Transcript

John Barnett here and welcome to, and if you open your Bibles with me to 1 Thessalonians. Welcome to the launch of our eight weeks going through the books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Bonnie's distracting me back there, smiling at me, but it was 36 years ago as a newlywed couple. We're serving in New England after our time at Grace Community Church and I said, honey, I'm going to launch going through the book of 1 Thessalonians with the dear saints here in Rhode Island. And it just seems like yesterday and it was a transformational study and I can't believe that in our time there, we never did 2 Thessalonians, we only went through the five chapters of 1 Thessalonians. So, get ready for a lot of excitement.

But for the next eight weeks, I'd like you to join us. Each week we're going to do a chapter. I'm going to explain for some of you that are just watching this video for the first time, we're using the devotional method. That's where you read all week long the chapter we're studying. You get your journal out and you title the chapter. You do a little introduction to it. You write down all the key lessons and truths and doctrines that you find, and then from all those truths, the ending on that one single page is all you have to come up with. You can do a lot more, but what the bare minimum is one page, you write a prayer at the bottom. After you summarize and after you find all the truths, you write an application prayer where you ask God to take the truths.

Let me show you 1 Thessalonians 1. If you have in your Bible verse 6, 1:6 in my journal, I'd write these words, you became imitators of us and of the Lord. I'm supposed to imitate the Apostle Paul who's imitating the Lord, and I should live in such a way that someone else can imitate me. You see, the Christian life is kind of like a train. There's someone ahead of us, of course, Christ and great heroes of the faith, and I'm using the Apostle Paul as my hero of the faith that are ahead of us. And then here's us. But we're supposed to have someone connected to us that we are going through life with, and we are letting them imitate us as we imitate the Lord.

So that's what we're going to learn. And in verse six, that's just one truth I'd write down if you keep reading at verse six of chapter one of 1 Thessalonians, it says, and you receive the word, the whole Christian life starts receiving the Word, and we grow as we, Paul put it this way, as you receive Christ as Lord, so walk in Him. So how did we receive Him by receiving the Word, how do we grow in Him and walking Him? By receiving the Word.

So, look down to slides. Here's my title slide. Acts 17.

And by the way, what you see in that slide is the modern city of Solanki or Thessalonica, but I wrote the title, The Thessalonian Letters Are God's Blueprint For Holy Living In The Last Days. And Paul worked out for his few weeks, he probably spent three to six weeks in Thessalonica, he launched this church that we have two amazing epistles, eight incredible chapters. He did all of that in three to six weeks.

So, look back down to the slide. The Thessalonian letters are God's blueprint for holy living in the Last Days. Now, here's my challenge to you. Are you looking for a study that confronts all the urgent demands of the 21st century? Now look what I have in my hand. Notifications, texts, emails, sounds, buzzes, phone calls, zoom conferences, kind of working on the go working during meals. Do you understand what I mean by the urgent demands of the 21st century? Now, how would you like to have a study that confronts the urgent demands of 21st century life on Earth while anchoring your soul in unshakeable hope? See the Scriptures give us unshakeable hope. All the problems in life are earthquakes.

I remember when Bonnie and I used to live in California that the older people always said, well, you need to put a little ledge on all of your shelves in the kitchen because during the tremors, things, plates, glassware will come to the edge and they'll fall over and break. So, you need a little stopper there so they won't jump over the edge. Do you know what the Apostle Paul said? Earthquakes are coming in life. Spiritual struggles, afflictions, job loss, health loss, emotional ups and downs, family struggles, marital struggles, financial struggles. You understand? Health struggles, everything. They're like earthquakes. Now look back at that slide. Anchor your souls in unshakeable Hope. So that's the first reason for this study.

