Yeah. I sure appreciate their family. Thank you. And they all do. Good job. Amen. I agree. Good evening, ladies and gents. Glad to have all of you here today. And we're continuing to be glad to have a piano player. I was thinking as that was playing, you know, we always have that in Invisible Pianist in the background. And it. I mean, that. That computer plays nice, but it was nice to have like a different tempo, something like a real person behind it. Thank you, Lou. When are you all moving in? Permanently. We're glad. We're glad you're here and glad that Wiley's still here also. And why don't we sing tonight? We're. We're also glad that Isaiah is back tonight. I tell you what, you know, Isaiah's been missing out on leading our music. So why don't you come introduce Wiley and call the choir up and tell the hymn number. And Wiley will lead us. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to sing down at the cross, number 250, too. I've been gone on a three week. Has it been three weeks? Road trip and I'm officially back. And Wiley, come on up and leave the music. There we go. Linda Singers. Oh, no, you all. You all stay standing. We'll get our. We'll get our choir up here. We're missing Jack. He must be washing dishes. Oh, okay. I do. When I'm at the cross. When my Savior died and we're proclaimed from sin, I cried Dear to my heart was the blood applied. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. My heart is the blood of light. Glory to his name. Come to the fountain so rich and sweet. Cast thy poor soul at the Savior's feet. Worship today and be made complete. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Amen. You may be seated. And good singing there, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, and I hope you. Those of you online were singing well, too. We could only almost hear you right here. Hey, a couple announcements before we get started. And that is that on this Sunday we have potluck lunch. Looking forward to that. And so bring whatever kind of pot you've got. How's that? Bring a fold. That's right. And we'll have a good lunch Sunday after church. And we'll have these guests here will be with us. And also Everett and Debbie Robinson are going to be with us from Show Low, Arizona. More of our online crowd that'll be here. And then who knows who else will be here? You'll be here maybe. And that'll Be nice. And we'll be in Ecclesiastes, the 11th chapter. And in the 9:45 hour, I will be back to music and morality. Last time, I laid a little bit of the groundwork on what is music and where do we get morality? Two, well, somewhat unrelated subjects, especially the. Where does morality come from? I'm saying it comes from nature because nature is the imprint of God. That's how we know the character of God and music. Now we'll get into that Sunday and we'll get some more examples and see. I don't know how far we'll get this Sunday. Maybe we'll see if there is any music that is absolutely unredeemable. Some music can go either way. You know, like, I should not teach this lesson right now, but take a gun, for example. A gun can be used for good purposes, and a gun can be used for bad purposes. A gun is morally neutral, but heroin can only be used for bad purposes. It is immoral. So is there music that can't be redeemed in that sense? That's what we're talking about. Okay? And we're gonna have Elvis Presley here. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. He'll be here, be doing some, I don't know, Bobby Bear a little. I wonder if Marie Laveau, if that song could be redeemed. Could you work that out? You. You do arrangements and change. Change words to Marie Laveau. Is that the name of it? It is, isn't it? The. The legend of Marie. Yeah. Wiley. Changes. Check that out. Wiley, I. I'd like to see if you could redeem that one. I mean, musically, maybe so, but that Marie screaming, I don't know if that can be worked into a hymn. Okay, we got to move on, but y' all be sure and check out Marie Laveau. It's one of my favorite songs. I always play it when the grandkids come, but anyway, so that's what's on deck for Sunday. And tonight is First Thessalonians. We'll start with the word of prayer here, and I'll get us right into Bible study here. Heavenly Father, thanks for your watch care. The blessing that we had in supper tonight and the fellowship that was ours. And we just ask that if you could guide us through the scripture tonight as we study and come to understand this book of First Thessalonians, that that would be a blessing to us in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, First Thessalonians. Last week I gave a. An intro to First Thessalonians. And let me get to the scripture here somewhere, which I think is. There we go. I gave an intro and in that intro, sorry, I didn't type that ahead of time. And I can't spell Thessalonians and talk at the same time. So we've got in. In the intro last week. Told you a little bit about Acts 17, what we know about where this church came from, Paul on his second missionary journey and what took place there. And we got just a little bit into it in I would call these just some greeting type of scriptures that's given as Paul gives thanks to them for making. We're always making mention of you in our prayers. He says, remembering without ceasing your three things, he remembers your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God the Father. And then I want to pick up with verse four and carry on to verse five. Now I gave you on the outline some of what was there last week just so that you would have it together. So we made it through verse three last week. And I want to jump into verse four here and talk about why it's really important to understand what to do with your Bible or you will end up with a mess right here in the fourth verse. We take the Bible so often to be as that old ditty of a song used to say. Every promise in the book is mine, Every chapter, every verse, every line sounds really good. And there was a nice little song that the kids sang. You remember that? Yeah. You don't remember that? Well, maybe it was before your time. And so kids used to sing it. Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line. And it sounds really good and you're excited about it and whoa, here's a book that that is. It's all for me. The problem is, if you try to do Leviticus in your life, you are going to be in a world of trouble. And if you try to take the promises that are for Israel, or the promises even that are, say, for Joshua, and you try to make them yours, you end up with a mess. And too many times we have not rightly divided the word of truth and said what's mine, what's not. So we're looking at 1st Thessalonians in the term I'll use from 2nd Timothy, chapter 2, verse 15. Rightly dividing the word of truth, we want to rightly divide first Thessalonians. So if we don't divide it, we take the Thessalonians and let's Say we just put ourselves in the shoes of the Thessalonians would be easy to do. We say, hey, Paul wrote this. He's the apostle to the Gentiles. I'm one of the Gentiles. This is, you know, after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this is mine. And so then you come in and you've got. If, if this is us knowing, brethren, brethren, beloved of your election of God, we would immediately have to say, okay, they are the elect of God and I am the elect of God. You, I'm not so sure about. God might not have chosen you. Possibly he didn't. I have my questions. And we make ourselves Calvinist because of the assumptions we brought into the book rather than what the book actually says. Now what Paul is convinced of is what? This is the simplest quiz of the night. Paul is convinced of the Thessalonians election. You got it. He is convinced the Thessalonians are among the elect of God. I doubt anyone would say they are the totality of the elect, but he's convinced those he's writing to at Thessalonica they are the elect of God. They're among that group. Now that is from this passage of scripture. Anyway, that is all we can take out of this. He knows the Thessalonians are the elect of God. Can we take out of it? I am too. Not really. Not if we're going to let the scripture speak for itself. Now if we want to read into the scripture, of course we could. But if I am one of the elect of God, I've got to find that some other passage of scripture here, the Thessalonians. He's convinced they are the elect of God. Now I can begin then to let scripture interpret itself and go through and say, okay, what does it mean to be the elect of God? Where do I learn about this? Where do I read about this? What other passages can I take? And you have to get the total picture of all of this. Now there's a few things that we can look into. Oh, by the way, I noticed that I don't have the actual quote there but the, the website Bibleref.com which is owned by Got Questions and I, I promise you I will put money on this even though I don't gamble because this is no gamble. If you'll go to a search engine and you'll type what does put in the passage of scripture? Whatever passage you want. What does John 3:16 mean? The top search result will always be Bibleref.com okay? They somehow own that yeah, that's where you'll go is BibleRef.com BibleRef.com is owned by God Questions. God Questions is the place for standard evangelical answers. Okay. If you want to know what the standard evangelical answer is, go there. If you want to know what the Bible answer is, askthetheologian.com go, go somewhere else to find out what the Bible answer is. Now, they say something in here. I wish I had copied the quote in. In this, they say something about all Christians are the elect of God. The Thessalonian believers are the elect. Something that they, they associate it with me and you being the elect of God. I think they need to fine tune that a little bit. The Thessalonians are definitely part of the elect of God. But as we study the elect of God, one of the things that we would want to do again is let scripture, interpret scripture. And we could even go to a place like Romans 9. Where do we start? Say about verses 4 and 5, Romans 9. Paul says, I didn't get there. Did I just go to Romans 9? 1? Yeah. Here in verse 2, I have a great heaviness, a continual sorrow in my heart. I wish that I myself were cursed from Christ. For my brethren. We don't really know who his brethren are, but he keeps saying, keeps going, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. If he had just said, my brethren, my kinsmen, that could be fairly broad. You and I might talk to each other. Good evening, brothers and sisters. We're glad we're all in the same family, right here in the family of God, my brethren, my kinsman. Doesn't narrow it down much, but he goes on to say, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Okay. Sometimes we'll talk about, you know, this is my, I don't know, my. My cousin by marriage. That means we could get married if we wanted to. It's just a cousin by marriage, you know, like Franklin and Eleanor. Oh, maybe they were a little closer than that. But anyway, they were cousins. If you didn't know that. