The Church of Thessalonica — 2 Thessalonians 1-2

0:01 Let's just pray and ask the Lord's blessing. Dear Lord, we're we're so grateful this morning to be here in your presence. We know that you're here amongst us. We know that wherever two or three are gathered in your name, there you are in the midst and we just want to ask your blessing upon this message today. We pray that you would help us to listen to your word and and really understand what it means.

0:28 Get the sense of the truth that it conveys to us and the urgency to obey. Lord, we're so grateful for your son, the Lord Jesus, who has given everything for us. And we're just so grateful to remember him this morning and and remember all that he's done. We pray that you bless this time in Jesus name. Amen.

0:50 Okay. So, as you can see, we're going to visit the church of Thessalonica and I want to start off and just ask anybody what you know whether about the Church of Thessalonica or the city itself, anybody? Yeah, Mason. Was it they they thought they missed the resurrection or the the rapture already happened? Yes.

1:18 Yeah. Actually, in second Thessalonians, Paul gets into that teaching. There is some false teaching going around in and amongst the persecution at that time and some were saying that Jesus had already come and so there's some some confusing things going on. Anybody else have anything about Thessalonica? Yes?

1:40 They turned to God from right? And so this is in a Gentile area and I imagine it might have been somewhat like Ephesus. Remember when Paul was in Ephesus, they were crying, great is Diana of the Ephesians and they had this huge temple to the Greek goddess Diana and I imagine it was similar to that way in Thessalonica. Mount Olympus, the worship of the different Greek gods is actually really close to Thessalonica. Now, we're going to I'm to answer this question here and it's going to have something to do with what Mason was just saying.

2:27 Why did I choose or more importantly, why did god lead this way to choose this area of scripture? We're going to be looking at second Thessalonians. Second Thessalonians. And I chose this because recently, I've just been having this this overwhelming sense to just dwell on the coming of the Lord. So if there's nothing that you get from today, just know the Lord is coming back.

2:58 The Lord's coming back. Think about the timeline even last week. That was Easter Sunday. Jesus rose from the dead. It actually would have been forty days later when He ascended and He said, I'm going to come again.

3:11 I'm going to come again. So we're going to talk about that and talk about the theme of the Lord coming this morning. So, our challenge here today would be to to try and draw some of the themes of second Thessalonians. Think about the lord coming. We're going to use some of its background, its history in the New Testament and then try and apply it to us today.

3:37 Now has anyone recently looked at the map of Mediterranean Sea? So if you look at the map of the Mediterranean Sea, it kind of looks like a duck. Okay? So think of that duck as sort of like a picture in your mind and then you've got all these different cities around it but they're all part of that duck and so, we're going to try and go through some of second Thessalonians and look at some of the themes, those overarching themes that being that picture of the duck And we're going to visit some of the different details of two Thessalonians. These are the three things we're going to try and look at.

4:24 So number one, the Lord is coming. The second one is we're going to look at the grace of the Lord. So grace is mentioned, I believe it's four times in the book of two Thessalonians using the New King James and then we're going to look at our response of that and look at, okay, if the lord's coming, what is my response? What's my responsibility as a disciple of the lord Jesus Christ? What work should I be doing?

4:56 What's the work of the Lord? Here's some of the different resources. Reminded of the scripture in Awana. To study, to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. And so these are some of the things that I like to use.

5:15 I grew up on the New King James Bible. From the late Arnet Macintee. I've been using the software called eSort. It's a Bible software. Very helpful.

5:27 I used Google Docs. Believers Bible Commentary is very helpful to kind of give you some understanding. Moody Bible Commentary and the MacArthur Study Bible as well. Let's go on. So let's do just a little bit more research on Thessalonica.

6:20 Since Christ died and rose again and He founded the church. He elected and chose His 12 apostles to go out and be his witnesses. Some of the other things that you learn from there is that it was a mix. So we said Paul went on his second missionary journey by a pattern that he followed. Paul would go into a city when he was doing and he was preaching and he would first go to the different synagogues.

6:55 He was a Jewish teacher and he taught the law for many years. He met Christ. But he really, really felt for his people. He says, I wish I were a curse for my own people. So he'd go to the synagogues and he would preach to the Jewish people.

