Freedom in Suffering

Let's pray and we'll get into our study. Blessed Lord, you have caused all the

Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. We ask that you grant that we may so hear your word, mark, learn, inwardly digest it, that by patience and comfort of your holy word we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen. Amen. All right, were there any questions that came up, you know, that burbled up in your mind as a result of the sermon?

I ultimately was able to find my sermon again. But, you know, it was weird that it just, like, whoosh, disappeared.

One of the things I did want to say— Did you hear it or did you get it back? I got it back. I got it back. I just had to— Well, then redo it and get it right this time.

All right, let's head over to the sanctuary. Oh, wow.

One of the things I did want to say, though, that is worth considering in this context, you know, is that we as Christians, we live in a time where people will tell us from the pulpit or stage that, you know, because we are adopted into the family of God, that that somehow means that we're royalty and that we have the royal ability to command and decree and declare our lives to be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous and all this kind of stuff.

And that's not what we're promised at all. And just a couple—I want to read out a few samples from the

Apostle Paul's epistles and note what is said in this context as far as suffering.

And here's what he said. I quoted this in the sermon, Romans 8 .18. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed to us.

In Philippians 1 .29, listen to these words. Paul says, It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.

Let me pull that up. Philippians 1 .29. It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.

Have any of you ever considered that suffering is something that God grants to you?

Usually when I think of granting, you know, I remember when I was a kid and I would say to my dad after I was 16 years old,

Dad, can I use the car tonight? It's Friday night, there's a football game, and Barb and I would like to go out to Chili's and have some dinner together on a date and go over to the football game.

And my dad would grant me permission to use the Subaru. It was a

Subaru. But here it says that God has granted us not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake.

Does that mean it's a gift somehow? Yeah. Do you think of your sufferings as a gift?

I have a hard time embracing them as a gift. And that's kind of the thing.

See, Christ is redeeming us. And you'll note that when

New Jerusalem comes down, it's a populated city, and when we're resurrected, we're resurrected not as children but as adults, which means that Christ somehow is working through our lives and our suffering and our sin and working it out for his own good.

He's redeeming it. It may be that.

You can't assume that totally. And the reason why is because there are plenty of tin penny false prophets and crackpots who have suffered for their beliefs.

However, we'll note this, and I can speak from experience here. Preaching the biblical gospel, calling people to repent, you're going to get in all kinds of trouble, just all kinds of misery and trouble.

Yeah, from being unfriended on Facebook to being slandered, it's just a sheer joy.

2 Corinthians 11, I always like to point this out. The apostle Paul, in his writing against the super apostles, what a ridiculous title that is, by the way.

Stupid title. Yeah, that apostle Paul, he's just an apostle. Me? I'm a super apostle.

Yeah, it does sound ridiculous, right? And so the Corinthian church had fallen for these guys, and they were mistreating them, and they were preaching a different gospel altogether.

And so the apostle Paul engages in a very interesting strategy, which clearly is inspired by the

Holy Spirit, in order to shame them into seeing the truth regarding the super apostles.

And so these super apostles, they come in, they charge the highest amount of money. They're extremely skilled in their oration abilities.

And keep in mind, in the days before television, you can make quite a bit of money if you can ride the circuit and visit town to town and get a crowd who'd be willing to pay money to hear your stories or hear the way in which you would recite

Homeric poetry and things like this. So the apostle Paul, this is what he's up against.

And in his strategy here, he decides to basically take all the things that the super apostles are holding up as shameful and kind of embrace the rhetoric a little bit and say, yeah,

I was too stupid. He says, did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached

God's gospel to you free of charge? That's a good question. Apostle Paul preaches free of charge.

I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need,

I didn't burden anyone for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way as the truth of Christ is in me.

This boasting of mine will not be silenced. So now he's boasting. I didn't charge.

What was I thinking? Right. Will not be silenced in the reasons of a K. Why? Because I don't love you.

Well, God knows that I do. And so what I am doing, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim in that in their boasted mission, they work on the same terms that we do.

Such men, they are false apostles. They are deceitful workmen. They are disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no surprise if his servants also disguised themselves as servants of righteousness.

Their end will correspond to their deeds. So I repeat, let no one think of me foolish, but even if you do accept me as a fool so that I too may boast a little.

