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by GLENN PEASE
01/23/18
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Based on I Thess. 2:3-4

      How should a Christian defend himself when his character and motives are attacked in an effort to belittle the Gospel which he proclaims? Paul had to face this question everywhere he went, for the Judaisers were hot on his trail trying to destroy the fruit of his labors. From the defensive nature of this chapter it is clear that they had arrived at Thessalonika as well, and they were trying to discredit the whole revival experience. You can imagine the subtle attacks they would use to undermine these new converts and cause them to question.

       They would say something like, “O you say that Paul was the man who got this new movement going. Isn’t he the man with the prison record going around stirring up trouble everywhere? He is a brave man doing what he is doing, but then a man would do almost anything if there is enough money in it. Just get a few good speeches together and you can make a mint feeding people fancy ideas about religion. I wouldn’t mind starting my own religion either if I was free, like Paul, to be able to hit and run.” Others would be far less subtle, and they would just accuse Paul outright of being a religious racketeer out to get all he could from anyone sucker enough to fall for his deception.

       We need to keep in mind that this was a new thing. Paul appeared on the scene with the Gospel. They believed and then Paul had to move on, and they had no Bible or long history to fall back on. Attacks like this would be serious. Paul was worried about how they would hold out under tribulation and these attacks on the one who brought them the Gospel. In this chapter we see him defending himself, and we want to look at the two fold approach he uses in his defense.

I. HE REJECTS THE FALSE CHARGES.

      Paul just flatly rejects any such charges that he was trying to trick them with impure motives. Peter likewise had to defend himself as he wrote, “We have not followed cunningly devised fables.” Men do not go around defending themselves unless there is an attack on them, and so these verses reveal the constant battle the Apostles had with public relations. This has been a major area of conflict through the ages. Christian schools and organizations need public relations offices constantly keeping people informed that the charges against them are false.

       In Paul’s day many false prophets were already active, and as things went on they got worse. John later says that anti-Christ is even now already at work in our midst. In such a situation you have counterfeits at large that men can point to as examples of falsehood and deceit. Paul could do what many evangelists since could not do. The whole profession of evangelism has been given a black eye by the false and deceitful methods by which some get decisions. Paul used no such methods, and yet he was of the greatest success. He respected people and did not take them for fools. There were no tricks when Paul preached. He presented the Gospel in its simplicity.

        We never read of Paul trying to get hands up and then pressuring those people to come forward. Paul believed in the sovereignty of God when it comes to evangelism. You do your best and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. This is why I appreciate Billy Graham. He gives the message and offers those who want to receive Christ the opportunity to come. There are no tricks or pressure. If God does not move them there is no point in trying to get a decision. It is only a Spirit induced decisionthat is a saving decision. Knowing that, Paul avoided all appearances of evil. He could say in perfect confidence that he has rejected all deceit.

       Even if deceit can sometimes get more results, honest dependance upon God is the only way to go. You might wonder about what practical value this is to us. I can’t speak for everyone, but my experience has been that a good many Christians feel that the end justifies the means. They feel that when it comes to getting a person to decide for Christ anything goes. I use to think it was very clever of a student I knew to think up unique ways of witnessing. He would go into a restaurant and sit downby some man. Then he would have a friend come in and sit by him. He would begin to witness to his friend as if he was a stranger, and do so loud enough to make sure the other man heard.

       Such a method is highly unlikely to be effective, and the whole thing is based on deceit and the philosophy that the end justifies the means. Since the motive is worthy, it is felt that deception is legitimate. Scripture says this is not so. Such a method could possibly lead someone to respond to the Gospel, but they would find out that they were involved in a plan of deception, and they or friends would accuse us of being fanatics and deceivers. We would in a position of being tempted to carry on further deception, or admit it and give the unsaved ground to stand on in their charges. We would leave the convert in a very troubled and dangerous state.

        Deception is of the devil, and it cannot play a part in the communication of the Gospel. Paul knew it from the start, and with a clear conscience before God he could write to his converts and reject all such charges as false. His attitude was like that of the noble who was asked by his King to practice deceit. His response was, “O King! Believe me, rather much would I fall by virtue than rise by guilt to certain victory.”

