(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, well we're starting a new book. Like I said, it's 1 Thessalonians. You just listen to it being read. And let's look at the verse in the first verse here. It says, 1 Thessalonians 1-1, it says, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for the book of 1 Thessalonians. I pray that you would just help me tonight as I preach. I pray that you would fill me with your spirit. Lord, I pray that the people be attentive to the word tonight and Lord, that we would take home something that we maybe didn't know before. Or that you would just teach us new things tonight. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus. That's not normally how he signs his letters, but it sounds like this was a joint effort. And of course, Paul is the first name there. Paul is the apostle. One of the, I guess he would be the replacement for Judas in my mind. Of course, I preached sermons about that before. Obviously, Matthias is the one that got the nod by the apostles, but I feel like Jesus had other things in mind. But nonetheless, this kind of dates the time period that it's being written to because Paul's first soul wanting partner was not Silvanus, which is Silas here. It was who? Barnabas, right? And so this is written after, you know, they had their split up. And of course, the church of Thessalonica was not started until Acts chapter 17 and then they had already broken up by then their partnership. But it says, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So, of course, we have these letters written unto the church of the Thessalonians. And you notice that it's not saying churches, so there's probably just one church in this city. Of course, you have all three guys kind of signing off on this and we got lots. So I basically I just want to preach an overview a little bit before I get into the main part of the sermon here. But basically we have in this first Thessalonians and second Thessalonians a lot of individual nuggets of truth. You know, you have a lot like verses like pray without ceasing and you have the Jimenez doctrine where if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat and all that stuff. You're supposed to mark that man and have no company with them or whatever. That's what, you know, people in our circles call it. But it's obviously the Bible doctrine, not the Jimenez doctrine. It's a joke. OK, so anyway, but lots of great nuggets of truth in here. But really the main focus of these books, both books, first and second Thessalonians. You know, there's a lot of end time teaching on when the rapture is going to take place, the day of the Lord. It talks about the Antichrist, the son of perdition, and obviously the timing of all these things. And really this is a key book in end times Bible prophecy. You can't really teach about end times Bible prophecy without going to this book in some way, shape, or form. It also has some very comforting verses about people who worry about their loved ones who have passed on, who are in Christ. And, you know, the Bible, like some of these verses in here are used to preach at funerals and comfort people's hearts. And they've been comforting people for a couple of thousand years now. So it's a great book, a lot of wisdom in it, and also another main theme in this book is tribulation and affliction. And these are common themes in almost every chapter. There's also, of course, in the next chapter about the Jews and how they killed the Lord Jesus, fact. And so there's a lot of great topics in here, but a lot of it's end times and persecution. And I think that those are great things to go together with this book because there will be persecutions in the end times. And of course we're living in the end times if you'll see that. It talks about how when Jesus came that that's when the end times began. Of course we're moving fast like a rocket ship through the end times and we're going to get to the end of end times at some point. So I'm not going to say it's tomorrow or the next day because that would be ridiculous. And really the thing that differentiates our type of church from most churches that you'll see in this country is that they all say that Jesus could come back at any moment. And that is just baloney. It's just not true. And really it is kind of fear mongering if you think about it. It's like, he could come back at any moment so you better be being good for goodness sakes or whatever. But here's the thing, and people separate with us over this doctrine but I'll tell you what, there's some really key verses, especially in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, that basically make it assuredly true that Christ could not come back at any moment. There are things that have to happen first and yes we will go through affliction. I preached a sermon a little bit about it. Actually I just mentioned it, that we were doing it and we had some visitors that questioned me about what do you believe about that and so I just kind of explained a little bit. I said, come to the Bible study and you'll learn what we believe and that it's biblical. But they're not here so they apparently didn't want to hear that. But a lot of people will say, well I'm an independent fundamental Baptist and they'll shut down the They'll think our church is just a bad church or something because we teach in a post-trib pre-wrath rapture. So again throughout the book as we go through the different passages, each chapter in both books mentions something about Jesus coming back again. So that is a big theme of the book. But even if it's just one verse it's still mentioning it in every single chapter. And I think that Paul does that because he wants us to understand that that's the theme of this book. And then of course the afflictions and the tribulation that must take place. And we're not going to go