What I'm saying is this. What I'm saying with this boastful confidence, I say not as the

Lord would, but now I'm going to talk as a fool. Since many boasts according to the flesh, I too, I'm going to do some boasting.

For you gladly bear with fools being wise yourselves. For you bear it if someone makes you slaves, makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.

Apparently, this phrase here implies that one of the so -called super apostles actually struck somebody in the face there at Corinth, and they put up with it.

To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that. But whatever anyone else dares to boast of, he says, now

I want to remind you, I'm speaking now as a fool, I also dare to boast of that. Are they

Hebrews? Well, so am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham?

Well, so am I. Are they servants of Christ? I'm a better one. And he says, now listen,

I'm talking like a madman on purpose. This is to make a point, he's saying, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings and often near death, five times

I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Five times.

His back had to look like the

Google Earth representation of the freeway system of Los Angeles. That's what we're talking as far as scars are concerned.

Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, and he'd never lived in Colorado, so it's not that kind of stoning, right?

Three days I was shipwrecked. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night in the sea,

I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the

Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers.

In toil, hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

And apart from the other things, there is the daily pressure on me, the anxiety for all the churches, who's weak and I'm not weak, who's made to fall and I am not indignant.

So if I must boast, I'll boast of the things that show my weakness. So that's what we would call the victorious

Christian life. And he says, and we just read it, that it was granted to him, as well as others, to suffer.

Consider this, Colossians 1. Actually, let's do a little bit more in Philippians.

Philippians 3, verse 10. So that I might know

Him, Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, so that by any means possible

I may attain the resurrection from the dead. He considers the sufferings that he went through as a sharing of the sufferings of Christ.

And that would make sense, because, I mean, remember, Paul's first encounter with Jesus wasn't exactly the best for him.

And Jesus said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Was Saul hunting down Jesus? No, he was hunting down Christians.

And so you'll note, then, that Saul's first introduction to Christian doctrine is that when a

Christian suffers, Christ is suffering. When a

Christian is persecuted, Christ is persecuted. And so, that I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings.

And note, then, the Apostle Paul considers the sufferings that he goes through first and foremost the sufferings of Christ, and that he is sharing in those sufferings.

Christ is suffering. He is sharing in it. Colossians 1, 24.

You're going to note this is not going to draw a crowd to Christianity. Could you imagine Joel Osteen getting up on a

Sunday morning and rather than saying, this is my Bible. It is what it says it is. I am what it says

I am. I can do what it says I can do. And rather than say, this is my Bible, we are called to suffer to be persecuted for the name of Jesus.

Repent and believe the gospel that Jesus has bled and died for you. To bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and get ready to participate in the sufferings of Christ.

They'd clear that whole place out. Right? Is that the equivalent of hell freezing over?

Yeah, something like that. Yes, I do believe hell freezing over would be along those lines.

Colossians 1, 24. Paul says, now I rejoice in my sufferings.

In my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's affliction.

For the sake of his body, that is the church of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me to make the word of God fully known.

So notice he, this is a man who had all kinds of pain inflicted on him.

Physical, psychological, exposure. I mean, just, it was all there.

And he says, I rejoice in my sufferings.

Now, I've got to confess, I have yet, and I mean yet, to consider the sufferings that I've gone through and sit there and go,

Yes! This is the best thing ever! Right? Or do that Napoleon Dynamite move.

Yes! Hey, Napoleon Dynamite, it's in the top three movies of all time.

Thank you so much. He loves it. It's awesome. In a way though,

I mean, it all makes sense. Like you, you suffer through work, but your reward is you get paid.

You mentioned the childbirth thing. And I mean, that is kind of life.

There's, stuff isn't just, I suppose in old times it was kind of looked at like you're blessed if you're not going through any suffering.

Like the gods are looking on you with favor. I mean, the

American dream, if you think about the American dream, you can summarize it one way by saying that the goal of our parents was to make it so that the lives of their children and grandchildren would be better than theirs.

My grandparents used to tell stories of the Great Depression. And even when

I was a kid, my grandmother had a tradition. And my grandparents wasted nothing.

They never wasted a thing. And so every Saturday we had what my grandma would call garbage stew.

And this was a recipe she learned during the Depression. And you would buy just enough groceries for the week if you could afford it.

And then if you had any leftovers, everything went, all the leftovers went into what she called garbage stew.

