In His Letter to the Thessalonians
Patience and Hope
Furthermore the Apostle speaks of their "patience of hope" 1:30, and that simply means that they did not easily give up. That counts for something,you know. You are having a difficult time; everything and everybody is against you. It is so easy to give up - just to give up; to draw out of the race, or drop your hands in the fight, and say, "It is no use - better give it all up." But no: these Christians had patience and hope. They did not easily give up, they "stuck to it", and we shall see that they had a hope that kept them sticking to it.
Such were these who were "an example to all that believe." In them we see the constituents of exemplary Christians, and they are the true features of the gospel. You see, the gospel is for Christians in difficulty! It is not only for the unsaved, but for Christians when they are in difficulty or in suffering. It is still good news. If we lose the "good news" element in the gospel, if it loses for us its keen edge as "good tidings", we become stale; we come to the place where we "know it all." If we lose that sense, then when trouble comes we give up, we let go; but if to have come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus is still for us the greatest thing in all the world and all the universe, then we get through.
Difficulties Because of Temperament
Now, because difficulties always correspond to our dispositions, that is, what we are always gives rise to the nature of our trials, so it was with the Thessalonians. Nothing is a trial to you unless you are made in a certain way. Something that is a trial to you might never be a trial to me at all. Or it might be the other way around. What might be a terrible thing to me and knock me right off my balance, other people could go through quite calmly, and wonder what I am making such a fuss about. Our troubles and our trials very largely take their rise from the way we are made.
Now I want you to follow this. The thoroughness of these Thessalonian believers led them into peculiar testings. And that is always the case. If you are not thorough-going, you will not have thorough-going difficulties. You will get through more or less easily. If you are thorough-going, you are going to meet thorough-going testings. They arise quite naturally out of your own attitude or your own disposition.
Now, you know that human nature and constitution is made in various ways. You know in general that we are not all alike. That is just as well! But we can to a very large extent classify human nature into different categories - what we call temperaments. In the main there are seven different temperaments, or categories of human constitution. I am not going to deal with that in detail, but there is a very useful point here on this matter. These Thessalonians were quite clearly of the "practical" temperament, and the keenness of their particular sufferings was largely found because they were like that. I do not, of course, mean that other people do not suffer, but they suffer in other ways.
You see, the standard of life of the practical temperament is quick and direct returns. We must see something for our money very quickly! It is the business temperament, the temperament of commercial life. The things which govern this temperament are quick success. "Success" is the great word of the practical temperament. It is a success that succeeds. The successful are the idols of this particular kind of make-up.
There is not much sentiment here. These people cannot stop for sentiment. Things that are not what they call practical are regarded by them as just "sentimental". They are not so, of course, but that is how Martha reacted to Mary. Mary was not sentimental, but Martha thought she was, because Martha was so preeminently practical. Again, there is very little imagination in this makeup. It rides roughshod over all sensibilities. It does not stop to think of how people feel about what is said; it just goes right on.
And then it sometimes makes terrible mistakes - it confuses things. For instance, it mistakes inquisitiveness for depth, because it has always to be asking endless questions. The "practical" people are always asking questions, questions, questions; they keep you going with questions all the time, thinking that this is an evidence of spiritual depth. They think that they are not just taking things at their surface value, they are being very practical, as well as deep. But there is a good deal of difference between inquisitiveness and depth. It is very possible to confuse things.
Now we want to get to understand these Thessalonians and the effect of the gospel. Can we not now picture them, in the light of what I have said? They responded quickly, and in a very practical way, and in a very thorough-going way. One of the major themes to which they responded was the coming of the Lord. Right at the beginning Paul says: "Ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven" (1:9, 10). It was a big thing with them, this coming of the Lord, and they had concluded that the Lord's coming would take place, at latest, in their own lifetime. That was their practical reaction to the gospel, and it was good in its way. But you know that these two letters of Paul are almost entirely occupied with correcting a false element in that reaction.
Now you find them in trouble - trouble springing out of their own makeup - in this matter. They had been saying to themselves something like this. "The Lord is coming - we have been told the Lord is coming, we have accepted that "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh", and we have accepted that to happen any day; and we were told that, when the Lord came, all His own would be caught up to meet Him. We concluded that all believers would be caught up, be raptured, and enter into the glory like that, together. Oh, what a wonderful thing - all going together into the presence of the Lord! But some of our friends died, yesterday, last week, and people are still dying. It seems to upset this whole matter of all being caught up together." They were thrown into confusion and consternation because, instead of the Lord coming and gathering them all up to Himself, there were people among them going into the grave. It was a setback for their practical makeup, you see.
Now the Apostle writes to them. He writes to them the gospel, the good news, for people who are in perplexity and in sorrow because of disappointment in this way, and he says: "I want you to know, dear brethren, I want you to understand, that that makes no difference in the final issue. When the Lord comes, they will not have gone before us; and when He comes, we shall not go before them. It just does not make any difference. They that are asleep in Jesus ans we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together. You need not allow this thing to trouble you any more. You must not sorrow as those who have no hope of the coming of the Lord has been struck at by the deaths of these believers. There is really no place for any element of disappointment over this. It is good news for those who have lost loved ones - it is good news concerning the issue of life and death - that we shall all together go up "to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord". It is just wonderful!
So we see that here Paul was able to bring in the gospel - the good news, the good tidings - in order to get over a certain difficulty that had arisen because of their makeup, their disposition.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 25 - "A Help to Know One's Own Disposition")
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