II. HE REVEALS HIS TRUE MOTIVE.

       We sometimes think we are pretty sharp with all our studies in modern psychology. We have learned that the best way to treat a so-called bad boy, or anyone who has rebelled against the standards imposed on him, is to take him into your fellowship and confidence and give him responsibility. God, of course, did not need to wait for modern psychology to discover this before He put it into practice. He took the man who was out to crush the advance of His kingdom and made him chief embassador for His kingdom. He entrusted Paul with the Gospel. He went from antagonist to ambassador, from enemy to emissary, from persecutor to preacher. God not only gives us the gift of salvation, but He trusts us to carry the gift to others. This is an amazing fact, for every time a person puts their trust in Christ, Christ puts His trust in them. He trusts them to share the good news with others.

        There is a story that Jesus was asked before His ascension, “What are your plans for the spread of the Gospel?” “I shall leave that to my disciples.” “But what if they fail you?” “I have no other plans.” Our part in God’s plan is tremendous. He intrusts us with the Gospel, and if we don’t circulate it, it will be of no more value to others than is the misers treasure. We are not to be Gospel collectors, but Gospel communicators. We are not to be Gospel misers, but Gospel messengers. How can others hear it if we have it but hoard it?

        The Gospel falls into Aristotle’s category of the undiminished giver. It is of such a character that the more you give it away the more you have. Anything material I would share with others would leave me with less, but to share ideas and truths not only leaves my stock undiminished, but increases their strength by repetition. For example, I have an idea right now, and I am the only one here with it. I will share it with you. In verse 4 Paul uses the plural we. He is taking Silas and Timothy in with himself, and by implication includes all of us who have received the Gospel. I have now multiplied that idea by as many as are here, but I still have all of it, and plus it has been more deeply impressed on me for having shared it.

        Paul says that God trusted us with the Gospel, and we are honoring that trust when we speak it and share it. The reason we do not use any deceitful means to get it across is that our own master motive is to please God. Even success through deceit would not be pleasing to God. Here is the motive that explains the conduct of Paul, and of all who give their lives to be used for His glory. Someone wrote,

"Not for the eyes of men may this day’s work be done,
But unto thee, O God, that with the setting sun,
My heart may know the matchless prize
Of such approval in your eyes."

         With this as a driving motivation, life takes on a consistency and unity that nothing else can produce. One author said, “We found out to our grief that in a world in which anything goes, everything is soon gone.” When our master motive is to please God, then only that which is pleasing to Him is allowable. In verse 1 and 2 we see that Paul received courage from God for communicating the Gospel, and now we see that the means must correspond with that end. Not only is it important to reach people, it is also important how to do it, for that how must be pleasing to God.

       It is a worthy end to want to support your family, but to sell dope as a means to attain that end is so unworthy of the end that the whole plan is evil. It is having this master motive of Paul of desiring in all that we do to please God that keeps our means worthy of the ends we seek. Without it we cannot tell a Christian from a nonChristian, for many non-Christians do good deeds, but they have no desire to please God necessarily. Their master motive is to please self. If the Christian does not have the master motive of pleasing God he may do much good, but the motive is selfish. T. S. Elliot said, “The last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

       Most of our problems as Christians are related to our motives. The reason we often face frustration and anxiety, just as the world does, its because we lack a definite conscious of just what we are doing and why. If things don’t go well, we feel like giving up, but Paul didn’t, and neither would we if we were constantly conscious that the purpose for which we do anything is primarily to please God. It pleases God that we study His Word, and so we should be doing so constantly, even if it is difficult, and we do not always grasp its meaning.

        This is the secret of Paul’s constant drive, for even with all of his trials and frustrations, he could rejoice in the Lord always because his master motive was to please God. George A. Coe in his book The Motives Of Men wrote, “The disillusionment that creeps over 20th century man concerns, not the ability of the universe to supply what he desires, but his own capacity for really desiring anything greatly significant.” Only the person with a master motive greater than life itself can find ultimate satisfaction and purpose to life. That is why there is no greater goal for the Christian than to follow Paul in developing his motive for living as our master motive.

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