And it was a little different every week. But that way nothing went to waste. Nothing.

Nothing went to waste. And so you think about that, the American dream. And so now we have a recession.

And I don't know if we're all able to do just fine. I put on enough pounds.

I can survive the Great Famine when it strikes. All you skinny people are dead. But Mark, it was nice knowing you.

Right? But we haven't suffered the way they have.

We haven't suffered the way they have. So for the United States, though, we pretty much live in luxury. Even the poorest among us are far better off than the poor

I've seen in other countries. And it was absolutely frightening. I recently traveled to Barbados.

And one of our Letheans in Barbados took me on a walking tour through parts of town there.

And there was a couple streets we walked down. And I have never seen a neighborhood like that before.

I mean, we're talking about homes where if you push on the walls, the walls would probably fall over.

I mean, plywood, ramshackle, up on stilts, and chickens running around everywhere.

I've never seen a neighborhood like that. And that's the low end of the poverty spectrum on the island of Barbados.

Which, in poverty terms, they're better off than some of the other people in some of the other islands in the

Caribbean. And you travel around the world and you recognize that a lot of people live in real abject poverty.

And so my grandparents would always say, count your blessings. Count your blessings.

But even though we don't suffer here by way of lack of food, still our sin takes on all types of different dimensions.

We have a narcissism epidemic in our society. The abuse rate in marriages is growing exponentially.

Look at what's happened in our country as far as our political rhetoric and how we treat each other.

I've never seen it this toxic before. And that has bled over into the church.

You have people who are engaging in that type of rhetoric within the church. And so we are being made to suffer in all kinds of ways.

And then conservatives, left and right, are being deplatformed off the internet.

And they're being demonetized. Basically, ideologically, they're being punished for not having the correct opinions.

And that now is being played out within the church, within evangelicalism. There's a whole group of evangelicals who've bought into the

SJW, down with the patriarchy nonsense.

Look at the way the SJWs have come unhinged because of the vote in Alabama regarding abortion.

Them dressing up as handmaids. And they're attacking the legislation that was passed to protect the unborn by basically saying that this was a decision by a bunch of white male

Christians. Yeah, they're calling it the war on women.

It's not. It's not that at all. They should therefore repeal Roe v. Wade because that decision was made by old white men.

Right. It was made by old white men. Good point. And things are really ramping up.

Really ramping up. And it's not getting any better. I think the rate we're heading, as far as the rhetoric and the toxicity of things, there's a real chance that we could experience some type of an outbreak of civil war in Western civilization, even within our own...

It's heading in this direction. Yeah, ideologically. Could you imagine if the

SJWs get complete control of the U .S.? What's going to happen to churches? What's going to happen to Christians?

We're basically being told, you need to change your doctrine and your faith and your religious practices or you will be made to suffer.

And right now, it's not being enforced by the government. It's being enforced by corporations.

You engage in wrong think, you will lose your job. You speak out and speak opinions that are not approved, you will be demonetized, you'll be deplatformed.

This is what's happening. And so have you ever thought, well, praise the Lord, we need to rejoice.

We're suffering for the truth. And here's the fun part, is that arming ourselves with a biblical view of suffering makes it possible for us to suffer well.

The Apostle Paul, you'll notice his life never got better. His circumstances never eased up.

It just got worse. I mean, you think of the one town.

I mean, he goes into one town, it's in modern -day Turkey, and he performs a miracle.

And they think he's one of the Greco -Roman gods. And he has to say, no, no, no, no, no, we're just men like you. We're here to tell you about Jesus Christ and to call you away from these things.

So rather than rejoicing, they stoned him. And you think of all the people who slandered him.

This is the man who preaches against the temple. This is the man who is overturning.

And they even lied and said that he had brought a Gentile into the inner courts of the temple, which led to his arrest.

He was arrested on false charges. In order to save his own skin, what does he do?

He has to make an appeal to Caesar. And so he ends up getting on a ship, and that ship is wrecked on the way to Rome.

And then when he gets there, he spends how long in prison before he finally gets his case heard?

And church tradition says that the first time he was let off, he was exonerated, but that it wasn't too much longer after that that he was arrested for being a

Christian and then had his head taken off his shoulders by a Roman centurion at the command of Emperor Nero.

