I will open your Bibles tonight to Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17. We began looking at Paul's ministry in Thessalonica last Wednesday evening. And what I'd like to do tonight is review briefly what we discussed last Wednesday evening. I'll add a few things here and there, and then focus in on the part that we didn't get to. As we've been looking at this, we were considering the declaration of the gospel at Thessalonica, and the reception of the gospel at Thessalonica, and then the opposition to the gospel at Thessalonica, and learning from that, truths that will help us in our day. And we got through the first two of those points, but we didn't get to the third, so we're gonna get there this evening, but I do want to go back and just kind of, again, review what we talked about last Wednesday evening. Some of you may not have been here, and it's been a whole week, and you've forgotten some of the things. So Paul's second missionary journey, which is the journey that we're working through right now, it began by revisiting the churches that he and Barnabas had started in Galatia. That's Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Pisidian, and Antioch. Then he was led by the Spirit into Europe, into Macedonia specifically, which is the northern portion of Greece. He's going to make his way from there down to Athens and then to Corinth in the southern part of Greece, which is referred to as Achaia. But God did great things in Macedonia in those churches. We read about three churches that Paul started in Macedonia, the church at Philippi, the church at Thessalonica, and the church at Berea. And they all were significant. Philippi was Paul's favorite church and a regular supporter of his ministry. Thessalonica is a model church. 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul talks about the fact that their faith has been spread abroad all over. And Berea was an example of diligent Bible study. So Paul and Silas, as they came into Macedonia, they stopped at Philippi, they established a church there, they were beaten and jailed, and then they were asked to leave Philippi, and they did. By the way, that is significant. They didn't stick around where they were asked to leave. They weren't belligerent, even in their witness for Christ. They didn't want to be a bad testimony. They didn't want to be a hindrance to the church at Philippi, so they moved on. Luke, however, did not go with them. He had joined them at Troas, but he's not mentioned when they leave Philippi. You're familiar with, in the book of Acts, there's the we and the they portions, and the we begins in Acts 16.10, but in Acts 16.40, when Paul and Silas leave, it's they They comforted them, they departed, they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, so Luke is no longer with them, and it's believed that probably Luke remained behind at Philippi and helped that new church. So they weren't left without help, but Paul and Silas, being asked to leave, did so. Timothy may have also stayed and later joined Paul at Berea. Paul would later send Timothy to Thessalonica when Paul could not go back. But after they left Philippi, they traveled 100 miles west through Amphipolis and Apollonia until they came to Thessalonica. Unlike Philippi, Thessalonica had enough Jewish men that it had a synagogue, and that's where Paul began his ministry. Paul was always to the Jew first. And so he went there, and of course that gave him an open door for preaching the gospel. And for three Sabbath days, he went into the synagogue and reasoned with them out of the scriptures, Acts 17.2 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 Paul resided at the home of Jason. and for at least three weeks, he preached the gospel each Sabbath at the synagogue. During the week, he would have preached the gospel in the community. He made tents to support himself. The church at Philippi also sent gifts. And so he declared the gospel. And as we looked at this, and we spent a lot of time on this last Wednesday night, he used the word, he preached the gospel out of the scriptures, verse two tells us, and that would have been the Old Testament scriptures. And just note the fact that in the early days of the church, the gospel was preached, it was preached from the Old Testament. You know, when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that he had delivered to them the gospel how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried in, that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Which scriptures was he talking about? He's talking about the Old Testament scriptures because the New Testament had not yet been written. When Paul preached at Thessalonica, it was around 50 or 51 AD, somewhere in that neighborhood. Possibly the gospel of Mark had been written at that point, but probably wasn't widely available. The book of Matthew was written about this time. Luke of James had been written. So there was some, a little bit of the New Testament, and maybe Paul had access to it, but primarily they use the Old Testament scriptures. And the gospel is recorded in the Old Testament. You know, sometimes we would maybe use the Romans Road, but Paul didn't write that for another six years. And Thessalonica says he's reasoning out of the scriptures. He's using the Old Testament scriptures. And he declared, first of all, from the Old Testament scriptures that Messiah must have needs have suffered and risen again from the dead. And then he declared Jesus is Messiah. He preached the gospel with power and with the spirit and with conviction. He believed the message that