through the wrath of God, but like the last verse said, we're not appointed under the wrath. But we will go through tribulation and that is a different thing and that will obviously be explained in this series also. So Thessalonica was a city in Macedonia which would be like modern day Greece. It still exists today as a metro area population of about one million people. In the days of Paul it was under the Roman rule, but of course it's still around today. A million people in it, so it's still called the same name and it's been around for a long, long time. The city was founded in 315 by Cassander of Macedon who named it after his wife Thessaloniki. That's what it looks like, Nike. Thessaloniki, daughter of Philip II of Macedon and sister of Alexander the Great. An important metropolis by the Roman period, Thessaloniki was the second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire. It was conquered by the Ottomans in 1430 and remained an important seaport and multi-ethnic metropolis during the nearly five centuries of Turkish rule. And from the 16th to the 20th century was the only Jewish majority city in Europe. So, ooh, that's bad. It passed from the Ottoman Empire to the Kingdom of Greece on 8th of November, 1912. Thessaloniki exhibits Byzantine architecture, including numerous paleo-Christian and Byzantine monuments, a World Heritage site, as well as several Roman, Ottoman, and Sephardic Jewish structures. So, it seems like the Jews really kind of still had a stranglehold on that place and probably still do today to a certain degree, but obviously not when the Ottomans were representing it. Anyway, at the time of the Roman Empire, about 50 AD, Thessaloniki was also one of the early centers of Christianity. While on his second missionary journey, Paul the Apostle visited, this is from Wikipedia by the way, visited the city's chief synagogue on three Sabbaths and sowed the seeds of Thessaloniki's first Christian church. Later, Paul wrote letters to the new church at Thessaloniki with two letters to the church under his name appearing in the biblical canon, which is what we're about to study here, as First and Second Thessalonians. Some scholars hold that the first epistle of the Thessalonians is the first written book of the New Testament, and I would not necessarily agree with that. So, considering it was written by Paul and his companions that were well after, you know, obviously Christ, and we're talking years and years, I think I just heard Pastor Anderson say that the Galatians was one of the first ones written in the New Testament, but I mean, I don't know how you would know those things. I didn't really dig that deep to try to find out why people think those things, but usually when a scholar says some kind of scholar says something, I really kind of doubt their scholaristic abilities, if that's even a word. They're like, I don't trust you either. You can't even say scholaristic. All right, but a lot of scholars nowadays, of course, you know, they want to disprove the Bible, and they're not really scholars of the Bible necessarily to the point where they are believers. They just, you know, teach in universities and things like that. So, and they like to cast doubt upon the Bible. They like to sit there and study old parchments instead of actually getting out and doing the work that Christ told us to do. Of course, there's room for scholars. I think that that's true, but I think that just reading the Bible itself and reading it over and over is going to make you more of a scholar than most of these guys are so-called scholars. So here's the story of how the church started in Thessalonica. Let's look at Acts chapter 17. So this recounts the story of how the church started, and what's amazing to me about the apostle Paul and about the first churches in the book of Acts is that it seems like just a few little seeds are sowed, and then later on Paul's writing letters to these places that are now full-blown churches. So they started out just as little seedlings. A few people get saved. Some kind of spiritual battle takes place with them, and then later on you see Paul writing letters to them. So that little sprouting, those little few people like in Philippi. You had Lydia getting saved, and then you had the girls possessed by devils. Then they got beaten and thrown in the Philippian jail, and the Philippian jailer gets saved and then baptized. So two big families get saved and baptized, and then that church just takes off later on. So look at verse number one where the Bible says, Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scripture. So what does Paul do? This is his custom. This is what he does every place he goes. He walks into the town. He's looking for a remnant that are in the synagogue. He tries to get those people saved, and then he reasons with the other ones to try to get them saved, and then eventually just is like, Okay, well, you guys are kind of done, and then he moves on. But this is what he liked to do, and I could see why he would want to do it because obviously there's this transition period kind of going on where the temple is still not destroyed at this time, but it might as well be because Jesus already died for everybody's sins, was buried and rose again the third day. So, we have here Paul reasoning with them for three, so that's three weeks in a row he's going in there, and it says, Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. So what's he doing? He's preaching the gospel. He's trying to get them saved, helping them to understand that the Messiah was actually Jesus Christ and that he's the one that he had to suffer for them and trying to teach them these things. And it says, And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. So now it's categorizing things a little bit differently for us. So he's not just getting a couple people