Christianity teaches you how to die, not really how to live.

Are we ready to suffer? So I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,

Paul says. 1 Thessalonians, look at a couple portions of chapter 2 on this. For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain.

Though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our

God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.

He considered that, the Apostle Paul, talking about the fact that he brought the gospel to them in the midst of conflict.

And we know something about that conflict. We'll put it in its bigger context.

I'll start at 16 of Acts, Acts 16, 11. So we set sail from Troas, made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and following day to Neapolis.

From there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony.

We remained in the city for some days, and on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God, which means that she's a worshiper of God as a

Gentile who is studying to become a Jew. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul, and after she was baptized in her household as well, she urged us, saying,

If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us.

And as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gained by fortune telling.

She followed Paul and us, crying out, These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.

And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit,

I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out of her that very hour.

So note, you don't want demons partnering with you in ministry. Although this demon was speaking the truth, these men are servants of the

Most High God. The devil is always going to twist and manipulate, and so you don't want a demon assisting.

So the Apostle Paul does the right thing, the humane thing even, and frees this girl from this demonic entity.

When her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers.

And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, These men are Jews. They're disturbing our city.

They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.

So the crowd joined in in attacking them. And the magistrates tore the garments off them, gave orders to beat them with rods.

And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely.

Now a little bit of a note here. Paul's a Roman citizen, and this punishment that he experienced is not lawful.

It's illegal. Notice that the magistrates didn't even follow the law here.

And Paul did nothing to stop them, at least at this point.

Nothing. He was treated as if he wasn't a Roman citizen. So when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely.

Having received this order, he put them in the inner prison, fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight,

Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

That's quite the response. I don't know about you guys, but if I had just been beaten with a rod,

I'm not going to be in much of a mood to be singing hymns and praying matins and all this kind of stuff.

These guys are nuts. With each blow, they are rejoicing.

With each thing that they are made to suffer, they are considering themselves, rather than cursed, they are considering themselves blessed.

Because this is exactly what Jesus taught. Blessed are you when men persecute you.

And so these words of Christ have sunk deep into these men. So they were singing hymns.

Prisoners were listening. So these prisoners then are hearing the gospel in these hymns that they're singing.

These were not today's three -words -repeated -eleven -times praise songs.

These had some substance to them. So suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prisons were shaken.

Immediately all the doors were opened. Everyone's bonds were unfastened. And we all know how this story is supposed to go at this point.

The doors are opened, the bonds are unfastened, and everyone shouts, Prison break!

And the lights go off, the helicopters come out, the dogs do their thing, looking for the guys in the orange jumpsuits.

That's a little anachronistic, but you get the point. So when the jailer woke, saw the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, figuring he might as well save the people time, because the penalty for a jailer to lose prisoners is death.

Supposing that the prisoners had escaped, but Paul cried out with a loud voice, Do not harm yourself, for we're all here.

And the jailer called for lights, rushed in, trembling with fear. He fell down before Paul and Silas.

Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

Notice, their whole behavior is contrary to anything you would expect from a human who is self -serving, looking out for his own skin.

And he heard them singing those hymns, and he learned in those hymns about salvation in Christ, and now he wants to know what he has to do to be saved.

And here it is. Believe in the Lord Jesus, you'll be saved, you and your whole household.

So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. He took them that hour of the night, washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all of his family.

Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them, and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police saying, Let those men go, and the jailer reported these words to Paul saying,

The magistrates have sent to let you go, therefore come out now and go in peace. Paul said to them,

They've beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are Roman citizens, and they've thrown us into prison, and do they now throw us out secretly?

So now Paul invokes his citizenship. No, let them come themselves and take us out.

The police reported these words to the magistrates. They were afraid when they heard that they were

Roman citizens, so they came and apologized to them, and they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia, and when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them, and then they departed.

So we can see, yes, Paul was shamefully treated in Philippi, and that's what he was referencing there in 1

Thessalonians. The story continues, Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the

Jews. Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the

Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying,

This Jesus whom I proclaim to you, he is the Christ. Or you can say he's the Messiah. Some of them were persuaded and joined

Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

But the Jews, they were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob.

And I want you to just consider what's going on here for a second. These are men who heard about Jesus in the synagogue.