Secondly, do you long for clarity regarding future prophecy that impacts our daily choices? Now look up. What do I mean by that? Well, 1 Thessalonians is the most amazing example to us of how the Apostle Paul taught the Scriptures. He only had three to six weeks to work with these dear saints, these dear pagans that were idol worshipers. And in, in his short time there, he finds those that are willing to listen. He shares the Gospel with them, he leads them to Christ, and then he disciples them intensely. So, if you had some new converts and you only had a month and a half max, a little less than a month or a month and a half maximum to invest in them, what would you teach them? Would you teach them through doctrinal issues? Would you teach them through apologetics? Evangelism? Prophecy? Oh, prophecy. You know what most people would say? That's probably not one of the top shelf things we've got to cover as we go through the Gospel and disciple these people. How did you get that idea? I would ask them. Because in the only recorded rapid deployment of the Gospel we have in the Bible of the Apostle Paul planting a church, discipling a church, launching a church, do you know what's in his curriculum? Do you know what's in every chapter of this book? Something about the future, we call it in theology, eschatology. Paul thought eschatology, which is Bible prophecy, which is God's plan for the future. Paul thought that was so important. Every chapter refers back to something he taught them in his few three to six weeks that he spent there, his few weeks of teaching, he covered all that prophecy.

Okay, back to the slide. If you join our study, and this is my pitch for you to come along with us the next eight weeks, if you join us, you will immerse yourself in 1 and 2 Thessalonians. These were Paul's earliest writings. They were penned to a church that literally, now look up, Acts 17 tells us that the church turned the world upside down. Now that's what a pagan said about Paul's ministry in Thessalonica. What did that pagan, the unsafe people, mean? What they meant was that all the people in Thessalonica that came to Christ look like they were upside down because they didn't go along with the world anymore. They had turned everything upside down. No longer did they think the games and the calendar and the revelry, and living for self and materialism, all the things of modern Thessalonian life in Roman times were important. Now everything had changed. Their whole world had been turned upside down. What formerly was at the top was at the bottom. What formerly was at the bottom became at the top. And they became, well here, I'll tell you what they became. For they themselves. I'm in the last two verses of chapter one, for they themselves report concerning the kind of reception we had among you, how you turn to God from idols to serve the living in true God. And here's the key to this whole study, and to wait for His Son from Heaven.

Now, it's the first week of November. We're just finishing the Roman study. Some of you have been with us the whole time, all 16 chapters of Romans. We're launching this 1 Thessalonians studies, and you know what, we've just gone through? The massive hurricane that was the highest speed, 185 mile an hour winds that just destroyed Jamaica. I mean, that was just last week. We're in a world that's seeing climactic climate changes. The weather patterns are changing. The precipitation, I mean, is changing and flooding. We're seeing all this. We're seeing drought here and too much rain there, all that stuff. And we have a world that's starting to ask what's going on.

Well, do you know what Paul said to these people who, by the way, I just read an article about the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire during the time of the Bible was experiencing droughts, crop failures. There were there's something called the Antonine Plague and that was under one of the Roman Empire emperors where people had what we would call a massive bubonic black plague sweeped through their own empire, killed millions of people. They were asking questions about, is it the end of the world? How should we live? What did Paul teach them? To wait for His Son from Heaven whom He raised from the dead. Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. See the Apostle Paul tied all the current events in Rome as a picture of what was to come. And just as Jesus had done. Remember all of Jesus's teaching on prophecy started with modern everyday events in life that were going to amplify, multiply, intensify. We're seeing it now. The only thing that's happening now is we're seeing everyone's weather in the world because of our personal digital devices. Even connected to our wrist sometimes. And so, we don't miss anything.

Bonnie, because we travel and have children in so many different time zones, has the weather updates from where most of our children live, and she'll look at me and say, oh, there's a tornado. I said. There is? And she'll tell me which one of the kids are living near a tornado zone. Never in history has it been possible to know what the weather is like everywhere around the world, to know what the disasters are unfolding everywhere around the world. And that's why, look back at this slide, if you immerse yourself in 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Paul's earliest writing to these people who had their world turned upside down, these books provide the essential instruction needed to navigate a world rushing toward its close. Urging believers toward dedication and expectation.

Now, what do I mean by that? Look up. Dedication to Christ. To wait for Him. Expectation that He's going to save us from the wrath to come. Now I'm going to go so long. Let me stay with the slides, okay? Because I get excited about 1 & 2 Thessalonians. It's the two books that kind of puts prophecy into perspective. The early saints, that we're taught by Paul, we're so excited about the Rapture that when things started getting bad with the Roman Empire, when the emperor started calling himself god, the deification of the Roman emperors, this is all unfolding during this time period in the early 50s AD the people thought, oh no, it's the Tribulation. Because Paul had taught them about the Day of the Lord and the Wrath of God, and they thought they had missed the Rapture.