saved here. He's getting multitudes of people saved, and so he's saying some of them believed. And that's usually the case in any kind of soul winning that we do. Some people are going to believe. That's why we go out, and even though there was only seven people that went soul winning tonight, there was still one person saved. Some people are going to get saved when we go out soul winning. Praise God, right? So this is what Paul's manner was. He went in and got them saved, and it says, And some of them believed, and then the devout Greeks, a great multitude. So we're talking about a lot of people getting saved, and they're actually Greeks. And it says, Of the chief women, not a few. And I don't know what the chief women were in. Maybe the women were in charge there to some capacity of some sort. But anyway, it says that not a few. But the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. So what happens? Well, a bunch of people start getting saved, and Satan starts to pay attention to what's going on here. And he takes them, you know, and so the Jews, this is what they like to do. They like to, just like the ADL today. You know, the ADL, they like to use other people to do their dirty work. And the ADL, in case you didn't know, is the Anti-Defamation League, and they hate our guts. We have a whole page on the ADL website. We're labeled as a hate group by the ADL, and also the Southern Poverty Law Center. And you know, they're a bunch of queer-loving idiots anyway, so I don't really care what they think about us. I'll wear that, you know, send me the certificate of where we're a hate group, and let me just put it on the wall back there. They haven't sent, I wonder if they'll make a downloadable copy for us so that we can actually frame that and put it in our church. You know, and people will say, well, that's a shame, Pastor Thompson, I can't believe you're talking about that and you're saying that. You know what, it's a shame for them to try to take away Christian belief out of this world and try to just say, you know, we're defaming them. No, the Bible says that they are the ones here that got the lewd people of the base resort stirred up against people. And they're the ones that are, they have all the money. Look, Jesus said that they are the synagogue of Satan. Jesus said that they are the children of the devil. So, yeah, they're all God's chosen people. No, they're children of the devil. That's what Jesus said to them, and they, you know, they were already trying to kill him, and so he thought, well, might as well just let him try to kill me worse, right? So, this is what the Jews of today are doing today still. Why are social media sites always getting attacked and things like that? Because they put out, the ADL puts algorithms, they work with Google, they work with YouTube, they work with all these places to try to get the algorithm disrupted so videos that we, preaching that we preach and things like that cannot be seen, they can't see the light of day. They stick us in some kind of hole where you have to literally search our name out to find it out. Why are they doing that? Because they don't want the truth to get out there. Why did they delete Pastor Anderson's 100 and however many thousand YouTube channel? Because the truth is powerful, and they don't want the truth to get out there. And people that are seeking truth are going to seek the truth coming out of God's word by spirit-filled preachers, and these Jews don't want that to happen. And so what do they do? They just do this kind of stuff here. So this is, where did this happen? In Thessalonica. So right away, you have a great multitude getting saved, and when that starts happening, Satan and his minions start paying attention. And who are their bidder? Who does their bidding? The Jews. It says, but the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows. Now what would you say when someone's called lewd? It's usually some kind of sexual pervert. That's what it is. And so I don't know if these were sodomites or what they were, but they're lewd fellows of the baser sort. What does base mean? Well, base means low. They're lowball thugs. They're like the Antifa protesters, basically, is what you've got going on here. They're like these weirdos, these Black Lives Matter idiots out there. And if you look at a picture of all their mugshot, it's all a bunch of people with pink and purple and blue and green hair, with all kinds of fishing tackle hanging off their faces. That's what you're going to see. And it says, what did they do? Well, they gathered a company and set all the city on an uproar. So what are they doing? Causing chaos, causing problems. And it says, and assaulted the house of Jason. So we're talking about a physical assault. So this is where it ends. This is what they like to do, is they like to stir people up to do violence. And it says, they assaulted the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are now come hither also. So another famous verse that's tied specifically to what happens at this church, this brand new, it's not even a church at this point, but obviously there's a bunch of people who got saved. And so, why are they freaking out? Because those people that were turning the world upside down, and really in reality, they're turning the downside up. Because the world is always on the downside. And they're trying to make it look up. They're trying to make the sun shine again on the place of Thessalonica where people are getting saved. And Paul is trying to do a great work for God. And it's just like, people are so weird. Like, every place we go, people are combating us now. And it's gotten worse. Since we first came to Vancouver, things have gotten worse. The people get more base. The people get more weird. They start following us around. And even the maintenance workers are from hell