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, going back a few years. Yeah, you knew, didn't you? Anyway, kinsman according to the flash, definitely makes it a DNA kind of thing. So he's talking about. Oh, just in case we're still not sure who he's talking about, he goes on the kinsman according to the flesh, who are Israelites. Okay, there's no way I can miss this now he's talking about Israelites. He's not talking about some sort of spiritual Israel, some sort of New Israel. He's talking about Jews, kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites. And then he says of these Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, the promises, whose are the fathers of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is overall God blessed and forevermore. He gives all of these advantages to them. And he says, to whom pertaineth the adoption? Ah, the adoption belongs to them. Not only the adoption, but also he says in there, the covenants. Well, the covenants are all about the election. This is. They are the covenant people. You and I come as a. Not under the, not under the old covenants. We're not under the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the. The Davidic covenant. That's all those kinsmen according to the flesh. For Paul, you and I are under a gift, a gift of grace. God says, hey, anybody? Neither Jew nor Gentile. I'll open this up. This is a. A new and wonderful thing. So we could go back through and if especially I didn't put them on the outline and I have forgotten the exact references here, but you could go into Deuteronomy and it very clearly says that Israel is my chosen. So back here to verse four, knowing brethren, beloved of your election of God. What he's saying is we have complicated this so much. What he's saying is you guys are Israelite like I am. You're a Jew like I am. You're. You're the kinsman of the flesh, like I am. Now that goes back to last week's introductory material where we looked at in Acts, chapter 17, and we saw that when Paul went to, to Thessalonica, he was only there three weeks and he was at the synagogue the whole time. And right at the end of the synagogue, he got kicked out of the synagogue and he went on to Berea. So the people he was talking to were in the synagogue. Anyone want to guess what kind of people were in the synagogue? I. Greeks. Greeks. Yeah. Who's married in Grants to who's buried in Grants tomb? I don't know who's married there. Yeah. So it actually specifically says in Acts chapter 17, verses 1 through 4 that there were Jews there and there were some devout Greeks. It does mention devout Greeks. We talked about last week how devout Greeks mean Greek people who had become Jewish. They were worshiping in the synagogue. They believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They weren't devout to Diana or, you know, Artemis or any of those. They were Devout to the Lord. So he's speaking to. To Jewish people. It reminds me of a joke, which I don't know if I can tell, but I've got this far. I probably should. Go ahead. You all know my friend Boaz, right? Boaz. He's been here before. He is a Jew. He always tells this joke. And some jokes are better told by those people. But here's the joke. It helps if you have the accent like Boaz does. You know what you get when you squeeze a synagogue juice? There you go. He always tells that when we go by these beautiful fruit stands in Israel and they're making fresh orange juice or pomegranate. Every single time, I know he's gonna say, you know what you get when you squeeze off synagogue juice? And it fits his accent perfectly. So anyway, there you go. They were in the synagogue. There's Jews in the synagogue. This is what you get. So when he says, knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God, he. What he's saying is, you and I are in the same family. You and I are of the Covenant family. All these things, the covenants pertains to us. The adoption, all these other things, these are ours. And I know that. I recognize that now. That's. I think that's important because you don't run away with a theology that you don't need to run away with, like. Like a Calvinist theology, anything like that. You just let the text speak for itself and there it is again. Maybe I have my doubts, but maybe you'll find another passage of scripture that puts us in the election or some. Some. Then. Then you could go with it. But you got to find something else. That's why I mentioned this last week. But I. On the outline, I color code these black, blue or green. All of them tonight are black, which. Which for me means this is not stuff. You want to go and build a doctrine Off. Off. This is stuff that is supplementary. I don't know if I should say supplementary background material, foundational material. You need to know this to understand it. But this is not where you want to build your doctrine. So knowing brethren, brethren, beloved of your election of God. And then he goes on. But I think I want to say one more thing. I was. I was almost a Calvinist. I should. I should write a book. I was almost a Calvinist. I was almost a Calvinist because of passages like this that I looked at and said, hey, you know, if the Thessalonians, Paul went there, he preached