7:14 Now, he would sometimes and oftentimes even in the synagogues now, after Jesus rose again, you have him interacting with Gentiles. You have him interacting with not just Gentiles but these people called Proselytes. These were Gentiles that had actually converted over to Judaism. Actually, fun facts, that's kind of where we get the first idea of baptism. One of the practices back then that they would do is that when they would convert to Judaism, they would do this practice of baptism and saying, I am doing this representation.

7:54 I am now identifying with the Jewish religion. And and and we see kinda how when you get into the New Testament, that kinda changes and and maybe that's another topic for another time. We're going to be talking about that coming up. Another thing that we're going to learn, I'm going to put a map up here. By the way, this would be a great time for you to look at your Bible map in the back of your Bible.

8:18 Thessalonica is a main city on the Ignatian Way. So we're in Bible times. This is New Testament period. Rome is still a big player, okay? We're part of the Roman Empire, Thessalonica is.

8:36 Even though it's kind of ruled by different city leaders. There's not really like one leader at that time. There's a lot of different fascinating facts about who founded it and things. We're going to have time to get into that but the Ignatian Way was a road between Rome and it went right along the in between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea and and pass right there near Thessalonica all the way over to Eastern Asia. So, it was a connection route all the way over to Eastern Asia and so, you can kind of see why maybe the Lord put it on Paul's mind to go to Thessalonica.

9:18 He went there to say wow, this could be like such a key place because this is kind of a traveling city. Not unlike I would say Cleveland. You know Cleveland was there. We were big in steel a while ago and even today we use Cleveland as a port, right? So there's a lot of goods traveling all over the place.

9:42 It's very diverse. You know we have mixed culture and so what a great place to preach the gospel. People would get saved there and they would go all over the place. And in fact we're going to see, I'm going get this map up here, and we're gonna see how far away it is from Jerusalem. It's also the capital of Macedonia.

10:05 So all of those other times in the scriptures, think about what Ray was preaching on a few weeks ago. He was talking about the Macedonians in the Corinthians. And so the Thessalonians were part of the Macedonians. So this is a capital of Macedonia. It's part of the Roman Empire.

10:25 And then here's another thing, one of the main things here. So Paul's on his second missionary journey there. He gets to Thessalonica. He preaches the gospel and immediately there's intense persecution there. They didn't like his message.

10:43 You get the sense and you can read a lot of different scholars and what they kind of say about his time there in Thessalonica that maybe it wasn't quite a long time. Like it wasn't like when he went to Ephesus and he spent some years there. He was there maybe only for a few weeks, maybe only for a few months. But he was kind of there. He preached.

11:06 People got saved. They turned to the lord. He he started to make a church. He named some leaders there. You have people like Jason there.

11:15 They were housed at the house of Jason, Paul, and his companions and and they came to Jason, the city leaders and they're like, we don't like what you're saying. We we don't want you to keep preaching it. We want you to go and actually what ends up happening is he has to leave Paul and his companions, yes, they have to leave. They go out of Thessalonica on the cover of night and they go over to Berea. Now check this out.

11:44 So there you have your map there. What's the laser? So here you have his route. Paul's second missionary journey. He goes all over the place.

11:56 Here you have the Ignatian Way and so if you go up this way, this is on the way to Europe, over to Italy, over to Rome. You have, this is kind of the wing of the duck here. And then this way, you go that way and that's into Eastern Asia. So we'll really far away, maybe even over here is is The Philippines but right there it is, Thessalonica. So, it's kind of small when you look at it.

12:25 Thessalonica is right up there. It's it's tucked right up there but it's right on the water. It's a port. There's a lot of trade there. And so what a key location for Paul to go preach the gospel, people to go and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved and and so they found a church there.

12:43 But there's immense persecution. He goes right over to Berea and you get to hear about the Bereans. Now it says you get to talk or hear about the Bereans. It says they were they had a more of a understanding mind and they searched the scriptures. And they also too came to the knowledge of Christ.

13:05 Now Paul went there and he was doing the same thing he was doing in Thessalonica. And if you look how close they are, like the roads, I imagine, like this is the Roman Empire, so Rome was big about building roads. I imagine maybe it was fairly easy to travel between these cities. Whether it was just a day, maybe two days, I don't know. But the city leaders and the different people persecuting Paul got word about Paul.

13:37 And they heard about that and they got a whole band together and they went over to Berea and they started persecuting them there. And they said, look, we don't wanna hear this message. Let's go on here. First Thessalonians. So first Thessalonians, it's likely to be the very first epistle of the New Testament.