They are regular church attenders, if you would, as Jews. And they, now their jealousy is incited, and they with no conscience think that it's okay to grab some wicked rabble men and form a mob in order to assuage their jealousy.

So they set the whole city in an uproar, and they attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd.

And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities shouting,

These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.

Jason has received them. And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king,

Jesus. And the people in the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.

And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. So the brothers immediately sent

Paul and Silas away by night to Berea." Sounds like some great, great conditions to work in to preach the gospel, right?

So Paul is invoking these things. "'For youselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain.

Though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our

God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.

Wow. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity nor any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please

God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed.'"

And God is our witness. "'Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

For you remember, brothers, our labor and our toil. We worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

You are a witness, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers.

For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted you, each one of you, and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and to his glory.

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the

Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased

God and opposed all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the

Gentiles so that they might be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins.

But wrath has come upon them at last." I mean, look at that whole undercurrent.

That whole undercurrent. It's not even undercurrent. It's the top layer talking about the sufferings.

And so we learn then from this letter that Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica that after his departure, remember he and Silas had to sneak away at night from Thessalonica and hightail it to Berea, that after they left, those who were now

Christians suffered the same things that they suffered, and they did so from their own countrymen.

And he says they killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, kind of saying that some of the people in Thessalonica, these baby

Christians, some of them probably gave the ultimate witness to Christ very, very shortly after their conversion.

And I'm bent out of shape when I get a hangnail. 1

Thessalonians 3. You know,

I'm going to keep reading because it's going to go into that chapter in just a minute. Since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time in person, not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face because we wanted to come to you,

I, Paul, again and again, but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our

Lord Jesus that is coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and our joy.

Therefore, when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent

Timothy, our brother, and God's co -worker in the gospel of Christ to establish and to exhort you in your faith that no one be moved by these afflictions.

So Paul wasn't able to come back. So Paul goes to Berea. Let me kind of read a little bit more of the story.

So the brothers immediately sent Paul. We're back in Acts 17. And so I was away by night to Berea. And when they arrived there, they went into the

Jewish synagogue. And now these Jews, they were more noble than those in Thessalonica.

They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

This is where we get the term a Berean, by the way. A Berean is somebody who tests messages against the written word of God to see if they're so.

Not even the Apostle Paul got a pass. And many of them were therefore, they believed, with not a few of the

Greek women of high standing as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating, stirring up the crowds.

Notice the ravenousness with which they hate, hate

Paul, Silas, the gospel. These guys are devout in their determination to stop this message from being spread and to thwart those who are preaching it.

And so Paul, here in 1 Thessalonians 3, they couldn't come back.

And he even says it was the devil who hindered them from doing so. So who did they send? Timothy.

The guy who 1 and 2 Timothy is written to. Timothy, our brother and God's co -worker in the gospel of Christ, he was sent to establish and exhort you in your faith so that no one would be moved by these afflictions.

For you yourselves know that we are, listen to these words, destined for this.

What? Afflictions. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass and just as you know.

For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain."

So note then, the apostle Paul here is talking about the psychological anxiety that he had in the midst of this conflict.

There he is preaching the gospel and he's laboring, doing what Christ has sent him to do, proclaiming the good news of the forgiveness of sins and our crucified and risen

Savior, calling people to repent and believe that Jesus is the Christ. Some are believing and in Thessalonica the whole city has gone crazy.

Believing and confessing Christ in Thessalonica is going to get you in a lot of trouble.

Paul and Silas couldn't even return to encourage the saints. They had to find somebody else to go.

They sent Timothy and in the midst of all of this he was concerned. He was worried that the tempter had tempted you and that his labor would have been in vain and that the gospel wouldn't have taken root and that these people's souls would be lost.

That's anxiety. But now that Timothy has come back to us from you and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us as we long to see you.

For this reason, brothers, in all of our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith.

For now we live if you are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our

God as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what then is lacking in your faith.

See, his work wasn't even far from finished. Just backtracking a little bit, I've noticed in your sermon reviews none of these popular names claim it.

They never tell their congregation to be good Marines. No, they never do. They'll find out that themselves are false prophets.

I just recently got back from the United Kingdom. I went to Germany, I went to the

UK, and went to Swansea in preparation for our conference. And there's two new

Aletheians who we're ministering to and they live in a small village in the

UK called Somerset. And there's only a handful of churches there. And none of them preach the gospel.