about Christ, they believed, they became a church, they joined the church just like me. So if they're the elect of God, then I must be part of the elect of God. And then I was. In fact I was for a while. Not a pre. Millennial, pre tribulational premillennialist like I am now. And you should be too. I was a post tribulational premillennialist. That is, I believe the rapture was going to happen after the. The day of Jacob's trouble. The day of my trouble. The tribulation. Because Matthew 24 says after. Let's see, says speaking of the tribulation, it says those days were cut short for the sake of the elect. I was the elect. I could see it right there. The elect are in the tribulation. They're cut short for the debt, for. For the, for my sake. They're cut short. So if you're not careful, you end up having to adopt doctrines that you didn't need to adopt. But logically you made so many assumptions that you're left with no. No place else other than to be a Calvinist post tribulationalist. It's not any surprise that much of the Christian world is Calvinist. And post trip I'm non Calvinist and pre trib. So here I know their elect of God. And according to Deuteronomy and a number of other places, the whole of scripture I think teaches, okay, the election that pertaineth to Israel. So knowing beloved of your election of God. Now he moves in beginning in verse 5 and this is the section that I call the Gospel's power. And the Thessalonians, exemplary response. He moves in, in verse five and he says, 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. Now once again I've taken this to say, hey, this is not something you want to necessarily build. In fact, you don't want to build our doctrine from it. Our gospel came not to you in word only. Let me propose to you do it. Do a private study of your own life here for just a second. How did the gospel come to you? My hunch is in word only that there wasn't a dramatic miracle. The heavens didn't open up and God say, thou art my beloved chosen one in whom I am well pleased. Somebody shared a gospel tract with you, or you read a Bible in a hotel room or some preacher gave a fabulous sermon. Mostly in word only. I doubt he flew or had flames coming off of his head. Or anything like that. It was in word only. Now Paul says, our gospel came unto you, not, not unto you in word. Ah, there was. There was more, by the way, later on, I may be jumping out of order here, but later on, didn't. Didn't Paul say, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God? Oh, well, if faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If you take the word of God and you hear it, I think that would include reading it yourself. If you really want to hear it, read it out loud. That, hey, you, you can come to faith by word only. But for the Thessalonians, it didn't just come in word only, but it says also in power and in the Holy Ghost. Okay, let's put those two together. Because I. The Holy Ghost is most often associated with power, the power of the highest. And so it came with the. The power of the Holy Ghost. Well, Paul did live in a time in which the Holy Spirit was giving, or which God, through the Holy Spirit was giving these miraculous signs and wonders. So that when the apostles of that age would go out and share, there was a display of power that was given right then. Literally, not, oh, I feel a warm spirit within me. I. I just feel a strange sensation within me that, that. I don't think that was ever recorded. But what was recorded is miracles, signs, wonders, silver and gold. Have I none, but such as I have give, I unto thee, arise and walk. And, you know, all of those kind of things that we see, dead people coming alive, sick people becoming. Well, all that. So when Paul came, he comes in power and in the Holy Ghost. And that was again, part of what, what. What was carrying on, Maybe. Let's see, let's. Let's go to Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 12 here and see an example of this. As Paul says, truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Okay, that's what took place. I don't know about you, but I have been in our. In our churches in the past for. For many years. I did what was called faith evangelism in the. In the Southern Baptist Convention, and, And we would go, typically on Sunday night, and we would go door to door, knocking on doors. In your personal opinion, what does it take for a person to. And, And a lot of people, surprisingly, it actually works. You know, people are interested in talking and say, hey, you know, so. But in all of that witnessing I did, whether it was door to door or from the pulpit, which Obviously has been a lot more than that. I found out when I became a preacher that Sunday comes four times a week. You always gotta, you know, you gotta have something else. Gotta have something else. And so preaching the gospel, teaching the gospel, writing the gospel Sharon track, you know, all that kind of stuff. I never saw signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Like literally, you know, I mean, if, if you want to say, well, did you ever see someone just break down crying saying, oh, I'm so glad you're here? Well, yeah, okay, I saw that. Did you ever see someone hide their beer behind their back as long as you were there? So they didn't know that you didn't know that they were a drinker? Yeah, I saw that. Okay. You know, you know, everything but the signs of an apostle. Signs, wonders, mighty