Stop for a minute. Did you know that half of Christendom or more doesn't believe in the Rapture? They don't even think it's a doctrine in the Bible. Yet the people that had the Apostle Paul that wrote half the New Testament, the Apostle Paul that was personally trained and tutored by Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul that was the church planter for what we would call Western Christendom. All of us that are in Western Europe and United States and all those kind of, industrialized nations, all of us are downstream from the Apostle Paul's ministry. So, Paul taught a crash course in six weeks to the Thessalonians, and what they got out of it was Jesus was coming at any moment in the twinkling of an eye, and He was going to change them and take them home before the Tribulation.

The Tribulation called the Day of the Lord, the Day of His Wrath. It's launched by the man of sin. AKA, the Anti-christ. They thought the Roman emperors were the Anti-christ. And so, they got all confused and they wrote to the Apostle Paul and they said, oh no, we've missed the Rapture. And they hoped he was still there because they hoped that he hadn't really been Raptured and they really missed it. So that's why he writes 2 Thessalonians. So, we're just going to have a great time. Okay. Back to the slides.

Bonnie is smiling at me because I've gone so many minutes and I'm only on the third slide. If you look down at that slide, see the red box in the middle, Acts 17, that's where we're introduced to Paul's ministry in Thessalonica. Do you see what's beneath it? The second missionary journey from the dates 50 to 53. He writes 1, 2 Thessalonians. And by the way, during the same time period, the Gospel by Mark is written. In the next slide, and some of you're saying, wait a minute. What are you doing? You're showing us all these things and I'm trying to do screenshots.

Well, you see this, you see how it says chart number three. Now look at the next slide.

You can get your charts on our Facebook page. Now see on the left there, that's me and that's my wonderful wife Bonnie. See her smiling there? Do you see what's all the way across the bottom? Those are the charts that I'm using in this class. So, all you have to do is go to our Facebook page it's John Samuel Barnett, and go to the photos and go down there and you can find all these charts. Okay?

So here now back to this next this is an enlargement of that chart I showed you, here are the New Testament, epistles, and letters in order. The first one, the very first New Testament book written was the book of James. Jesus's earthly brother, His younger brother. It was written from Jerusalem. It's all about authentic Christianity. Now look at the next line between 49 and 50. Paul in Antioch wrote the epistle to the Galatians, and on the far right it's about genuine salvation is only by grace not works.

Now, do you see. Galatians, 1, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, Romans, 2 Corinthians. You see those? Those are just six of Paul's 13 epistles. That's what's on that earlier bigger chart. All of those are Paul's epistles, but what I want to show you is where 1 and 2 Thessalonians are written from.

So, look to the middle column. Corinth. Now look down skip one and the next one is Romans. In 56 AD, where is that written from? Corinth. I just want you to see that Paul, while he was ministering 18 months to the saints in Corinth, was writing letters back to the Thessalonians, to the Romans that he wanted to visit, and of course he's writing to his son in the faith, Titus.

Okay, the next slide. Here's a summary. Now look up for a second. I'm going to go through these slides rapidly because this class is only an introduction. It's actually an invitation. I would love for you to plan to look down at your December calendar and maybe start in December or maybe hold off and start this in January, but plan to spend two months with Bonnie on that side of the camera and with me on this side of the camera going through this study, like you're sitting around this table. Do you see this table? By the way, do you see behind me, we're in Asia right now. We're just finishing up Romans. I'm teaching Romans and starting through Paul's Life and Letters to the Thessalonians. And of course, next week I'll be teaching on Proverbs, but as we teach through the Bible here in Asia, I'm sending these lessons to you, and you can come along with us. You're not in our class. And so, I make these recordings like you're sitting around this table and you can watch them with your Bible, with your notebook and spend the whole week with me studying this vital epistle of 1 Thessalonians and then 2 Thessalonians.

Okay. Let me summarize. Look back at the slides in 1 Thessalonians. There are five chapters. It's Paul's first church epistle. Now, he wrote to a region Galatia, but this is the first time he writes to a local church and he strongly teaches the imminence. That means any moment return of Christ, the imminence of Christ return, noting something about the Rapture in every one of the five chapters of 1 Thessalonians.

Now look at this. Foundational prophetic truths were taught by Paul to provide comfort during persecution. Remember, the emperor worship stuff was ramping up and motivation for holy living while living in a culture of intense temptations.