It's kind of like Roman Catholic or like crazy NAR charismatic. There's like nothing in between, right?

And so the Lord opened their eyes that they weren't being taught the truth by their pastor and they tried staying, they tried staying.

And so when they would ask biblical questions, ask for clarification, and say, but the

Bible says this, their pastor got upset. And so they would sit in the back of the church and they would read their

Bibles. And from the pulpit, their pastor didn't call them by name, but called them out by their deeds and accused them of being too

Bible -ish. Too Bible -ish.

And that was a dig, you know.

And it's like, how can somebody be a Christian pastor and sit there and go, I am just not happy with these people who are attending my church.

They're reading their Bibles. I have found the only people who are threatened by Christians who read their

Bibles and who are Bereans are false teachers. And their gig is up.

Their gig is up when the cat's let out of the bag that they're not teaching God's Word. And that's kind of the point.

So you'll note then 1 Thessalonians is this amazing letter that when you put it into its context, historically, of the suffering and the conflict that the

Apostle Paul and Silas experienced in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you'll note then that we then as Christians, we are called to suffer affliction.

And Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 3, you yourselves know that we are destined for this.

Destined for it. We are destined to suffer affliction. We are destined to go through trials and tribulations.

Yeah. Trying to put myself back in that time period, it would seem that you preach this message to a slave, they would get comfort from it.

Correct. You preach it to the well -off and it scares them.

Yeah. They don't want pain and suffering. No. You know, they're trying to live as carefree as they can.

Right. Whereas the slave would look at like, yeah, I'm a slave now, but there's something better coming down the road.

Yeah. Is it any wonder then that the primary picture of our salvation is the picture from the book of Exodus?

Children of Israel, the people of God, in slavery to a false god king, whom

God mightily delivers from slavery and leads them to a promised land. That's our story.

And if you are all wrapped up in, and boy, the one thing I've kind of noticed, nothing changes.

So when I was a kid, all right, and I have to say this, so I'm a teenager, I'm a young adult, and I'm skinny.

I like the image that comes back to me from the mirror. I like going and buying clothes that make me look sharp, that make me look good, and even willing to drop a few bucks to get a pretty nice hair style, right?

Of course, I look back at the pictures now thinking, what on earth was I thinking? It was the 80s.

No one told me that mullets would go out of style. Yeah. And then you're introduced to Gentleman's Quarterly magazine, right?

And it's all about what? Colognes, watches, and clothes, and shoes. Cologne, watches, clothes, and shoes.

Pick up a copy of GQ magazine today. What's it about? Cologne, watches, clothes, shoes, oh, and women.

Yeah, that's always an undertone, right? And you pick up Cosmopolitan.

What's Cosmopolitan about? Perfume, clothes, shoes, jewelry, men.

It's all the same thing. This is the way of the world. Nothing has changed. You know, one of the things

I was struck by, you know, getting into London Heathrow, you know, going through security.

They've got this whole mall inside of London Heathrow. And you know what all the stores are? The same stores you'd see at, like,

Rodeo Drive. You know, you've got all this. You can buy clothes, shoes,

Gucci bags, jewelry, all kinds of electronics at, you know, no fee when you come across the border.

And I'm thinking, what is going on here? I was in Germany, so I'm in Heidelberg.

It's all the same stores that are here. What do you want for lunch? Well, let's, there's

Subway, Burger King. There's McDonald's over there.

Oh, look, Starbucks. KFC, yeah. Everybody's all wrapped up in this world about the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the men or the women that they have, the image that they're projecting, making sure that they're sending the right messages regarding the status symbols that they wear on their body, whether it's their watch or their clothes or their shoes or whatever.

And they bust their behinds at work in order to be able to earn more money so that they can pour it back into these things.

And at the end of the day, what have they got? Nothing. They've got absolutely nothing.

Because the gizmo, the gadget, the clothes, the shoes, whatever you buy today, they're going to wear out in a year or two.

They're going to be out of style in three. And you've got to keep up with this whole rat race.

For what? So that at the end of the day, you know what they do to us men when we die?

They put us in a nice suit and then put us in a box. Yay. So the suit you buy today might be the one you're buried in.

You're going to look great as a corpse. But don't worry, the watch, they're going to sell that.