deeds. No, I preached some fabulous sermons. But signs, wonders, mighty deeds, no, Paul was in a time in which there were these signs. Even today, a lot of theologians call them attestation, miracles. They attest to the, this new thing that God had done or the power of the Spirit was all there. And so they had, they had that. There's a number of other scriptures on the outline that you could look at there in Hebrews 2 and Romans 15. But he says our gospel came not in word, but also in power. The Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. And here I think he describes the assurance as, you know, what manner of men we were among you, for your sake, this is probably the one that we could say, ah, that could carry over just, just about anytime is, what manner of men are you? What kind of people are you? You know what, Is there any reason I should trust you? Do you, do you, do you care about me? Do you have some degree of knowledge? You know, did you get this out of a cereal box? What, what's. What's going on here? So that one, obviously, I think would, Would fit all the time. But again, if you take First Thessalonians so far and say, hey, every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line, then we have to say, how come when we share the Gospel, there's no signs and wonders and mighty deeds and the Holy Spirit breaking forth? And, you know, we have a prayer meeting and the walls don't shake. Although our wall did fall down once, but it was not during prayer meeting, fortunately, because you guys would have been sunk in mud. But, you know, these, these things don't happen and haven't happened. Now we can say, oh, it's because we don't have enough faith. It's because we don't sing long enough, pray long enough, preach hard enough, whatever. Or you can say, the greatest people of faith I've ever known also haven't had this. What's up? Let's let scripture tell me what's happening here. And I think scripture does tell us that, hey, there was a time in which this was very true. That's not the time or the dispensation of the age in which we live today. We could go into that, obviously, to try to build that argument, but if we try to build every argument, we'll never get through first Thessalonians, right? So here they've got something that does not directly relate to. To us. Now we go on. In verse six, ye became. That's interesting. Followers of us and of the Lord. Let's pick that apart just a little bit here, if I can highlight it there. There we go. Followers of us and the Lord. Why wouldn't. Why would Paul say both instead of, you became followers of the Lord? I have never said. Well, there's a couple up in Alberta, Calgary, Alberta. Josh and Jenna, the Gibsons. And both of them came to know the Lord through our ministry. And now they have three kids. And so sometimes, you know, I might celebrate. Hey, Josh and Jenna. They came to know the Lord through our ministry. They're followers of the Lord. Even though they are. I have never, ever said they're followers of the Lord and of us. And I especially wouldn't say they're followers of me and of the Lord. And if I started even talking about all my followers, you would begin to say, that sounds like a cult. I've been suspicious all along. Followers of me. But here Paul says, okay, followers of us. Followers of me and of the Lord. And he puts the us first. Followers of us. Oh, and of the Lord. Of the Lord also. Yeah, they're followers of the Lord also. Why does he say it that way? Remember that every word of scripture is inspired, right? It's God breathed, it's given for profit, for doctrine, for correction, all these things that are mentioned. So when he says they're followers of us and of the Lord, I don't think he's just writing quickly. And, you know, as I. As I write, I have written a chapter here and wrote it this afternoon, and Luca's right there, and I typically get it all written, and then I say, read it and make sure I didn't say the wrong thing. And so he'll go through it, and sometimes he'll say, you said the wrong thing. And then I'll go Back and say, oh, you're right, yeah, somebody will take that the wrong way or whatever. So we change it. The Bible's not really that way, right? Where it's like, ah, his editor didn't catch that. So followers of us there are. I've given you three of them. I think on the outline there are three places. Yeah. First Corinthians 4, 16, 11:1 and Philippians 3:17, where Paul specifically says, follow me. You follow me. In fact, 11:1, First Corinthians 11:1 says, you follow me as I follow the Lord. I want you to be a follower of me. And so three times he explicitly again says, hey, be a follower of me. Now why would he rejoice that they are a follower of them and of the Lord? Or what does that say? Actually, it fits perfectly with what we saw last week in, in Acts chapter 17, because Paul went to the synagogue. What do you find in the synagogue? Jews. He taught them, hey, our Messiah is supposed to die and be buried and rise again. The Christ. This is supposed, this is what the Christ is supposed to do. And then he says, I propose to you that Jesus is the Christ. Okay? They became followers of the Lord. I think there's no doubt there that's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. They became followers. They said, oh yeah, you've laid out a good case. You reasoned it well from the Scriptures. We agree the Lord Jesus Christ is our Messiah. But then followers of us now put this together