now. They'll work at these places. It's like, go fix the faucet and shut up. And let us do some soul winning here. How about that? Why don't you go clean some carpets or something? But the maintenance people are turning against us also and acting like they're the managers of the place. It's like, what are you exactly trying to do here? I mean, I'm sure that all kinds of seedy things happen at these apartment complexes. I'm sure drugs are getting dealt. I'm sure people are drunken and doing drugs in all these places. But what are they trying to do? Trying to stop people that are actually trying to turn the world upside down or downside up to the right way. And they get all high and mighty and try to kick us out and try to do anything they can to stop us. But this is what we're dealing with. But you know what? So what? Let's just keep doing what we're doing. God's going to deal with those people. We don't have to deal with them. But I do think that at some point we need to challenge these people. And I like that that happens. Obviously if it's going to be a big uproar then it's going to cause such an uproar that we can't continue to do something at that place. And then you just come back another day. Paul didn't just leave after this and never come back. Paul came back. He went on a third journey. And some people think he went back on a fourth journey. I don't know how many journeys he actually went on. But I know he probably came back. And he loved this place and he wasn't ready to just turn it over to Satan. The people got saved. That's the important part. But they understand what's going on. These evil people that are trying to combat him. And look, I said this before when I talked about the church at Philippi. What happens when things start going good for God's people then the enemies come in and attack. This is just a theme in scripture. And especially in the New Testament where you see it's just clear that they're trying to stop people from getting saved. And our mission is to get people saved. To be ambassadors and to reach out and have God grab their... We just kind of help them get back together with God. As ambassadors in Christ, that's our job. And so we're just trying to be good ambassadors. Why do people want to actually stop us? And how does it start first? Well, it says the Jews. Who are the synagogue of Satan? And why would it say the synagogue of Satan? That's the only type of meeting place that's called a synagogue. The only religion that has a synagogue is the Jews. And so God calls them the synagogue of Satan twice in the book of Revelation. And Jesus called them the children. The Jews were the children of the devil. The ones that were unbelievers that were trying to stop Christ and kill Christ. Look at verse 7. It says, Whom Jason hath received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And so this is a big accusation. And Jesus is the king. He was the king. He is the king still today. He's the king of kings and lord of lords. But he has no direct effect on Caesar. When Pilate, when he was before Pilate, he said he was the king. And for this reason was he born. But his kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom is not fighting a physical battle. We are not fighting a physical battle. We are fighting a spiritual battle. But see, they don't have rules. There are no rules for them. See, we have the rules on us. We can't hit them. We can't shoot them. We can't punch them. We can't do the things that they want to do to us. And they know that. And so that's how they get us to try to be afraid to do what we are doing. That's how they try to get us afraid to be Christians. And that's why the apostle Paul throughout this book is going to say, Hey, these afflictions are going to happen to you, but be strong. I mean, what did he say in Acts chapter 20? He's like, through much affliction we are going to enter into the kingdom of God. So we are going to enter into the kingdom of God with much affliction. But that affliction isn't from God. That affliction is from the devil and his minions and his religion is Judaism. The people in this world that are rich and trying to stop Christianity from behind the scenes, they don't openly do it. They got smart with that. They openly did it, but even when they killed Jesus, didn't they go to him by night? Didn't they send somebody else to do their bidding that night too? They sent the soldiers of the temple or the temple guard or whatever to go get him. They didn't have the guts to do it themselves. They wouldn't do it in open public. They always do it in a sneaky way. And so Jesus, they are always trying to send people to capture Jesus. And then they come back and go, no man is big like this man is big. And they are like, are you fooled also? And so these guys are just wicked, evil people sending people to do their bidding and they hire the weirdest and most wicked people. You know, George Soros, people are like, oh, George Soros, you're going to bring up George Soros. Yeah, the guy is evil. He supports all kinds of wickedness and he pays people to be agitators against the government and tries to push his communism. You know, isn't it funny that all the Jews are a bunch of liberals? Why is that? If they believe this book, then how are they liberals? How do they believe in abortion? How do they believe in all these different wicked things? You know why? Because they don't believe the Bible for one second. They don't really follow Moses. Because then they would say Leviticus 2013. But yet the ADL on their website, what do they have? A bunch of fag-loving idiots all over there. And just, you know, all just celebrating. The Jews celebrate, you know, these queers. It's wicked. And you are like, oh, yeah, but they are the God's chosen people. Really? How are they God's chosen people? Please explain that to me. They are not