The next slide shows the 2 Thessalonians. There are three chapters. The second epistle addresses their lingering questions. Remember, they thought they missed the Rapture and their fears, so Paul reassures the troubled saints who were shaken up and worried the day of Christ had come. They feared they had missed the Rapture. This book presents Christ as our security. 2 Thessalonians the overview of it is Christ is our security, and each chapter shows one way that He is our security and we're going to be studying each of those emphasizing confidence even amid suffering and confusion because throughout all, look up for a second, Paul tells us that all that are godly in Christ Jesus are going to suffer and we are destined to persecution. Why? Because the god of this world doesn't like us adoring, worshiping, bowing before, and submitting to our Creator. Satan wants our attention. Satan wants our time, our talents. He wants our lives wrapped up in his system, the world.

And what does God say? The apostle John wrote. 1 John 2, love not the world nor the things that are in the world for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust thereof, but he that does the will of God lasts forever. So, if you untie your life from the world and tie your life to the Lord, everything you do, in Him and for Him and through Him lasts forever. And that's what Paul, just what John wrote, is what Paul is teaching the Thessalonians.

So back to the slide. This book helps us to understand, see the last two lines, that the only antidote to the lies of the Anti-christ is the truth of the Scripture. Now look up for a second. That's why you're going to see starting next week onward. I constantly encourage you to two things to get a systematic theology so that every doctrine in the Bible is explained historically, what believers, evangelical believers have believed through all the centuries what all of Church history has taught us about the conflicts.

There have always been doctrinal conflicts. I mean, look at Acts 15, the first council, the Judaism background, people were all worried about the diet and things that were offered to idols and all this. And the pagans were saying they didn't know anything about this diet. And they were struggling with immorality because their gods had immoral things involved. And so, there was this big conflict whether they were going to emphasize the, abstain from fornication or abstain from, the dietary restrictions of Moses what was going to prevail. And there was a conflict, and that's where James and the Apostles and Paul and Barnabas came to that conference. So, there have always been doctrinal controversies. Now, that one was easy because it's in the Scripture and we know exactly, Acts 15 tells us the bottom line. But what about all the doctrinal controversies that have gone on in the 2000 years since Acts 15? That's what a systematic theology covers. So, I will start next week telling you about my favorite systematic theology.

And secondly, my favorite study Bible, a study Bible. Now, this is my travel Bible. You see, it's all Bible, a study Bible is half of each page, the bottom half, are notes. And my favorite Bible teacher is John MacArthur and John MacArthur wrote a study Bible that's designed so that you can ask him. I always tell my students, when you use a study Bible, you're raising your hand in class as you're studying. Now you've already prayed and asked the Lord to illumine your mind, but you're asking your kind of the professor, wait a minute. I am reading the Bible and I can't understand what that word or that concept what that, doctrine that's being presented. I can't understand where that comes from, how it fits. When you raise your hand with a study Bible, you go to the verse that you have the question about, and the bottom half of the page has study notes on almost every verse of the Bible. And you can just say, pause. What does that mean? What does that mean? Did you know? Once you go through a study Bible, if you study through the whole Bible with the introduction, with the footnotes, with all the study notes and maps, it's equivalent to going to Bible college to getting an education and you can take as long as you want, and you can go as deep as you want, and you can become a lifelong learner if you'll get a systematic theology. To kind of get the history of where doctrine came from and if you get a study Bible. Okay, back down to the slides.

Now what I want to tell you why we're studying 2 Thessalonians because the Anti-christ is explained in Matthew 24. Jesus repeatedly warns that deception is going to increase and it's going to culminate in the rise of the Anti-christ. Jesus introduces the Anti-christ the first time in the New Testament in Matthew 24, and He talks about him as the abomination that brings desolation. Now look at the second line on that slide in 2 Thessalonians 2. Paul teaches us that the man of sin, that's the scriptural wording that he gives for the Anti-christ, the Anti-christ is Satan masquerading as Jesus Christ operating inside of a human. So, Satan inside of a human masquerades as Jesus Christ. That's what Anti-christ is. Satan comes down and indwells this super evil, super genius person that he has chosen. Satan chooses him. And he empowers him to deceive the world as if he's Jesus Christ. And he almost does it. He gets almost all the world to follow him before it starts falling apart. It's the most tragic time in history. The real God in human flesh comes and they crucified him. The fake God in human flesh comes and almost everyone follows him. Wow. Look at the last part of that slide.