he preached, he was empowered by the Holy Spirit, and so the gospel was received by many. Some Jews believed, it tells us in verse 4, some of them believed that them, theirs, the Jews, as Paul's preaching in the synagogue. In Acts 20, in verse 4, we read about three of those Jews, particularly a man named Jason, and then Aristarchus, and Secundus, were Jews who had believed the gospel in Thessalonica and became participants with Paul in his ministry. But mostly it was Gentiles that believed. As Paul wrote the first letter to the Thessalonian church, he said how they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. The vast majority of the people that made up the church at Thessalonica had been idolaters. They had been pagans and gotten saved out of that. Now, some of the devout Greeks, it says, a great multitude of them believed that would have been Gentiles who were worshiping God under the Old Testament system. They were part of the synagogue, but they were Gentiles. But many of them got saved, and of the chief women, not a few. Many of the wives, perhaps, of the leading men of the city also believed on Christ. So as Paul preached from the Old Testament scriptures about Messiah and that Jesus was Messiah, a few of the Jews believed, many Gentiles believed. Many more of the Gentiles would have believed during the week, again, as Paul would have been preaching the gospel as God gave him opportunity. And it says also that some of them believed and they consorted, verse four, with Paul and Silas. What does that mean? It means they became followers of Paul and Silas. They were discipled by Paul and Silas. For whatever time Paul was there, he was teaching them the truths of God's word. We're reminded that the Great Commission is not just about making converts, not just getting people saved, but discipling them as well. Ye shall receive, sorry, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth to give you therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have said unto you, not just getting them saved and baptized, but discipling them. And that's what Paul did. And he said, as he wrote back to them in the first letter to the church, he said, you became followers of us and of the Lord. He would remind them that when he was with them, he said, we exhorted and we comforted and we charged every one of you as a father left his children, that you would walk worthy of God who has called you unto his kingdom and glory. And we noted the fact last Wednesday night that it even taught them about the rapture, about the antichrist, about the tribulation period, the return of Christ, even those doctrines about the end times were part of Paul's teaching to these new believers. And they were organized into a church, even though we don't know exactly how long Paul was there, the fact that he was only reasoned with them out of the scriptures for three Sabbath days. And we're going to see in just a moment, he was again, run out of town. He may have only been there three or four weeks. But nonetheless, for however long he was there, it wasn't a very long time, he got people saved, he discipled them, and he organized them into a church. Because he wrote, again, his first letter. which he wrote from Corinth back to them. So just not long after he had been there, within months, he's writing a letter back to them to deal with some problems. But he writes there, we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. So already there were spiritual leaders in the church who were watching out for the well-being, the spiritual well-being of the believers there. So Paul left an established, organized church at Thessalonica. But there was opposition to the gospel. So some of them believed, verse four tells us, and consorted with Paul and Silas, joined with them, followed them. They were discipled by them, many devout Greeks and many of the chief women. But the Jews that believed not, were moved with envy, and 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. 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 come hither also, whom Jason hath received. And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason and of the others, they let them go. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea. And it tells us in verse 10, when they came to Berea, they went into the synagogue of the Jews there as well. But there was opposition to the gospel. It began as the unbelieving Jews that had heard Paul preach in the synagogue and refused to accept the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, they stirred up a mob against Paul and Silas. They gathered certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, Luke wrote, The word lewd there is the Greek word for evil. These are ungodly men. They're wicked men. And the word base or sort literally means pertaining to the market. And the idea is these are guys that are just like bums. They're hanging around the town square, the marketplace. They don't have anything to do. They're the rabble, the kind that can easily be stirred up. And so these unbelieving Jews go down to the town square, to the marketplace, find all these guys sitting around, these bums that are just doing nothing, and get them worked up. They get them stirred up, and somehow or another, they convince them that Paul and Silas are a menace to their city, and they stir them up against Paul and Silas. And so as that mob of these lewd fellows of the baser sort are stirred up, then the whole city is on an uproar. So they get the smaller mob stirred up, and then as they're going through the streets, the whole city is kind of, you