saved. They don't believe in Jesus. They don't love Abraham. They just want to claim Abraham. They want to claim the God of the Bible. But the God of the Bible is also Jesus Christ. And they hate his guts. And he is the only way to salvation. So guess what? They are not going to get saved if they don't believe in Jesus. So these are the same tactics. So what do they do? Once all the assault is going on and everything, then they turn their sights to turn people into the government. Isn't that what is happening in verse 7? Whom Jason hath received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar. So they turn them into the government. Oh, they are not paying their taxes. Oh, they are not doing this. And they need to pay taxes because they are talking about political things. Well, you know what? Obviously they don't think that that is true. But we pay taxes. We pay taxes on every gallon of gas we buy. We pay taxes for everything we buy at the store. We pay taxes. The gas is what is supposed to fix the roads, but why are there so many potholes? Explain that one to me. Because you know what? They are pocketing that money and using it on transgender bike lanes and stuff. There is no money to go to the bikes. But yet, look at all the bike lanes. Look at Portland. It is just like a green slalom for bikes. And what do they do? They pay zero money because they are riding a bicycle. But it is helping the environment. It is saving Mother Earth. Anyway, so we come to this place to try to get, you know, they come to this place to try to get something started and they are instantly opposed by the Jews or the Jew baggers. The lewd fellows of the base resort. They cause this uproar to try to turn us into the government and say that we are breaking the law. They always try to get the community to turn against us. Don't they? That is why they sit out there on that little corner right there that the cops weren't supposed to let them sit at and then do little queer marriages in our parking lot and stuff like that. Why do they do that? To turn the community against us. But you know what? It kind of had the opposite effect. There are a lot of people coming up and they are like, hey, what is going on here? It is like, well, this is what the cops are allowing to happen. The owner doesn't want them here. We don't want them here. We are just trying to have a Bible conference. And they are like, amen, brother, we are with you. And they wouldn't come in. They don't come to our church. But not everybody is down with this little queer agenda. And you know who it is propagated by? It is propagated by the Jews. It really is. You go back to the Jews and they are the bane of society. In any place that they have ever been, they have been kicked out of, except for America, they are part of the slave trade. They want to talk about all these white people. Well, they are white too. They went to Poland and magically turned into white people. So, anyway, let's move on here. Let's look at verse 8. So it says, And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. See, they hear these things and they turn against them. And when they had taken security of Jason and the other, they let them go. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, who, coming thither, went into the synagogue of the Jews. So he still has hope for his people. He still wants to get those remnants. And you know what? There still is a remnant today of the quote-unquote Jewish people. And there is still hope for some. But in reality, they have just been blinded. And when they rejected Christ, they were blinded. And they are still blind unto this day. The veil is still on their face to this day, according to 2 Corinthians. But look at verse 11. Look at verse 11, it says, So you have this verse where a lot of people say, Well, they're just more noble. They're kind of better than the people in Thessalonica. But I don't really think it's saying that. I just think that some churches are better in certain areas than others. And I think that the people in Thessalonica were good, too. They're saved. They're Christians. But these guys were more noble in that they searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether the things that they were preaching were right. And they received the word with all readiness of mind. They weren't kicking and screaming and trying. You know, you have to just drag them. Look at the Scripture. Look at what it says. They were just ready. Their minds were ready. They searched the Scriptures. So let's go back to our text here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Let's look at verse number 2. The Bible says, We give thanks to God always for you, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father. So this is kind of the intro of the letter. They're praying for them. They remember without ceasing. Without ceasing means they never stop remembering what a great group of people this is. So obviously they're doing a great job with a lot of things here. And it says, Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God, for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. So, you know, the Bible is by itself, you know, when you look at the Bible, it's words on a page. But it's not just words on a page. It's power. There's power in the Word of God. This is not just some ordinary book that you put with the rest of the books on your bookshelf. Now, you might put it on the same bookshelf, but there's a great, huge separation between the Bible and any other book on this planet. There's no such thing as any other scriptures. The only scriptures are the ones that are found in this book right here. The Hindu scriptures, trash. The Muslim scriptures, trash. The Mormon scriptures, trash. The Jehovah's Witness Bible, trash. That's all trash. This is the book that we need to focus on. This is the only book, and you