In Revelation 13, John describes this global ruler, the Anti-christ, the man of sin. He's known as the beast. He governs the whole world in his appearance triggers the inescapable coming of the wraths of God.

Paul asserts that the day of the Lord, that's the Tribulation period cannot begin. Now, see, that's why 2 Thessalonians is so important. Two things have to occur, two events must take place. Number one, the apostasy, that's the religious falling away. And number two, the man of lawlessness. That's what Paul calls him. Who? That's the Anti-christ is revealed. Now, you know what else Paul tells us? Look at this. At the bottom of the slide, a restrainer often identified as the Holy Spirit working through the Church is currently hindering lawlessness and must be removed before the Anti-christ is revealed.

So that brings us, see this slide on the right, says the Thessalonian letters, God's blueprint for holy living In the last days. Look at what God wants us to know. His first major prophetic event for us in our lives were the Church on Earth, there on the left, you see that? See the green box above it is the Rapture.

See, it's described in 1 Thessalonians 4, the Rapture takes us to become the Church in Heaven. And by the way, at the bottom do you see all those numbers across the bottom? Revelation 1-3. This is a chart showing the flow of the book of Revelation because the epistles to the Thessalonians exactly, look up from the side, exactly correspond with 1, 2 Thessalonians exactly fits into the book of Revelation. You see, Paul and John and Peter are all talking about the same thing that God is showing them. That's the beauty of inspiration. The same pictures being drawn by 40 different authors over 1600 years of time, and they exactly agree with one another. Okay, back to the slide.

The Church in Heaven is there before the wrath of God hits. See that big red hammer that just came down? That's the Tribulation that covers chapter six through 18 in the book of Revelation. Then you see the flame and smoke. That's the day of the Lord. Christ's Second Coming, He returns to right all wrongs and to set up his 1000 year promised rule, which again, most of the world, as soon as Satan is let out of jail, follows him. They rebel. And so that sets up the Great White Throne. And after that, we dwell in the house of the Lord forever and that's Heaven. So exactly what Revelation says, the Thessalonian letters show God's blueprint. But what 1 & 2 Thessalonians is about is how to live a holy life in the last days.

Now there in the slides, I want you to see the book of Acts traces Paul's travels. We're right in the middle at the top. See the little, tiny words there? And Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Berea that's where Paul is writing this to. They're in Thessalonica.

The recipient city, modern name is Salonika, the second largest city in Greece. In the Roman Empire times, it was a capital, the province of Macedonia, and it was a major hub. Now look up for a second. You realize, and I'm going to show you a map of Rome in a second, but Rome in Italy was gradually the center of the Roman Empire was moving eastward from Italy. Moving eastward and at this period of time it was residing, the major focus of power was moving toward Thessalonica, and then by the third and fourth century, it had moved even further east to what we call today, Constantinople. So, you're witnessing in Paul's missionary journeys the growth of the Roman Empire going eastward.

And Thessalonica, well look back at the slide, was a major hub of political and commercial activity. Why? It was located right on the main East, west highway, kind of the central Autobaun as it were, of the Roman Empire. It was called Via Ignatia. And when it ended, on the coast of the Adriatic. It started up as what we would call the Apian Way and went right to Rome. So, it went all the way from basically the far east, all the way across Asia Minor and went right into Rome.

So, Paul established the church there during his second missionary journey about AD 50. He had a brief but effective ministry focused on proving Jesus was the promised Messiah. He used the Old Testament, and it's going to be fun studying the references in our study Bible. But local hostility from the Jews, they never liked Paul bringing people to Christ, and so they led to his team being evicted from the city. And so, Paul, after he is evicted, settles in Corinth about AD 51, and writes this letter after he hears back from Timothy that the church endured.