14:31 Like like mister Horstman said, there was idol worship there in in Thessalonica. Maybe similar to Ephesus. I'm going to suppose I'm going to suppose this. Just suppose this for right now. So, it's AD like forty nine, fifty, fifty one.

14:53 I'm thinking maybe that like this is such a crucial book. This is maybe these are the first epistles coming out and what is the what's the main doctrine that he addresses? That Christ is coming and maybe the lord lord decided to write this this way through Paul to get to these next Christians that were believing in Christ to say, look, he's still coming back. Believe it. It's been fifteen or twenty years but guess what?

15:26 He's still going to come back. He's still going to come back. I like to imagine there there may have been some people there that have been in Jerusalem. Certainly, maybe some of the Jewish people, they had they had gone from Jerusalem and they had been scattered throughout different parts of the Roman Empire and and so here Paul is. He writes this letter to the Thessalonians.

15:53 Now, one of the things we also want to understand is is, okay, Paul went there. They were persecuting him. They were persecuting the church in Thessalonica too. They suffered the exact same thing that Paul did. Like right off the bat And so you can see how like Paul was like, man, I want to be there and I know you're suffering just like we suffered and so, let's get into just a little recap of one Thessalonians.

16:28 So Paul writes this first letter and there's a lot of different things that Paul communicates. But one of the main things that he communicates is this, it's comfort for the believers there and it's teaching that the lord's going to come. One of the also the main things is, you have some of the key passages that we have heard recently regarding the rapture of the church in first Thessalonians four and even a little of the coming of the lord in first Thessalonians five. And so Paul writes to the Thessalonians to comfort them and encourage them to keep the faith, to keep going on, and to give them comfort to say, guess what? The lord's going to come back and all those people that were persecuted, I imagine that some of them had actually died like they were they were suffering such immense persecution at that time that some of the Christians in Thessalonica, I don't, like, can you imagine that?

17:31 Can you just imagine coming to Christ and maybe a month later, dying for your faith. Like, it's really hard for me to even grasp that living living in an America. I've been hearing recently from Shelley, some of the Christians in Mexico. One of her cousins is seeking things of the Lord and and she's really hearing it from her from her mom. Her mom kicked her out because she's seeking the Lord.

18:01 So just imagine intense persecution for our faith. And and Paul writes this letter, he says, don't worry, the lord's coming back and before he he really finally comes back and sets up his kingdom and has his a thousand year reign, he comes as line of Judah, king in Jerusalem. He's going to take his church out of the picture. We're going to talk about that as well. You have some other themes?

18:30 Paul really, really loves them. He says one of the key words there is brethren. He says it a lot in first Thessalonians. He also says it a lot in second Thessalonians. Here's one of the also the biggest, I would say, affirmations that Paul gives to the Thessalonians.

18:55 Their brotherly love, their great love for one another. In fact, let's let's take a look at just one of those scriptures, one or two of those scriptures. In first Thessalonians chapter one and verse three. Paul says in verse two, we give thanks to god always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope.

19:28 In our lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of our god and father. Then, if you go over to chapter four and verse nine, you have it again. You've got this phrase. But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves are taught by god to love one another.

19:49 What a great testimony that the Thessalonians had. They had a testimony right then. Just imagine, they were in this persecution. They were suffering this. They were suffering for Christ.

20:05 And they just had this immense love for one another. Like, whatever they were doing, I imagine they were going out on the streets, they were doing their normal things with their jobs, preaching the gospel to everyone and they said, well, I believe in Christ. They they went to their family members. They went to their friends and and they were preaching the gospel to one another and they were doing it right alongside one another and they just had this great love for one another. Imagine they were having people at their house.

20:34 You know how you have people like Jason. When when Paul and and Silas and Timothy came in, he had him at their house. He had him over for meals. What a great way. What a great example.

20:48 Great affirmation that Paul had for the Thessalonians. That they had a great brotherly love. Like to just take a pause here, grab this. This is a tool I like to use. It's a little bit more of an analytical approach.

21:10 So what you do is you take whatever kind of text you're analyzing. And you can take that whole text. I put it in Google Doc and use this extension to build a word cloud. And those bigger words there, Lord Jesus Christ, are the most used words in second Thessalonians. You have these other ones right around it which is great by the way.

21:33 Like, he's there. Lord Jesus is Christ. This whole book is about him. He's coming. We know it.