know what? It's not just word only, but it also is in power. And so when the Word of God gets preached, things happen. Lives change. People get saved. And so that is power. That is true power that you can see where, you know, look, there's still a remnant of believers on this earth today, and you know why that is? Because of the power of this book. The power, it's not just words on a page. These words have power. It's the Word of God. And it says, and in the Holy Ghost, inspired by the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you for your sake, and you became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. So here's that scripture here, where they're saying, hey, you became followers of us, and that's good, but people will go, well, you're not supposed to follow men. I only follow the Lord. Well, then you're a dirtbag. Because there is people, there are men that you're supposed to follow, the men that follow the Lord. Isn't that what it says? You became followers of us. Is that a bad thing? No, God left the apostles on the earth to be a witness and to springboard Christianity into the world. And so he put a lot on them. And yes, they were supposed to follow the apostles, the apostles' doctrine. And it says, and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction. So we just read the story of what happened. They all get saved, and what happens? There's an assault that happens on the house of Jason, the guy that let them stay with them, and he's getting persecuted because they just let him come over to his house. They assaulted his house because the Word of God was getting preached there. And so that's what's going to happen in our lives also, is that when we're preaching the Word of God, people are going to get upset. Why do people get upset when we go soul winning? Because we're preaching the Word of God, and they don't like it. It's like at these apartment complexes, they just don't want people to be saved. So they just go all out to try to stop us, like literally to almost assaulting us. I think it was Josh that was telling me that he came to the door, and the guy was just instantly mad, and the guy acted like he was going to hit him and starts cussing at him. It's just like, welcome? They have a welcome mat there. Welcome, friends. I'm going to kill you. And we're the best friends they ever had. They just don't realize it. They think we're just some annoying person knocking at their door, interrupting their video game time or the time when they're watching football or whatever else they're doing that means nothing, tying flies for their fly rod, getting their putt game going on, watching golf instead of playing it. There's just all kinds of things that people do that's really meaningless. It's like there are some people that they have these hobbies, and they're tinkering on some car, some classic car, or these Baja kind of, what are they called? The sandmobiles or whatever the people, it's like a big thing here. Sandrail, thank you. So sandrails, they're like these motorized vehicles that jump in sand or something, I don't know. Big tires, they go fast. But really, what meaning to life is that? Like, well, it's fun. Well, life isn't just fun. Life is also responsibility. And yeah, there's time. If you have a sandrail, I'm not trying to knock you or whatever, but are you spending more time with your sandrail than you are with Jesus? Because if you are, then you're not right with God. But a lot of people, they just, you know, they don't care about the things of God. They care more about doing whatever stupid project they're in. We come up to people all the time that are working on things in their yard, right? Or working on something in their garage. And that is just more important to them than getting the gospel. Oh, no thanks, I've already, I've read the Bible before. I'm sure you have. So, and look at, first, oh, I'm just going to, yeah, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. So, in the same vein about them becoming followers, Paul says he became followers of us and of the Lord. 1 Corinthians 11, 1 says, Be followers of me even as I also am of Christ. What's he saying? Hey, follow me as I follow Christ. There's nothing wrong with following a man that's following Christ. There's nothing in the world wrong with it. He says, now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. So the apostles were the emissaries of the Lord Jesus Christ and they're laying down the foundational doctrine that he taught them. Remember Jesus called the apostles and he said, come with me and I'll make you to become fishers of men and he was with them for three years, traveling around, sending them out to preach, teaching them the deep things of God and they're conveying that to these people here. That's what the apostles' job was. You know what, it's our job to preach what the apostles preached and also what the Lord Jesus Christ preached. We still follow Paul today. We still follow Peter today. We still follow John and James and Jude and all these other guys. Why? Because they follow Jesus and his words. They write us letters. They wrote letters that stand the test of time. They are scripture. And it's important for us to follow the apostles too. That is the foundation of our faith. The apostles and it's laid upon the chief cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ. Look back at our verses in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Look at verse number 7. The Bible says, So that you were in samples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. So, apparently these guys, this church is so great that they're in samples or examples to all that believe in Macedonia. That's like all of Greece, right? And Achaia, so another bordering nation to them. In samples, that's a great testimony of their church. Their church is so great they became