know, what's going on? And all of a sudden, everybody's involved in this. And so they go to the house of Jason, they're looking for Paul and Silas. And it says that they would bring them out unto the people. Now, it may be that the rule of the city, it's a democracy, the rule's based in the people, but it also has the rulers, the polytarchs in the city. So it may be that they were gonna have some kind of a citywide trial for Paul and Silas, but I think probably rather, when it says they sought to bring them out to the people, the intent is they're gonna beat them to death. I mean, that's what happened to Paul at Jerusalem, when the unbelieving Jews, they saw him there, they accused him of bringing a Gentile into the temple, and they began to beat him up, and their intent was to kill him, to beat him to death, and he was spared. Of course, God intervened, but a Roman centurion sent soldiers down there to rescue Paul, or they would have beat him to death, they would have killed him. And I think that was the idea here. These guys, the Jews are moved with envy because all of a sudden they're losing people at the synagogue who are now following Paul and Silas and no longer coming to the synagogue. And so they stir up this mob. I think to beat Paul and Silas up, but they can't find them. They're not there. Maybe Paul and Silas had got forewarned. Maybe just in the providence of God, they weren't there. But nonetheless, when they came to Jason's house, Paul and Silas weren't there. So they grabbed Jason and a few of the other believers and brought them before the rulers of the city, verse six tells us. And they, first of all, accused them, these that have turned the world upside down or come hither also, they accused them, these guys that are stirring up trouble everywhere they go. Paul and Silas had a reputation. I mean, in his first missionary journey, he got run out of Pisidian Antioch and out of Lystra and Iconium. And in the second journey, he's been run out of Philippi, beaten, imprisoned, then run out of Philippi. Everywhere he goes, there's trouble. There is trouble, that is true. But it's only because Paul was preaching the truth and the people don't want the truth. But they say, hey, these guys have been stirring up trouble all over, and now they've come here to stir up trouble in our city. Kind of like, you know, this is not gonna happen in our town. We're not gonna let them make a mess of our place like they've been everywhere else. And then, if that weren't enough, they twisted the teaching of Paul and Silas to suggest that they were treasonous. These all do, verse seven, contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there's another king, one Jesus. Now there's some truth to what they were saying. Paul had taught them about the end times, taught them about the coming of Christ, taught them about the kingdom that the Lord Jesus was going to establish. Matter of fact, again, in the first letter he wrote to them, and said, We exhorted you that you would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. And in a second letter that was written just a few months after the first letter, he said, You have endured persecutions and tribulations, which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. So they knew that Christ was going to establish a kingdom. They had been taught that. These Jews who had been sitting in the synagogue listening to Paul teach, they heard that, they knew that, but they rejected that. And so they turned it against Paul and Silas by saying, they're preaching that this Jesus is another king who wants to overthrow Rome. Now, if you think about this, for a minute, and what you know of the word of God and what you know of the Jews in the days of Christ and in the days of the early church, the Jews were looking for a Messiah that would be what? What were they expecting the Messiah to be? What were they wanting the Messiah to be? A king who would overthrow Rome, right? And when Jesus came along and he wasn't that, but rather he was to be crucified, that he might be our savior, that he'd be buried, that he'd rise from the dead. Even as he preached, as Jesus preached that, the Jews couldn't handle that. That's not what they were expecting. They rejected Jesus as the Messiah because they thought that when Messiah comes, he's gonna deliver us from all these Gentile foreign powers and set up his kingdom. Now think about that for a minute. That was their expectation. That was their desire. So if Paul and Silas had actually been preaching that Jesus was, they were preaching a Jesus who is another king who is going to throw off Caesar, they would have embraced that. If that's actually what Paul had been teaching, they would have embraced that because that's exactly what they were wanting the Messiah to be. So they're coming before these Gentile rulers and saying that these guys are preaching, actually what, they're not saying this, but in their minds they have to be thinking this, actually what we were hoping Messiah would be, and we're gonna say that's what they were teaching. And the point I wanna make here is that they're being very hypocritical. They're twisting what Paul and Silas have been preaching in order to stir up the rulers of the city against them. But even in what they're doing, they're being hypocrites. Because if Paul and Silas had actually preached what they accused them of preaching, they would have believed. Now, I think we can learn from this and that someday we may have to deal with this, but we certainly see it, even though we personally are not directly dealing with it, we see it and we hear