21:40 It's repeated over and over again. Jesus Christ is lord And then you have these other verses, other other texts surrounding it. So these kind of italicized were words. You've got faith, work, word, good, brethren, there it is. It's mentioned a few times, grace, and then these other ones.

22:00 You've got everlasting and and established. So, this is just a tool I like to use to kind of help me. What's the what's the theme? What's what's the broad kind of thing that that Paul is saying and more importantly, the lord saying to us today, here's a little table. So, lord has mentioned 21 times, 13 times, 12 times.

22:22 It's about the coming of the Lord. Jesus Christ is coming. You've got Paul's love there, communicated. He calls them brothers. And then we're going to go back to is, okay, he's coming.

22:37 We're going to also look at grace right there. So, what's interesting is you can kind of look, okay, days repeated, that's kind of has to do with the coming of the lord. Faith, good, work, grace. How are they used? Then you can go back to the text and kind of be like, okay, is this a word used throughout the book?

23:01 Or is it kind of just used in one little context? And so, we're going to also see that grace is used throughout the book. So, now, we're what we're going to do is we're going to dive into second Thessalonians and we're going to look at second Thessalonians and use these three themes here to kind of look at it and and see Thessalonians in this light. The coming of the lord, the grace of the lord, and the work of the lord. Okay.

24:02 Ray goes down to Mexico and maybe he comes back to United States and he writes a letter down to Mexico and he says, hey, guys. I'm writing to you. I've got Devin and Shelley here and and we're sending this letter to you. So, Paul does this as well. He he writes and and Paul's like, okay, you remember we were there, right?

24:22 I was there with Sylvanus and Timothy. Kinda catches their attention and he does this normal greeting. He uses this greeting quite a lot, I would say. You get the sense that may have have been a greeting between the brothers. Grace and peace to you.

24:40 In the in the Jewish tradition, they said, shalom, peace. And so when we come to the New Testament, we get this addition, grace. Now, what's grace? Grace is the, it's the unmerited favor. It's the blessing of god to us and as we discussed in the first meeting, it's something that we don't deserve.

25:01 We don't deserve it at all and so Paul is saying to them, he's saying, I'm going to impart grace to you In the name of the father, in the name of our father and the lord Jesus Christ. So, just think about that. Think about all the grace that Jesus Christ offers us. Think about our salvation. He offers that grace just an expression of his love and we don't deserve any of it.

25:29 It's it's completely free. Bought and paid for by Jesus Christ himself. So, verse three, we are bound to thank god always for you brethren as it is fitting because your faith grows exceedingly and the love of everyone of you abounds toward each other. So that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of god for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. So, verse three and four, we get to see Paul's heart again and and this affirmation, he's he's telling them, man, you guys have such a tremendous love.

26:17 You you've experienced the love of god and the love of everyone of you. It's abounding toward each other. What a great testimony. You love each other. You're working together because your faith grows exceedingly.

26:34 Verse four says, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of god. So, Paul went on his missionary journey and he he went to Berea. He went to Archaea. He went to Corinth. Probably went all the way back to Antioch and Ephesus and on all of his journeys in the different churches, he was speaking of the Thessalonians.

26:54 He was saying, wow. This is a great example to follow. They love one another even in the midst of their persecution. So, what a what a great great thing for us to learn and and look at their example that we would have the same love for one another. Let's go on to verse five.

27:15 Which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of god that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of god for which you also suffer. Since it is a righteous thing with god to repay with tribulation those who trouble trouble you. And to give you who are troubled rest. So, one of the things you get here is, okay, they were they were suffering this persecution and if you think about the human spirit, it yearns, it yearns for justice, right? For for payment for things and what he was saying here is saying, listen, you're suffering persecution but but know that that persecution, that testing, that tribulation, it's just an evidence and it's a proof that whenever someone has faith, god tests them to see whether that faith is true and and these people that are that are persecuting you, remember, think about the church.

28:26 The church is the body of Christ and and Paul even experienced himself when when Christ came to him and revealed himself and and the lord said to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So, Paul was persecuting these Christians but he was really persecuting the lord Jesus. So, when when these people, these likely Jewish people there that didn't want to accept the gospel were persecuting the the Christians. They were actually persecuting Christ. They were persecuting god and they were against the lord.

29:03 In verse seven says, and to give you who are troubled, rest with us. When? When the lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. There it is, the coming of the lord. Another aspect of his coming.