I'm being a little, you know, cynical right now. But the reality is this, is that as much as people try to gussy up things, we're all still dying.

I don't look anything like I looked like when I was 20. But the corporations, the global corporations that make the money from this whole scam don't want true

Christianity preached because it just makes fun of their whole scam.

In fact, I would argue that the televangelists are like the best friends of the major shopping distributors and retailers because they've now taken

Christian doctrine and twisted it and turned it into a good work to be vain. This message today has a different impact than it did to those folks who were buried out there before 1960.

They knew what suffering was. It was survival. It wasn't to be great, famous, and beautiful.

That was survival. And they suffered a great deal. Even today,

I can tell you from experience, when you go for a job interview with these global corporations, they don't want to hear about how you participate in routines and those kind of things.

They want you to use complete I statements. What did you do? So you need to elevate yourself onto this pedestal.

I, I, I. I did this. I did that. I was responsible for that. But then in the workplace, they want to know how well are you a team player.

So they want to know that you're essentially very narcissistic walking in the door.

But then they want to team that narcissism to, you know, how is your narcissism working with the group.

Narcissism and team work doesn't, that doesn't work. That's not a combo that works. At all.

I don't know any narcissist who gets along with anybody. That's generally people who have lasted jobs longer.

You know, a couple of years. Yeah. Well, not only that. It's like, no job is for a long -term thing anyway.

Most jobs are for the purpose of it being a resume builder. Consider what

Paul writes. Another prophecy regarding the end times. First Timothy four, the spirit,

Holy Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

They forbid marriage, require abstinence from food. The God created to be received Thanksgiving with those who believe everything created by God is good.

So note that the people are going to depart from the faith in the end. And then kind of on the heels of that is a little bit more details.

Understand this second Timothy three, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

People will be lovers of self. There's a term for that.

We're kicking that one around, narcissists. They'll be lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents.

They'll be ungrateful, unholy, and my favorite part of the list, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not loving the good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit.

Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And here's the thing, the world has always been that.

The reason why he's saying that this is going to be treacherous times in the last days is because this is what the church, the visible church is going to be like in the days before the return of Christ.

They will have an appearance of godliness, but deny its power and he says avoid such people.

Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And then just compare that to what we just read in 1

Thessalonians of what Paul suffered and how we are destined to suffer afflictions for Christ.

Everything is geared towards this false illusion that somehow if we just apply ourselves, we can be perpetually youthful and healthy and prosperous and that it's all about our success, our influence, and our affluence here.

It's not. It's about dying. Dying to yourself. Humbling yourself.

Taking up your cross. Following Christ. Because he's not going to...

I'm sorry, but Jesus isn't going to go to the Home Depot and make it so that your body stays alive.

Just keep working on the renovation project. He's going to kill us all and raise us from the grave.

If we're all heading to the grave. Now, if that makes everybody depressed...

In the middle of the last century, there was another Paul. His name was Paul Schneider. He was the first Christian pastor martyred by the

Nazis in Buchenwald. His life parallels the experience of Paul the

Apostle in many ways. He became a pastor at a young age. In the early 1930s when

Hitler was coming along, at first he thought Hitler was going to be a good thing for the country. He soon realized that that wasn't going to be the case. So he started speaking out against Nazism.

He got basically turned in by two of his parishioners who were Nazi sympathizers. One thing led to another until 1939.

He was put in Buchenwald. He was preaching to the prisoners and the guards.

He was confined in isolation in a cell that was near the parade ground where people would come out in the morning.

They'd do the roll call. So from there he could preach from his cell. I don't know if he knew it or not, but he was based on death row.

So every morning at 6, 6 .30 in the morning he'd be preaching while the guards were lining people up and doing roll call.

After several months of this, at first they starved him and they fattened him up.

Then they injected him and he obviously died. They wanted him to look good on the way out.

But his life was very much like what Paul had except in the 20th century.

The book's called Witness of Buchenwald. It's a great book. Very factually accountable. Witness of Buchenwald.

Witness of Buchenwald. Good to read. Also Mission at Nuremberg. Another great story of the gospel.

By the way, when the Russians moved in after the end of World War II, he was the first person to which they commemorated a memorial.

Despite being Christians. All right.

We're going to leave off there. We'll pick up next week, hopefully in Leviticus, but I want to do a little mini study on suffering.