it. Don't expect the enemies of Christianity to be logical or reasonable or even sincere when they attack Christians and Christianity. I mean, you see that, you hear the arguments today. Some who oppose Christianity may be sincere. I'm not saying that everybody is a hypocrite, but most are not. And they're simply using circumstances to accomplish their own agenda. And they will twist what we teach and preach to make it say something that is objectionable to them, even though They know in their heart that's not what we're preaching and teaching, but by twisting it, it fits their agenda. They can use it against us to accomplish their purposes and what they're trying to do. We shouldn't be surprised. It's exactly what they were doing in Paul's day. It's what they've done throughout the history of the church. We shouldn't be surprised when the enemies of the gospel resort to mob violence or accuse us of being troublemakers or use politics as a weapon against us. These have been some of Satan's tactics since the very beginning. So when we see these kinds of things happening today, or we hear about it happening today, it shouldn't surprise us, because these things have been happening all along. It is likely that in the near future, I think this comes from gutquestions.org, hate speech, and talking about what is hate speech. But they said, it is likely that in the near future, governments will begin declaring more speech as hate speech, thereby making it illegal. In some parts of the world, it is illegal to say that homosexuality is a sin. In some countries, it is illegal to declare one religion right and other religions wrong. This steady broadening of what qualifies as hate speech could eventually lead to any evangelistic effort to be declared as hate speech, since it would be hateful to tell a person that what he or she currently believes is incorrect. That we very well, and we're seeing this, and the pace at which this is happening is accelerating, as we see happening in our nation. We're just one small part of the church. But what we see happening in our nation and in other European nations is that these hate speech laws are being propagated that will become a tax on the church. And they'll be under the guise of being politically motivated, being politically correct or whatever, but they're intended to silence us because Satan hates the gospel and Satan is driving these people who hate the gospel and oppose it. I think I shared with you the situation in Finland, a member of parliament by the name of Pavi Rassanen and a bishop, Johanna Pajola, of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission were facing hate speech charges because Rassanen wrote and Pajola published a pamphlet about biblical marriage, defining marriage biblically, which would also then declare that homosexual quote unquote marriage is not actually marriage. Let me get, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't get on my soapbox here a minute, but let me get on my soapbox for a minute. The government has no business in the whole marriage debate because marriage is not something that the government instituted, it's something that God instituted. The government can't define it. The government shouldn't regulate it because God has defined it and God has given the principles, laws governing marriage in his word. And I don't know what the outcome will be, what the end will be, but I think there's this dangerous thing going on right now in America because the government's trying to be involved in what is marriage and it has no business there because it's not their business. So I don't know where it'll all end up. But I think we need to understand as believers that marriage is something that God ordained, God instituted, and His word is what defines and delineates what marriage is to be. And we need to be committed to that. And I understand the world is not going to accept that. So we shouldn't be surprised at what the world does or what the world believes or accepts because they're not committed to the word of God. But we must be. and we must stand upon truth. And so Rassanen wrote this pamphlet about biblical marriage and Pajolo published it. And then Rassanen, who is again a member of parliament in Finland, was also facing charges for comments made in a broadcast interview on her social media site. Fortunately, the charges were dropped. But even the fact that there were charges brought against them. And I realized this is Finland, liberal, but we're not far behind. I mean, Europe is ahead of us in all this, but we're following right along in their footsteps. And we're probably gonna be dealing with this stuff at some point, or our kids are gonna be dealing with this stuff in America. But it's the same thing. It shouldn't surprise us. We just go back to the word of God, and we see these same kinds of things were happening when the church was established, and they're still happening today. The magistrates, the rulers of the city, polytarchs is the Greek word, but these guys that were rulers over the city seemed to have a little more reason than the mob Maybe even some of their wives were believers and had become part of the church. So maybe they were a little more reasonable because of that, perhaps. But nonetheless, they weren't ready to arrest Paul and Silas. They're not ready to beat Paul and Silas. They simply, the Bible says that they took security of Jason and of the other, and then let them go. What they said is, look, We don't want trouble in our city like was in Philippi or those other cities. So Jason, you've received these guys into your house. You're