29:19 He's going to be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. He came first to to preach salvation. He came first in salvation to offer us grace but the next time he's going to come, we're going to we're now we're talking after the after the rapture. He says, he's going to come in flaming fire and he's going to take vengeance on those who what? They do not know god and on those who do not obey the gospel of our lord Jesus Christ.

30:41 The day of the lord, the lord's coming. He's going to come again. Specifically, if you were to look in in Joel chapter three and verse 14, it talks about the day of the lord and specifically in that coming, it talks about how Jesus when he comes back, he's coming in judgement. He's coming in to judge the peoples. It says, he he's going to come to the valley of decision to judge the people and right here, we have this.

31:11 It says, he's going to come in flaming fire taking vengeance on all those who do not know god and all those who do not obey the gospel of our lord Jesus Christ. What what's the gospel? The gospel is a good news. The bad news is that we have sinned. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god.

31:34 We're all separated from god when we're born into this world. We're born in sin. We have a sin nature. You can ask anyone. Do you have to teach a young child how do not share their toys?

31:48 How to take their toys from someone else? Of course not. We just naturally sin. We've all sinned and fall short of the glory of god. Romans six twenty three, for the wages of that sin is death.

32:02 So, that's the bad news but the good news is that we can be forgiven. The wages of sin is death but the free gift of god is eternal life in Jesus Christ. That's what he offers us. He offers us that salvation, that gift of grace. Verse eleven and twelve.

32:28 Therefore, we also pray always for you that our god would count you worthy of this calling. What's the calling? To fulfill the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power. Verse 12, that the name of our lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him according to what? The grace of our god and the lord Jesus Christ.

32:59 So, there you have it. He's saying, look, the lord's coming again. When he comes back this this next time, after the tribulation, he's coming to set up his kingdom and he's going to come as a judge. He's going to take flaming fire and he's going to take vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel. The way I see it is this, okay, so you have the coming of the lord.

33:23 You've got the grace of the lord. What's what's the work of the lord? Well, he says it right here. That he would count you worthy of this calling. That you would fulfill all the pleasure of his goodness.

33:39 That you would you would just continue in your life as a Christian life that you would continue exhibiting the fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. That you would keep displaying this goodness to the world and the work of faith with power. I I kind of think that on one hand, you've got the goodness showing the goodness of the lord, his transforming power in your life just having this great testimony and paired with it, your evangelism, your your personal evangelism, your work of faith, the work of faith to go out and spread the gospel and spread the gospel with power. That what? That the name of the lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you.

34:33 So, our response in in knowing, okay, the lord's coming. He's coming back and he's going to take vengeance. He's coming back as a judge but think about it that from your perspective. Just think about that as a as a sinner saved by grace. You don't want other people to be there and so and so when you go out and you spread the goodness of the lord and you preach the gospel and you say, look, there's going to come a time.

35:04 The lord's going to come back and he's going to judge the world. I don't think you want to be there. You don't want to be there when he comes back to judge the world. Believe in Jesus. Don't have to receive that wrath.

35:17 Don't have to receive that vengeance. Have this good testimony. Believe in the lord Jesus Christ. So, imagine he's he's saying this to the Thessalonians. He's saying, keep on keeping on.

35:31 Keep preaching the gospel even in this persecution. You're going to see people saved. Let's let's just continue to see how you can see the coming of the lord, the grace of the lord, and the work of the lord here. So, chapter two, now, brothers, brothers in Westlake, concerning the coming of our lord Jesus Christ and our gathering to him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled either by spirit or by word or letter as if from us as though the day of Christ had come. So, here Paul is.

36:32 He's not come yet. Don't believe that. Believe this, that Jesus Christ still has yet to come. Verse three, let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come until what? So, you have a few things here.

36:49 It's not going to come until a few things happen here and you really can can dive into all of this. This is eschatology, the study of the end times but let's just look at a few things that are going to happen. A falling away is going to come first. So, so people that may have been in the church or may have named the day of Christ, they're going to fall away. They're they're no longer going to walk with Christ.

37:17 And then, the man of sin is revealed. The son of perdition. Who is this this man of sin? Who is the son of perdition? He opposes and exalts himself above all that is called god or that is worshiped so that he sits as god in the temple of god showing himself that he is god.

37:44 Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. So, before Jesus Christ comes back to set his kingdom up, to judge the world, this man of sin, this son of perdition is going to be revealed. He's going to be over in the temple. He's going to exalt himself.

