Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the challenges faced by the early church in Thessalonica, drawing parallels to today's society that often defies God's moral standards. He highlights the importance of love within the church community, urging believers to support one another and avoid gossip and division. Beach warns against the manipulative behaviors that can arise in relationships, stressing that true fellowship is rooted in holiness and the teachings of Jesus. He encourages the congregation to embrace their identity as living stones in the body of Christ, fostering genuine connections and accountability. Ultimately, he calls for a return to biblical principles and a commitment to love and serve one another as Christ intended.

First Thessalonians. First Thessalonians. Let's begin in verse number one. Paul was writing to a young church who had come out of a pagan society. A young church who had come out of a pagan society. Now listen carefully. This society condoned, accepted, and followed after inordinate affection of any and every kind. Now most of us here are adults, you know what I'm saying. Inordinate affection of every kind. In other words, the society of this day is likened unto the society that you are living in today. In this town, in this state, in this country. A society whose conscience has become seared as a hot iron and is insensitive and no longer convicted when she transgresses the law of God. A society that delights in doing evil. A society that takes pleasure in defying God. I will do what I want, God, and you're not going to put any restraints on me, and you're not going to tell me what's right and wrong, and I'm going to take the word moral and throw it out and take it out of the dictionary. I'll show you, God, that's the society. That's the spirit that I stood for two and a half hours and saw and watched on the streets of New York yesterday. By the way, that's the spirit that not only controls the mobs, not only controls the cult preachers, but controls Congress and the government, and also it's the spirit that's behind the religious system in this hour. The church. Now, make a difference between the church, biblically speaking, consists of all true believers that love God. The word church is ecclesia. It's the word, it means a called out person. The church does not consist of stones. The church consists of living stones. First Peter chapter 2. This spirit is controlling the religious system. You can learn about it in Revelation chapter 17 and Revelation chapter 18. But nevertheless, see Paul battled this spirit and this is what he said. First of all, go to verse 12 and 13 of chapter 3 and we'll follow the thought. We're going to be done in a few minutes. Verse 12, 1st Thessalonians chapter 3, and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love. Peter said that love covers a multitude of sins. It is essential that as you begin to mingle in with other members of the body of Christ. Listen, God is going to take away this island Christianity. How many understand what island Christianity is? We're a Christian family and we're going to do what we want. We're not going to get, we're not going to accept the fact that we are members of a body. You see, part of God's plan in growing up the church is for you to mingle in with other Christians and to rub shoulders with them. But many Christians avoid that. Now I understand some can't and they're the exception and God does not hold them accountable. But many times, well it's the American conception of Christianity, we're ostracized from one another. We don't know how to bear one another's burdens anymore. But God will do this again. God is going to enable us to bear one another's burdens. But the essential element, the essential ingredient that must be prevalent in your life, if you're going to begin to bear one another's burdens and begin to get to know other Christians and help them and pray with them and fellowship with them, is you're going to have to let God fill you with love or else you're going to start to what? Bite and devour one another. You're going to gossip. You're going to speak evil of each other. You're going to criticize each other. You're going to be fault finders. You're going to sit there and say, oh this brother here this and that brother there this. And then when you see him, hi, how are you? You know, but the night before you were on the phone gossiping about him. This has got to stop and God is going to stop it. He's going to pour out love. Listen, love does not think evil of people. Now love isn't blind, but love does not have evil in its heart. Love sees the truth, but in the spirit of meekness and the spirit of gentleness, love seeks to restore. It doesn't tear down. So Paul's prayer is that they would be filled with love one toward another and toward all, even as we do toward you. To the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. Furthermore, chapter 4, then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. See, they were, the early church was taught the commandments of Jesus. Let me tell you something, there's nothing in the epistles, there's nothing in the teachings of Peter or in the teachings of Paul or in any of the Gospels that are in addition to what Jesus taught. You know, many times people want a commentary on the Bible. Let me tell you something, the Bible has a commentary. The Lord Jesus taught, He was the master teacher. He dealt with every single issue that we need to know about as Christians. Now what did the Apostles do? The Apostles expounded on the words of Jesus and explained them and applied them to the particular culture that they were in. So if you want to be a student of the Word of God, first of all, learn what Jesus said, and then if you want to understand in a comprehensive manner what Jesus said or in a comprehensive manner, study the epistles, because they expounded on what Jesus taught them. See, so the whole Bible becomes all that we need. Verse 3, For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication. Now why do you think the Apostles taught the early church that? Do you think it's because one day they heard Jesus as He was teaching? You have heard that it is written, Thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you that if a man looks and desires in the heart, he hath done