands will infallibly prosper. Christ has begun to besiege this ancient and strong fortress and will assuredly carry it."

And after the first conversion in 1800, Carey and colleagues wrote, "He was only one, but a continent was coming behind him. The divine grace which changed one Indian's heart could obviously change 100,000."

Today, we need that kind of vision again, a vision to win whole continents to Christ, to reclaim lost territory such as secular Europe and the great Muslim nations, all lost to the gospel in previous times and more recent times. We need to reclaim America that is fastly going the same route as Europe into secularism, but is not lost yet. We must regain the vision and press forward as the church of God.

And then let us see in the third place that God has a vision for the church. And it's a worldwide vision. God intends for the church to cover the Earth and go everywhere and claim this whole globe for Christ and His cause, and to root out completely the kingdom of Satan.

In Malachi 1:11, it says, "My name will be great among the nations. From the rising to the setting of the sun, in every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to My name, because My name will be great among the nations," says the Lord Almighty.

Jesus came that the gospel might spread out to the nations, all over the world where worship would be offered to the one true God. Jesus had this same vision for He was God incarnate. In John 4, verse 21 and following it says, as Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman, He says, "Jesus, it says, Jesus declared, 'Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.'"

"'You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.'"

Jesus said to this Samaritan woman that the time had come for the gospel to leave Jerusalem and to go out into all the world, to every place. This was the vision from Malachi 1:11, being spoken by Jesus Himself. No longer would God just be worshiped in Jerusalem, but His worship would spread throughout the Earth.

And that's still God's vision and has not been changed. And then let us see the future glory of Zion. The Old Testament prophets looked ahead and saw the future glory of Zion. That is the future glory of the church in this world. They had a great vision. It was God's vision, but we've lost it today, and we need to get it back.

Isaiah 60 talks about the future glory of Zion. It begins in verses 1-3. "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you."

"See darkness covers the Earth and thick darkness is over the peoples. But the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn."

What a message for the church we need to hear today. The Lord in the midst of thick darkness rises and shines on the church and our light calls out to the nations to come to her, and they come. The prophet says that nations and kings will march to Zion.

"Your gates will always stand open. They will never be shut day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations, their kings led in triumphal procession."

And then in Isaiah 62:1 and following it says, "For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your righteousness and all kings your glory. You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow."

"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 until He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the Earth."

This should be our prayer for the church today. We should not be praying for the Lord to take the church out of this world in some soon coming rapture, but we should be praying that the Lord will establish His church and make her the praise of all the Earth.

Jonathan Edwards published the life and diary of David Brainerd. In it he records the great revivals that took place among the Indians in early America. Brainerd only lived a short time and died young. And yet he did a mighty work for God, and his life in ministry has inspired many missionaries who lived after him.

During his last days, Edwards relates what he said about the future glory and prosperity of the church in this age. He writes, "He also was much engaged in expressing his longings that the church of Christ on Earth might flourish and Christ's kingdom here be advanced, notwithstanding he was about to leave the Earth and should not with his eyes behold the desirable event, nor be instrumental in promoting it."

"He said to me one morning, as I came into his room, 'My thoughts have been employed on the old dear theme, the prosperity of God's church on Earth. As I waked out of sleep, I was led to cry for the pouring out of God's Spirit and the advancement of Christ's kingdom for which the Redeemer did and suffered so much.'"

"'It is that especially which makes me long for it.' He expressed much hope that a glorious advancement of Christ's kingdom was near at hand. He once told me that he had formerly longed for the outpouring of the Spirit of God and the glorious times of the church and hoped they were coming and that he should have been willing to live to promote religion at that time if that had been the will of God."

"But, says he, 'I am willing it should be as it is. I would not have the choice to make for myself for 10,000 worlds.' He expressed on his deathbed a full persuasion that he should in heaven see the prosperity of the church on Earth and should rejoice with Christ therein. And the consideration of it seemed to be highly pleasing and satisfying to his mind."

David Brainerd, you see, on his deathbed was fully convinced that he with Christ from heaven would see the glory and prosperity of the church on Earth in this age. May that yet come to pass. May we pray with all our hearts that the glory of the church on Earth will soon begin to be seen more and more.

And may we pray for the glory of Zion. May we storm the windows of heaven and ask God to send His Spirit upon us and revive His church, that His light might shine brighter and brighter on this world and that multitudes will come to Christ and come into His church.

Our Father in heaven, we do pray for the furtherance of the gospel all over the world. And we pray for the prosperity and for the glory of Your church. And we pray that Satan's kingdom will be completely defeated in this age. We pray for nothing less than that.

Oh Father in heaven, we thank You for all these wonderful promises of the prophets that were given long ago about the glory of Zion. We pray, oh Lord, that Your light may shine upon Your church and that Your church will become a bright, shining light on this world and that multitudes would come into the church in these days. And the glory of Zion will come.

And we ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen.

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