38:09 He's going to say, I'm god. Worship me. Verse seven says, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he, most people would say that references to the Holy Spirit. He now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.

38:30 So, so the Holy Spirit is is restraining him. Until that proper time. Verse eight, and this lawless one will be revealed whom the lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. So, this is going to be this time before Jesus comes back. It's going to be in the tribulation.

38:58 You've got a seven year tribulation. The rapture happens. The lord takes his church out. You've got this seven years. This immense time, this troubling time, the first three and a half, they're they're really, they're kind of hard but they're nothing compared to the second three and a half.

39:17 You go to Revelation, you can read all about these different bold judgments, these judgments on the people, on the world at that time. In in that seven years, the lawless one is going to be revealed. The Antichrist but know this, it says here, whom the lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. So, in this time of the tribulation, it may seem that Satan is winning. It may seem that he he's got the world under control.

39:53 He's he's fooled people. He's exalted himself as as as god. That's what he it says. But Jesus Christ is coming back and he's going to consume him with the breath of his coming and he's going to destroy with the brightness of his coming. He's going to destroy this lawless one, this antichrist.

40:16 Verse nine, the coming to lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders. So, this guy is going to come. He's going to come as a satanic force and he's going to do like signs and stuff like he's going to be able to do like supernatural things. Imagine you could do a lot of other study in the New Testament and even the Old Testament. I think there might be some clues as to what he's going to do but he's going to come with these like signs and and supernatural things and powerful things and they're all going to lie.

40:53 It's similar even to the way that the the commanders of of pharaoh. So, pharaoh went to his his commanders when Moses and Aaron went to them and and when Moses and Aaron were there, this is in Exodus right before they leave Egypt. They were there and they performed this miracle of blood and somehow, these other person, these these other people by some satanic forces and the the sorcery and the witchcraft, whatever they used, they will do able to do the same thing. So, imagine when when this guy comes, this antichrist, he's going to come and he's going to be able to do the same type of things. He's going to do these miracles and he's going to do these lying wonders.

41:36 These these things to deceive people. Verse 10, and with all unrighteousness, deception among those who perish. Because those that perished, they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason, god will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned, who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. So, you've got the coming of the lord.

42:11 Before he comes, you've got this troubling time and in that troubling time, the antichrist is going to raise himself and he's going to declare himself as god above anything that that calls himself god above the very creator of the universe. He's going to come with lying signs and and the lord's going to come and and give the delusion to to people in that time who who don't want to believe, who refuse, they don't want to receive the truth. The truth that Jesus Christ actually is god. That Jesus Christ is the coming Messiah. So, let's try and wrap up here with this last last kind of concept.

43:37 So, you go back and you look in the Old Testament, the lord chose different people and he chose them for a specific purpose. He also chose groups of people. So, so on one hand, he chose a specific people. You got like Saul. He chose Saul to be king.

43:55 Even though it does say there, it says that you know, Saul is a handsome guy. The people liked him. They wanted him to be king. Even in the the people choosing, you see that god chose him for what specific purpose and and all the privileges and and responsibilities that come with it. He chose Saul to be king.

44:16 You have the specific then person of Jesus Christ. Believe it's Isaiah maybe even I think it's Psalm that says, behold my sermon who I have chosen. The lord god chose Jesus Christ for the specific purpose of coming down for our salvation and he's coming again. So, here you you you have this instance in the New Testament. And let's link this this section.

44:50 So, it says here, we're we're bound always to give thanks to god for you, for you brethren. Your love by the lord and why? Because the lord chose you and for the purposes today, us part of the church, he chose this group of people just like he chose Israel for a specific purpose. He chooses the church that they wouldn't be there. That they would be saved from this this section right here.

45:22 They would be saved from this tribulation. This this this coming of the lawless one. The church is not going to be there. Go back to first Thessalonians chapter one. First Thessalonians chapter one and verse 10.

45:36 You you going to get this this first sense of this idea of god saving the church and to what purpose that he would save them out of there Verse 10 says, and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who what? Who delivers us from the wrath to come. So, in one sense, yes, he does save us from that ultimate wrath but here you have this this new idea of the church saying, look, I chose the church and what I'm going to kind of use this phrase, I chose the church for this purpose to be saved out of the world before that tribulation comes, save from that troubling time, and what is this a picture of? Do we deserve to be saved out of the tribulation? Do we deserve that at all?