so in his heart. Do you think maybe that's what inspired Paul to encourage these believers to stay away? Sure. All they did is expound on what the Master Himself taught. You see, every teaching, listen to this, every teaching that the Apostles ever brought that's recorded in Galatians, Ephesians, any teaching can be traced back to the words of Jesus, which can be traced back to the teachings of the prophets and the Psalms. But we're not going to go into that. Listen to this, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. Remember Jesus said, remember the Beatitudes? If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. If thy eye offend thee, see what is this? This is an exposition, a further explanation of what Jesus meant. See what He was teaching in the Beatitudes? Be holy. Now verse number five, not in the lust of concupiscence. Now basically all that is concupiscence, that's a Greek word that means intense desire for evil. It's an evil desire. So what it's saying is not in the desire of, in other words, don't desire evil. Guess it was a bug. Okay, listen to this now. This is what I wanted to mention as we're closing. We were talking about manipulating people we were talking about taking advantage of people. There's a lot of this going on but God's going to lift the lid, lift the cover on this stuff. He's gonna. He's got to. Because God wants a holy fellowship with His saints and the goats, God will take care of them. God will take care of them. Watch this now, that every, verse number six, that no man go beyond. Now the word, the Greek word there for go beyond is a very interesting word. It's a word that means outstepping your boundary. See to go beyond is to come up to the fence, the boundary, and jump over it. In other words, going into forbidden territory. So what's Paul saying? Don't let any man outstep his boundary and defraud his brother in any matter. Now in context, we understand that Paul is particularly talking about the defrauding or the manipulation that occurs between guy and girl, where you begin to operate in such a manner as to go beyond your limits and your relationships with people, which you know what that results in. Now listen, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us to uncleanliness, but to holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given us his Holy Spirit. See what Paul's saying? This, what I'm teaching you, beloved, is not something that we apostles decided to get together and enforce. This is a teaching that Christ himself gave us, and the evidence of it is that he gave us the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit abides in pure vessels. Now I want to just mention a word, defraud. Verse number six, let no man go beyond, don't step out of your boundary, and defraud his brother. The word defraud means to gain, listen closely, to gain an advantage by covetous, manipulative ways. To gain an advantage by covetous, manipulative ways. Now, you know that this does not only apply to monetary things. This can apply in every area of our life, to gain an advantage by covetous, manipulative ways. That could be manipulating people, intimidating people, all kinds of implications in this scripture. But now here's why we brought this whole thing out, because God is going to have a people that are going to come together under one head, Christ. One spirit, the Holy Spirit. One Lord, Jesus. One faith, Bible faith. And they're going to enjoy close, knit-together fellowship. And this stuff is going to be surfaced and either purged by the power of the Holy Spirit and the blood, or anger toward God, toward men, and I'm not going to put up with it. But really, they're not leaving a church. They're not leaving a particular congregation. What they're doing is they're leaving God's word, because it's not the word of men, it's God's word. So this is what God's going to do. This was the spirit in the early church, the book of Acts. A close fellowship, a pure fellowship, and the power of Jesus was there to put things in order when they needed to be. Nowadays, the phony is you got the fellowship, but there's people that are trying to put things in order to their advantage. In other words, God gave me a message this morning. Basically, here's what they're saying. We got a budget, and y'all aren't tithing. But they don't tell you that. They say, God gave me a message this morning. He's angry at those that are robbing Him. What are you doing with your money? That's defrauding, you con artist, you viper. That's what Jesus said. See, you know, we know about the love of Jesus, don't we? But did you know Jesus called people vipers, and snakes, and hypocrites, and phonies? We don't see that side of Jesus too much, but I predict by the word of God that that side of Jesus is going to be seen. Why don't they just say, hey, we got a budget, we're running out of money, and I don't know if we made a mistake or not, but God doesn't seem to be meeting the needs. Why don't you pray about giving? Even that would be rotten. Even that makes my soul repulsive, but at least it would be a little bit more honest. Instead, God gave me a message. Oh, come on. That is what it is to defraud, to gain advantage by covetous, manipulative ways. Listen, the end result of God's work is not going to be you becoming some private servant and slave to some mammoth ministry. The end result is going to be you as a Christian, you're going to be stripped down to nothing, and you're going to be the servant of Jesus Christ who's living a life wholly pleasing to Him, and you're going to be committed to other Christians in love. That's the end result. Not to become the servant of a work, to become the servant of the Lord so you could do His work in whatever fashion He wants you to. Now, I don't know about you, but that's a breath of fresh air to me, and that's what I want, and that's what God wants, and He's committed to it. I can go on and on, but I know it's 12. I'm sorry. This is just a little bit, just a little teeny bit of the iceberg. So what do you think? Is it crazy? How many loves one another, wants to help one another? We're all in it together, beloved. We have one master, one Lord, and we're all wanting to fall in love with Him. Go to the Word. Look for yourself. See, it's all there. Amen? Any questions at all? God will take care of it.