an example to a whole country. That church in Thessalonica. That's what Paul said, right? They're the example. And also to the churches in Achaia. And even now, those believers are influencing us through time by having their faith etched out in the Holy Scriptures for us to read tonight. And so we can be an example to all the churches in Vancouver, Washington. We can be an example. Sure Foundation Baptist Church can be an example to all the churches in all of Washington. You know, and maybe Oregon and Canada and whatever place. You know, I would like to see our church etched in God's heart as a church that people look to as an example and that to all people that believe. And I believe that our church is a great church. And I think that people do know us. And our church is famous probably in Heaven when it comes to the good works that we do. We have a lot of zealous soul winners here. We have a lot of people that care about soul winning here. And we have a lot of people that care about the purity of Bible preaching and the Word of God. And we have a lot of people that care about each other. So we sit here and talk for hours on Sunday nights sometimes. I was here till like way past, I think it was almost 9 o'clock or something last Sunday night, just talking. You know, what are we talking about? We're talking about all kinds of things, but we talk about the Bible. And, you know, I think God likes that. You know, we're not talking about the cars that we're going to work on tomorrow. We're talking about the things in the Bible that we noticed in the preaching or we noticed, you know, that someone saw reading in the Bible and said, hey, have you seen this scripture? Oh, yeah, that's really cool. And we sharpen each other and we love to fellowship with this church and I think that's good. And I think that that is a good picture for other churches because a lot of churches, as soon as the pastor's done, the music's done, they're out the door. You know, and if you're one of those people that's just out the door as soon as you can, hey, why don't you stay in fellowship sometimes? Get to know the people at our church. Get to know each other and, you know, break out of your little circles every once in a while and talk to somebody else because, you know, there's some pretty quality people in this room that go to our church and I think that, you know, the better we are to each other, the better we are as a team, the better we are as individuals, you know, it's going to speak volumes to our neighboring cities, to this city, to other places in the world, just like this church here in Thessalon- you know, obviously we might not ever attain to that, but I think we should try. Why not try? Let's try to be the best church we can be. You know, let's try to be the best husbands we can be. Let's try to be the best wives we can be. Let's try to be the best children in our families and to grow up and care about the heritage of God and care about passing that heritage on to your children and their children's children. That's really what matters, right? That we keep going. It's not like that we keep going as a human race, but that we keep going as Christians in the human race. How about that? Because it doesn't take long to screw up a generation. It doesn't take long to turn into a dysfunctional family. All you have to do is just get out of church and stop going to church and stop reading your Bible and stop caring about praying and stop caring about the things of God and then your family doesn't get saved. It's really simple. That's how the devil does it every single time. You know, if he can get you out of church, if he can have some catastrophe affect you so that you never go to church again and you're never with God's people, that's the plan. You know, it's divide and conquer. That's why the same people aren't in this room today that necessarily were in our church the day that we started. There's people that have left and people that have come, but it's a revolving door. It really is, and you know what? I want to see everybody that's in this room right now with us in 20 years from now and still, you know, rolling your wheelchair to the door and knocking on doors, right? Someone pushing you in a wheelchair. Get a scooter from the scooter store and you can still do it. I'm knocking the bottoms, pastor. Okay, you got it. Look at verse 8. It says, For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God word is spread abroad, so that we need not speak anything. And Paul's really given them a great testimony of the truth here that they didn't just, it's not just important to reach Vancouver or the other places that are around us. It's important to reach everywhere because isn't that what he's saying? Your faith was you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God word is spread abroad. And that's what I want for our church here is for the faith of the word of the Lord to be spread throughout the whole world. That's the goal. I believe our church is a great influencer in this world and some people might hate it, and that's fine. Haters are going to hate. If there's nobody hating you, then you're probably not doing a very good job. If everybody loves you like they love Billy Graham, or if everybody loves you like they love Barack Obama, you're probably not doing anything very good, are you? The queer that he was. Anyway, bathhouse Barry married a big Mike, but mediocre people are going to do mediocre things, and they're not going to have haters. Obviously, Barack Obama has haters on the right, but if someone hates us, I hope that they hate us for the right reasons. I hope they hate us because we go and preach the word of God. I hope they hate us because you're going to get the unfiltered truth from anybody that preaches from this pulpit right here. I'm not the only one that preaches here. I'm not the