46:34 No, I would say that we number one, we would we deserve to be apart from the lord. We would deserve that to be in that tribulation but the lord chose the church to be saved out of that tribulation as an exhibition of his grace As to just just put the church here and say, look, I'm Jesus Christ. Before I come, all these people that believed in me, the grace that offer him, here's another showing of my grace even though they don't deserve it, I'm going to take them out of this troubling time. By my grace, I'm going to take them out. That's one purpose that we can kind of see here.

47:13 He says, I chose you to be saved for this salvation. There's many other references to to the different times that the word chosen is used but go also to to kind of close this out. Go to first Thessalonians five and verse nine. Isn't that some more evidence, some convincing evidence to to show us why this is is that purpose. It says in verse nine of chapter five, for god did not appoint us to wrath.

47:46 He he didn't set up the church to go through this time, to go through this time of wrath. He set up the church to obtain salvation through our lord Jesus Christ that they might be saved. First, from the penalty of sin that anyone who would come to Jesus Christ can be saved. They can put their faith in the lord Jesus Christ and and now they're part of the church and one of the purposes that that he has is that he would take the church out of the tribulation that he would look and say, wow. Maybe there's this person left there during the tribulation.

48:23 They say, where do all these people go? Like, why did they get to go and not me? They went to show, they went to they went and what is shown in that is the grace offered by the lord Jesus Christ. They can see that not only does he offer eternal life and we're in this time of grace but he's going to take the church and he's going to take the church out. So, we come to the end here.

49:48 The lord Jesus Christ is coming back. What do we do until then? We wait and we do his work till then. We keep on keeping on even in our persecution. We keep on showing the goodness of the lord.

50:00 We keep on preaching the gospel. We witness to people and I would say use this. Why is this here? If we're not going to be there in that troubling time, what's this for? It's to it's to tell people, look, this trouble in times coming, you don't want to be there, believe in the lord Jesus Christ.

50:22 Not only will you be saved from that but most of all, you are going to be saved eternally and have this close relationship with the lord. You're going to be saved from your penalty of sin. You're gonna be offered this grace and mercy. You don't deserve any of it. But you can believe today.

50:38 That's our work. Last Sunday, I had this verse pop into mind. Acts one ten and eleven. This is right when Jesus goes back. He says, and and while they, right after the Guric Commission, by the way, to go and and make disciples and preach to people.

50:57 And he says, and while they looked steadfastly, this is the disciples, toward heaven as he went up. Behold, two men stood by them in white apparel. So you got these angels, they're standing there. And what do they say? Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?

51:16 I kind of kind of got this sense that the lord was telling me this. Devin, why are you standing there? Why are you just going about your life and it's like you're just looking at the sky waiting for Jesus to come back. You've got work to do. The same Jesus who's going to be take who's taken up in heaven, he's going to come again in like manner as you sow as you saw him to go into heaven.

51:43 The truth that Jesus Christ is coming back, it it's gotta matter. Like, this has gotta change how the way I live. It should make a difference in the way I live my life. If if I know he's coming back, it should make a difference. Does it?

52:00 The second coming should be a call to purity and devotion to Jesus Christ. A call to evangelism. Call to fulfill our purpose and the gifts that he's given us. The ministry that he has given us. Wanna end with this last quote here.

52:22 As you go, as you preach the gospel, don't just look and stand there, preach the gospel, do my work. Keep on doing that work of faith even through the persecution. Jesus says, and low, I'm with you always even to the end of the age. Let's just commit this to the lord. Dear lord, we're just so grateful this morning to to know that you're coming.

52:49 We know that you're coming, lord. And when you come back to set up your kingdom, you're going to come in in vengeance, lord. There's going to be a war. There's going to be a battle. And you're going to punish people that are against you, lord.

53:06 We see that and and it our heart cries out because we know there's people out there. Lord, help us to go and seek the lost. To go and tell them that the lord's going to come back in in vengeance to know that it's appointed to man once to die and then judgement. We're going to have to stand before the lord. Everyone will be.

53:32 Lord, help us to go and know that he's coming back. And to to to communicate your love, your goodness to the world, and to preach your gospel, not to just stand there looking up into heaven. Lord, we're just so grateful the fact that that you have you have given us second Thessalonians and and given us your grace. We know that when we go in life, we can't do this without you. Help us not to do the work of an evangelist.

54:35 Help us now as as we do that. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.