responsible for them. Jason, we want you to guarantee that there's going to be no trouble in our city and to make sure you're going to have to pay us money. You put up a bond. We'll let this thing go, Jason, if you will put up a bond that guarantees that there's not going to be any trouble in our city. And so, that's what happened. Jason and the other that they had brought from his house, those guys paid money to the government to guarantee that Paul and Silas would not stir up trouble in Thessalonica. And as a result of that, the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night into Berea. The solution for them was, and I don't doubt that the Bible doesn't tell specifically, I don't doubt that Paul and Silas were in full agreement. We don't want to make trouble for the church. And so the solution was for Paul and Silas to leave, which they did. And they went to Berea. And so Paul tried to go back several times as he wrote to them in his first letter. He said, we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart. We love you guys. We want to be there. We can't be. We endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire when we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again. Satan hindered us. Paul said, I've been trying to get back, guys. But Satan has been closing the door. He's been hindering us. And it may be this bond that Jason and the other had to pay that is part of the means that Satan used to hinder Paul from going back. He kept thinking, I want to go back, and he kept writing and contacting Jason, maybe saying, hey, can we come back? And Jason says, no, not yet. Things haven't settled down. It's not safe for you to come back, or it's not a good thing for you to come back, whatever. But Paul said, I've been trying to come back, but I haven't been able to. Paul was so concerned about him because he'd been there a short time and there's persecution there and opposition that they're facing. So Paul couldn't go back himself. So he sent Timothy back to check on them and to encourage them to be steadfast despite the opposition, the tribulation that they were facing. When Timothy returned to Paul, he stated the church was standing fast despite the persecution and that they longed to see Paul just as much as he longed to see them. And that encouraged the apostle Paul. And so this church is established, even in the face of persecution, and even after Paul and Silas left, the opposition didn't cease. But the church was established, the church grew, and the church prospered again so that Paul could write As he wrote that first letter, he said, you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word and much affliction with the joy of the Holy Ghost, so that you were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. And from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God were to spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything. You became a model, an example to other churches of faithfulness to God, service to God, love for God, what a church ought to be. The Thessalonian church was it. And so let's be encouraged tonight that despite satanic opposition, the Lord is building His church. Wherever the truth is preached, the scriptures are opened, the gospel is preached, and men receive it as God's word and act upon it, God will build His church. even though there's opposition. And the interesting thing is that God often uses the opposition, the attacks of Satan, to further the gospel. I was reminded of what it says in Acts chapter 8. after the stoning of Stephen in Acts chapter 7. It tells us in verse 1 of Acts chapter 8 that Saul was consenting unto Stephen's death. And at that time, there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they're scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. But verse 4 tells us that they that were scattered abroad because of the persecution of the church in Jerusalem, whenever we're preaching the word. Satan stirred up persecution against the church of Jerusalem, so what happened? They went other places and preached the gospel, and the gospel spread. So whenever Satan opposes, God just turns that opposition into greater opportunities for the preaching of the gospel. And we have seen this and we have heard this declared by missionaries and those who keep up with countries where persecution is intense, the church is growing. And sometimes growing more faithfully, more broadly in churches, in countries where there's more persecution of God's people. Persecution just seems to stimulate church growth. And so even though we're seeing increasing opposition and hostility in America to Christianity, God's still going to build his church, even in America. And he'll use even the opposition that we face simply to increase the outreach of the gospel message. So we can be encouraged tonight, even as we see what happened in the city of Thessalonica in Paul's ministry. Well, let's stand together and we'll pray. Father, thank you for your word. And again, thank you for this instruction that we find. And Lord, the truth of things that happened over 2,000 years ago, and yet they're relevant for us today, that Satan's tactics haven't changed. And Lord, we don't need to be surprised nor discouraged as we see even the changes that are taking place in our nation. Thank you that you are a great and mighty God. Thank you for the fact and the opportunity that we have had to hear the message of the gospel and be saved. And Lord, we ask that you would further the message of the gospel even here in America and around the world. And we ask in Jesus name. Amen.