See, look up for a second, they didn't have cell phones and texting and updates on Facebook and Instagram. And Paul didn't know if the six weeks of intense pouring into those lives, if it was going to endure. If the saints were going to buckle and stop professing Christ. He didn't know whether they were genuine. He hoped he prayed, he believed, but then he got a report back from Timothy. And he couldn't believe it. He said, wow, you are my hope and joy and crown of rejoicing. See, that's what's coming out in this letter. This is after Timmey comes back and tells him that the saints in Thessalonica are genuine. They're going through the fire and they're not turning back. Do you see why this is so important? You see why I would encourage you to set aside eight weeks to master the content of 1 & 2 Thessalonians? It is the most timely study that I could think of doing in the time we live with all the artificial intelligence and all the fake everything around us and all the shifting political unrest that's all around us. And the what are we in? We're still in, I think we're over in Asia, but I think America's still shut down the airports and everything is, it's amazing the turmoil all around the world. What a time to get the anchor and stability of the Word of God. Okay, back to the slides.

This is Paul's second missionary journey. If you look at number 16 on the map, on the far-left upper corner there, that's Thessalonica. And that's where Paul is writing to from Corinth.

This is the context of the New Testament. You see right in the center, Italy, go to the right in Greece and right there at the top of the Aegean Sea is where Thessalonica is right in the epicenter of the Roman Empire.

But how does a study like this touch our lives today? Well, this slide has a kind of a summary. The application for us today is we're supposed to be resisting deception. We prepare for these dark waves of delusion and deception that Jesus promised was coming from Satan, number one, by seeking truth daily. The people in Thessalonica, and we today have confusion around us, and any confusion we may face is not from God. Remember, look up, James said that God does not the confusion is from beneath the wisdom from above is from God, but the confusion is from beneath. Paul put it this way, to the Corinthians, he says, God is not the author of confusion. Okay, back to the slide. Any confusion we may face is not from God, but rather it's a tactic of Satan, we must daily consume and ingest God's truth that enables us to be filled with all knowledge. That's what Paul wrote to the Romans 15:14. He said, I'm confident you're full of all knowledge that's what we have in Christ.

Number two, so we seek the truth daily. Number two, we defend the Gospel. We must learn and defend the Gospel. This is, this knowledge is God's only protection against the coming end of day's deceptions. And that's what, remember I told you Galatians was all about. And look up for a second if you want to review any of these. Romans and Galatians and Ephesians. The three points I have, all of them are courses in our 52 Greatest Chapter study. And so, as a part of your, growing and understanding these key chapters of the Bible, after you get done with 1, 2 Thessalonians, you might want to go back and review the whole Bible. In one course, we cover the whole Bible by looking at the 52 key chapters, and through them we see all the attributes of God, all the doctrines of salvation, all the key chapters, the foundational chapters on Bible prophecy. We cover the key chapter on marriage, on parenting, on family, on discipleship. All the key doctrines of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation are kind of packaged into this 52 Greatest Chapters.

And by the way, while we were here in Europe, actually we just got into Asia, but while we were in Europe last month, the whole 52 Greatest Chapters is on one flash drive. It's in this little tin box that says 52 Greatest Chapters. Every one of the video lessons, every one of the handouts they're actually something like a thousand pages of handouts that are in printable document form inside that flash drive. Plus, for all 52 chapters, there are 30, kind of, supportive chapters of the Bible that I bring in to explain those key chapters. All of that's packaged in that one flash drive. So, you can go to our website DiscoverTheBook.org or DTBM.org, and you can see that it's right in the resource section. And for some of you, I read your notes and you send me notes on YouTube and Facebook and you say, we live in a remote area and it's hard to stream your stuff on YouTube and others say we're afraid that the Internet's going to go down and we want to copy.

Bonnie helped me and we were home for a week and I spent every moment, and she knows she kind of was feeding me at my desk as I was sitting up there shrinking and PDFing and preparing all the 52 Chapters that I've already taught and shrinking them down. So, they'd fit on one 128 gigabyte flash drive. So, I hope, if you're interested in, well look back at the slide if you're interested in Romans 15, studying the whole chapter. If you're interested in number two, Galatians 1 all of those are on that 52 greatest chapter study.

But look at number three. Number one, seek truth daily. Number two, defend the Gospel. Number three, wield the spirit's weapon, our defense against demonic forces and their flaming arrows, as Ephesians 6 describes, is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Okay.

I have three final challenges for you. I always have the same I’ll, you can look up from the side. You've seen it so many times. Any of you that have been with us, number one, the goal of this study is for you to find someone that you can share your points that you've learned from the scriptures by studying. 1 Thessalonians 1. Now, next week when we get together and we do this chapter and I show you everything.