in this way. If, let me, let me lay an if or two. If Paul received a mystery that heretofore had been hidden unrevealed, and if that mystery changed the whole kit and caboodle, the whole ball game, wouldn't it be reasonable to say, except that I really have received this mystery and you are to follow me in this mystery. Now I would propose to you that Ephesians, chapter three and a number of other places, Paul says, hey, I have received the mystery, the dispensation of the grace of God. It's given to me for you. In, in previous ages it was not made known. Now it has been revealed. Now it is known. And the Lord came to me in order that I might be a pattern for all those who come hereafter. He says in First Timothy, Chapter 1, 15 and 16. So, and, and then Paul says, follow me, follow me, follow me. There were a lot of people that rejected it, a lot of people that said, who do you think you are coming in with this brand new message. It really was just Paul who said, we are free from the law, right. This is. This was a thing even by grace through faith, not of works. That's. This is dispensation of the grace of God that we're in. So it makes sense to me that Paul is saying, hey, you are Pauline and you are Christian. I'll put both of those together. You're Pauline and you're Christian. And he celebrates that, that they have accepted Paul and his mystery and his message, and they follow Jesus Christ as the Lord. By the way, this one would be foundational to the other one because Paul taught the Gospel of who the Christ was. So he rejoices. They're followers of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Ghost. Let me back up just a little bit. You know, it is my. My belief that there was. Let's make. Let's make a long story short. There are three times in history. There's before Paul, there's during Paul, and there's after Paul. Okay, before Paul. What you have is do not go to the Gentiles. Go to the Jews. This message is for them. It was a very Jewish world, wouldn't you agree? The Old Testament's pretty Jewish. And even Romans 15, verse 16 says Jesus was a minister of the circumcision, confirming the promises to the fathers before Paul. Then there is Paul, who receives this revelation of the mystery which fulfills the scripture, completes the Scripture. You need to have this in order to have the whole thing. And there's during Paul. But that is a time of overlap. There's this kingdom message. There's this Pauline message here. I think you see it. Followers of the Lord, followers of us, and followers of the Lord. It's this time period in which he lives. Now, you and I are post Paul. We cannot live out the kingdom requirements. The kingdom requirements of the, you know, sacrifices and going to the temple, enduring to the end with the. The Mosaic Law. None of that's ours. And we wouldn't teach that to anybody. But there are places in the Bible that do teach that. Moses, for example. So here it. This displays this overlap. So you became followers of us and the Lord having received the Word in much affliction. Now, here again is one of those cases in which we have to be careful not just to take every. Even Pauline scripture and adopt it for us. Because my guess is that that's not true of most of us. Having received the Word in much affliction. I lived an idyllic life as a boy growing up in a preacher's home. And came to know the Lord when I was 6 years old and always loved the Lord and loved the church and loved the Bible and was pure as the driven snow every single day of my life until this one. Well, I would say I didn't receive the word in much affliction. My family celebrated it, my church celebrated it, my relatives celebrated it. Everybody thought, this is a wonderful thing. I lived it, you know, even going to high school in Espanola, I can tell you I didn't get much affliction. Oh, he's a Christian. Well, they were all Catholic. They didn't know the difference. You know, they. They had a. Had a respect for. I can remember to this day, actually. I'll tell you a story. We went to Rancho de Chimayo, one of my favorite places in high school. Of course, my dad was the pastor, and Mrs. Jaramillo, the owner and founder there, she greeted us as we came in. And being a Catholic, they don't really know what to do with a non Catholic. It was Christmas time, I remember. And she said, oh, Father White, thank you for being here. Hang on just a moment. And she went to the bar and got a big bottle of wine and said, merry Christmas from us to you. Thank you, Father White. And of course, I was there as the preacher's kid in the 80s in which a Baptist preacher did not touch alcohol. And. And you didn't call him Father. Now, she was doing it totally out of respect, love, reverence, even. Here it is. And so of course, he took it out of respect, love and reverence. And we drank it when we got home. No, actually we didn't. I don't know what we did with the bottle of wine. It's probably still in the parsonage in Espanola. Hidden. Hidden in the back cabinet somewhere. I have no idea. But. But. So, you know, even. Even there, there was no affliction ever. I went to a Baptist college, I went to a Baptist seminary. I pastored churches even in Taos. I don't get much affliction. You know, every now and then Jeff comes by, but he hadn't been in several years. It's really a pretty good life, right? So if we're not careful, we can take things like this and put ourselves under some degree of guilt. I guess I'm not