only one that preaches our church, but you know what? I'll take the Pepsi challenge with our preachers against most of the old IFB preachers around here that are afraid to stand up and preach certain scriptures. Our guys aren't afraid to preach those scriptures, and you shouldn't be. Thunder forth the word of God. Paul said that was a great testimony to them, to all the believers everywhere. And what was it? That the word of God went out, not only to Thessalonica and to Achaia and Macedonia, but to the whole world. Everybody looked at their faith and was like, those guys got it. They're getting afflicted. They got it. They got the false prophets. Basically, Satan's synagogue, of course, still has control over it. Obviously, Satan won the battle at some point. The Ottomans came in and took over, and now it's just some left-wing hellhole. Right now. But maybe we can get some Greek speakers to go back over there and get a church rolling back in Thessalonica. I think that'd be cool. But anyway, you can't just... Now look at verse 9. It says, For they themselves show us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. And back then, the Roman Empire was filled with idols. The Greek Empire was filled with idols. But their testimony here is that they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Because idols are not living. They're dead. They're inanimate. They're stone. They're wood. And our God is the true God. And that's what the Bible proclaims. It's not, well, God's just one way to get to heaven. No, He's the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Him. And you can't just add Jesus to your pantheon of gods that you already have. It's not like, what is that? They're kind of like Hindu branch offs. They wear the turbans. You know, Sikhs. Sikhs. Yeah, they're really Sikh. They believe it falls. They believe that you just, you can believe in Jesus. You just add Him onto whatever list of gods that you already believe in. And, you know, Paul said you have to turn from idols to serve the living God. You can't have Jesus and Buddha at the same time. You know, you've got to smash Buddha into a million pieces, whether it's fat Buddha or skinny Buddha. They both got to go. You can't have them both. It's either Jesus or the totem pole. You can't have them both. You've got to pick God alone. You have to turn from those idols, those totems, and everybody. I mean, that stuff's all over the place in the Pacific Northwest. You can't even go anyplace without seeing some stupid totem pole of some demon on a pole. You've got to turn from those demons and worship the living and true God. And that was a great testimony of this, you know, and we have a land filled with idols here in our country now. And, you know, I really just, when I see an idol on someone's porch, I just want to go to town on it. I know it'd be a bad look for our church, but I really want to be in charge of the destruction of idols when the Lord comes back. But, you know, there's going to be such a great earthquake, all those things are going to crumble into pieces anyway, right? So he'll do it for us. But verse 10 says, And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. We're not going to see the wrath of God because we're going to be gone. So this is like our first scripture here in the book of 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians where it talks about Jesus Christ coming. So who's coming? The Son of God. The Son. Who's his Father? The Father, right? Jehovah God, the Father, and he's coming from where? Heaven. That's where he's at right now. He's seated on the right hand of the Father, waiting to come back. What's he waiting for? The last person to get saved. That's what he's waiting for. He's longsuffering to us. We're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Repenting from dead works and false idols to the living and true God. And that's not talking about repenting of your sins, although it is sin to worship idols. But whatever system that's in your life, whatever you thought was taking you to heaven that's not true, you have to just like discard all that. Paul said he counted all that stuff that he learned before. He was raised as a Pharisee. All the education that he had, everything. He was a Jew to the nth, you know, the biggest extreme that you could be. He was raised at the feet of Gamaliel. He was the Pharisee of the Pharisees, you know, the stock of Benjamin. And he said, you know what he counted that as? Doo-doo. Dung. Poop. I won't say the Pastor Shelley ones, but no, I'm just kidding. But I got to take a dig. No. But that's what Paul said. I count that as dung. It's nothing to me. What do you do with dung? You scoop it up and get it away from you. You bury it. You know, you pick it up with a bag or whatever. Most of these people out here, right? I wish they would pick it all up with a bag because I hate stepping in it. That's why you just avoid the green spaces, folks. Avoid them. If you're going to walk through a green space, keep your eyes looking down because you're going to step in it. But anyway, that's all I got for 1 Thessalonians. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 in the books. Lord, we thank you so much for a great book. And Lord, I'm really excited to preach the rest of these chapters in here. Lord, I pray that you just help us to have a greater understanding as we go through the Scriptures of the end times of the rapture to come. And Lord, we know it's not imminent, but it is coming. And Lord, I pray that you help us to always be prepared and looking up and waiting and just waiting for the redemption of your Son who's going to come back for us and change this vile world into a great and wonderful world and give us everlasting bodies that can't die. Lord, we thank you for these things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.