I'll never forget my first day in Bible college, I was Bible college and seminary, and I was in my first class on how to prepare messages and I was still all excited about it. And Dr. Charles W. Smith. I looked at the class and he said, your first assignment is get out your notebook. We actually wrote on paper back then, it was kind of like a spiral bound notebook, and he said, get your pens out. And he said, open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter one, and look at the last two verses and start writing down your observations from those two verses. And so, I looked at it. I wrote down a couple observations. I wrote, they were idol worshipers, and they believed in the Resurrection. That's one from nine and one from 10. Dr. Smith was working away. He was writing on the blackboard chalkboard. That shows, I mean, what an amazing time that was when everything was done by hand.

When I got done writing my two down, he looked up and he said, okay, let's start sharing them. And most of us, there was 25 of us in the class, we came up with maybe about five, six between us. They were all very simple. He had already written 25 observations and he said, your assignment tonight as you go home before class tomorrow is I want you to find 50 observations, truths, just from those two verses, I started counting the words. There weren't 50 words in those two verses. So, I grudgingly went to the library with my notebook and my Bible, and the longer I looked, the more I saw. See, that's the magnificence of the Scriptures. God's Word is endlessly, refreshingly instructive for us to live, and you're going to find things. All I do is show you what I've found. You spend the whole week looking yourselves and you're going to find truths and powerful things. And I encourage you, number one, to find someone to share those with. Now look back at the slides.

Here's my journal. This is my Act 17 page. Really? That's all. Look at that. See the left side? That's all I did from a whole chapter of the Bible. But it was life changing. Look at that prayer at the bottom. Lord, I love the way You use Paul to challenge me. Paul was a student of Your Word. Help me to be a student. Paul went toward people with the Gospel, help me to go toward people. Paul had customs and habits of how to find and engage people. Helped me also to learn. Paul kept on even in painful opposition, helped me also, Paul got to see people coming to Christ and I want to also. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Now look up from the slide.

Bonnie and I are here in Asia. You can see all the apartment buildings. This studio where we're teaching this class is on the 25th floor. That's the one that we could rent, and there's just skyscrapers and everything out that window. So we were at a local Asian place, a local place, eating last night. And all of a sudden a Japanese couple walked up to us and they said, are you the Bible teacher from YouTube? And I said, well, I teach the Bible. They said, we know you are. We just wanted to say hello. They said, we have come to Christ from a cult and we have been discipled by you online. Do you know what? We live in unprecedented times when God is taking His Word over the internet and transforming people's lives. Do you want to be a part of something that will never end? Get in the Word, let God change your life and then share it with someone. Find someone and then start a small group. Okay, back to the slides. So that's my journal page.

Invest in a Scripture memory plan. I will say it every week because I can't think of anything more important than hiding God's word in your heart. There's one of the systems I use the Navigator's system.

Number three, pray for us. There's my wonderful wife, Bonnie, and by the way, that couple last night said, wonderful wife Bonnie. They knew about Bonnie.

If you'd like to get our prayer card and know more about our ministry, right there is a QR code.

But see that? Act 17 in Thessalonica where I introduced this book just now, the Thessalonian letters are God's Blueprint for Holy Living in the Last Days. Now look up at me. I invite you to spend the next eight weeks with me going through every chapter, every word of Paul's epistles to the Thessalonians. It'll be life transforming. It'll help you understand Bible prophecy. It will help you understand salvation at a powerful level. Paul explains how they were transformed by the Gospel and how we. Have been transformed by the Gospel.

So right here, and if you don't want to miss anything, you're watching this on YouTube, hit that bell and subscribe. If you subscribe to DTBM on YouTube, every time I post a new class, they'll send you a little notice and you won't miss anything. But for the next eight weeks, every Wednesday, another chapter's going to come out, Lord willing, and I pray that 1 & 2 Thessalonians will be as transformational as it was for me in 1975, when that faithful man of God said, you need to keep looking, there are 50 different truths in those two verses. And by the way, when we came back with all of our observations. The professor, Dr. Smith, wrote all of them on the blackboard. He kept going down. Our class saw 100 different truths in the last two verses of 1 Thessalonians chapter one, life transforming.

Let God show you that truth. Let the Spirit of God transform your heart with those truths. And then find some to share it with. God bless you. See you next week as I launch chapter one with you and launch you into spending a whole week studying it too. Thanks for joining us.