faithful enough to the Lord because I've never had suffering. That's never been my story. Well, it's so much easier rather than guilting ourselves with this, it's so much easier just to say this is talking about the. Thessalonians not me. And they received it with much affliction. And you can read in Acts, chapter 17. Indeed they did receive it with much affliction. Okay. They actually got affliction, you and I, for the most part, I would suppose maybe 100. Here we got a blessing out of it. It was a joy and. And a blessing all the way through. So having received with much affliction. With joy of the Holy Ghost. I won't go into that here because. Because I gotta go on a couple more verses before I can quit. But joy and the Holy Ghost are often associated. The fruit of the spirit is love. Joy. The second one. There's a number of scriptures in which joy and the Holy Ghost do come together. So that ye were in samples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. I want to finish verses 7 and 8 and then 9 and 10 will take too long, so I'll save them for next week. But you are in samples. I. I looked up that word a number of years ago because we don't. I've never talked about an ensample. Have you? I would talk about an example and I looked it up. And our friend Brian Ross has a book called something the King James Bible in America and orthographic and some other word history. Let's call it an orthographic history. Doesn't that sound exciting? You just. Just want to say it. I would like to buy an orthographic history of the King James Bible. Well, I know the publisher. I can sell you one. But anyway, he studied this much more deeply than I have. And what he Sundays is in 1611, there was a wide variety of the way to spell things in sample is the same thing as an example. So you were examples and samples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. Thessalonica happens to be in Macedonia. It's the province, if you will. And Achaia is where Corinth and Athens are. Macedonia is on the north, Achaea is on the south. And it covers pretty much the Greek peninsula there. So all throughout Greece, if you will, as we might say today. So here it is, your examples. But man, everybody heard of this. In fact, it goes on in verse 8. 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. He's. He's just celebrating their. Their faith. Hey, you all had a lot of affliction. Nothing travels as well as a story of affliction. Right. And you had affliction and you handled it well. And so those in the believing community especially heard about this news traveled. Hey, have you heard about the new church in Thessalonica? Man, they are really. It's a blowing and going. That place is a house of fire. I mean. And word spread. And so he says, hey, I don't even have to go tell your story. They already know your story when I get there. He's just celebrating that which. Which took place of the Thessalonica. In fact, I'm going to do just a tiny bit of verse nine, he says, for they themselves show us what manner of entering we had unto you. So we get. We get to these other places, and as soon as we get there, they're telling us about you. And Paul is writing to say, hey, well done in. In what's taking place. Now I'm going to stop there because I have two biggies to cover next week. And I'll just tell you a little bit about what they are in verse nine. What kind of entering we had unto you? How ye turn from idols to serve the living and true God. What kind of people. People do you find in synagogues? Very good. How. How many idols do Jews serve? That's like commandment number two, isn't it? Number one and number two, they don't. They don't serve idols. And devout Greeks, as I said a moment ago, they're not devout. To Diana of the Ephesians, they were devout. To the God of Abraham, they weren't serving idols. So what's he talking about here when he says you turned from idols to serve the living and true God? We'll cover that next week and then in verse two. And to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. I want us to figure out what is that wrath that the Thessalonians at least have been delivered from, and what does all that mean? And then we'll also go into chapter two next Wednesday night. Y' all still going to be with us next Wednesday night? No. So you won't. You'll never know. Yeah, let's. Yeah. But there will be a book available or it's online if you want to save money. There you go. Thanks each one of you for that. And again, do look forward to. To potluck Sunday, as well as a couple studies, and we'll have a good time with that. Let me lead us in prayer. Heavenly Father, thanks for your blessing to us, for helping us understand this this book and recognizing the importance of rightly dividing the word of truth and putting in only that which really does belong to a direct application to us, and pray that you'd help us overall to understand this book very, very solidly. In the end, we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Hey, I'll give a little announcement. We got a choir special that Lou has worked up for us. So those of you who can sing, if you'll stay long, little bit. We'll practice it for a little bit and be ready to whistle on Sunday. Right. And men's breakfast tomorrow is actually going to be at Monte's chow cart on the north side rather than here at the church. So if you want to join us there at 8 o', clock, we would love to have you. Thanks, everybody. You are dismissed.