The Day of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12)

2 Thessalonians, we're going to read verses 1 through 12.

Now, concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to be easily upset or troubled, either by a prophecy or by a message, or by a letter, supposedly from us, alleging that the day of the Lord has come.

Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.

He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship, so that he sits in God's temple, proclaiming that he himself is God.

Don't you remember that when I was still with you, I used to tell you about this, and you know what currently restrains him, so that he will be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one now restraining will do so until he is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed.

The Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of his mouth, and will bring him to nothing at his appearance at the appearance of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan's working, with every kind of miracle, both signs and wonders serving the lie, and with every wicked deception among those who are perishing.

They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved.

For this reason God sends them a strong delusion, so that they will believe the lie, so that all will be condemned, those who did not believe the truth, but delighted in unrighteousness.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you so much for this text here this morning.

Lord, we pray for great understanding and great remembrance.

Lord, help us to go through these verses well this morning.

Help me to explain things well.

And we just pray, God, that we leave here with a deeper understanding of your heart behind this passage and why you saw it so important to put this in Second Thessalonians right here and why you saw it is so important for us to be going through this verse here this morning.

So, God, have your way in our hearts, mold us, shape us, help us to be more and more like Jesus on a daily basis, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So if it's your first time with us, um, we start talking about end times and things like that, and it can be a little weird, it can seem a little bit funny, and like, do these people really believe all this stuff?

But the Bible is very clear that Jesus is coming back a second time.

And we are just gonna address this.

This is the next passage that's in line here.

Jesus even said himself that he's gonna be coming back.

So we we know that those events are gonna be taking place, and this this morning's just a little bit about how that's gonna unfold.

But first, here this morning, I want you to imagine that you have a toddler.

Some of you don't have to imagine that, some of you do have a toddler.

But I want you to imagine you have a toddler and you're visiting grandma's house, and all that goes with that.

And grandma makes their favorite meal, homemade mac and cheese.

And they just chow down and they eat so much of it.

And then grandma brings out their favorite cake and their favorite flavor of ice cream to go along with it, and gives them a very large portion of both of those things, and they chow down once again, and they're eating so fast that they don't realize that they're full yet.

So they beg you when they finish their dessert, they beg you, the parent, can I have one more piece of cake?

Please, as toddlers do.

It is just so good, and they just they gotta have another piece of cake, and you know better, you know what's coming, you know what's gonna happen.

So you tell them the truth.

If you have another piece of cake, you're gonna feel so sick.

Your tummy is gonna hurt so bad, you're gonna be miserable, which means I'm going to be miserable.

But the toddler says, No, I won't.

I'm still hungry, I still have room.

Please give me some more of this dessert.

So you give them the truth again because you know beyond a shadow of a doubt what is going to happen, what the end result is going to be.

You know the truth of the situation, but they plead with you.

And usually you don't like to cave to whiny children.

At least I hope that's all of us.

But now you're getting some pressure from grandma, too, to give them one more piece of cake.

And then you remember that sometimes the greatest teacher in life can be the consequences of what you're begging for.

So you say, you know what?

Okay, have another piece.

But your stomach is really gonna hurt in five minutes, as soon as your body registers how full you are and how much sugar you have in you.

So the toddler chows down again on a second piece of cake.

Five minutes later, they're rolling on the floor, clenching their stomach, saying, My tummy hurts, my tummy hurts.

For the parents out there, have you ever had this situation or something similar happen, you know, to it?

Yes, I see.

Some some people with toddlers back there raising their hands.

But aren't you glad that we never do that with God?

Right when he knows the beginning from the end, he knows the truth, yet we beg him for something that's actually gonna hurt us in the end.

I want you to keep that in mind as we go through these verses here this morning, because it's gonna come into play as we go, that attitude of begging for something that is only going to hurt us.

So just remember that this morning.

Now, just to kind of set the stage a little bit, if you remember last week, we talked a lot about the two outcomes that are gonna be waiting for everybody, the one of two outcomes that are waiting for everybody at the end.

You know, that first outcome being those of us that will be counted worthy of God's kingdom.

And therefore, we get to look forward to the righteous judgment of God.

Only because of the blood of Jesus, because that was already paid for.

And then there's those that are in the second outcome.

Those that are afflicted and condemned by God's righteous judgment, which are those, as we saw last week, that don't know God and those that don't obey the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So to follow that up today, Paul's gonna lay out some things regarding God's righteous judgment, regarding end times specifically.

And we covered a lot of this in 1 Thessalonians already.

Like I said, when we come to things that are review in 2 Thessalonians, we're gonna go a little quicker.

There's a lot of verses we're gonna cover, but the things that are different, we're really going to dig into.

And I just wanted to remind you of where we stand as a church, what we believe, the lens in which we look through when we look at end times verses like this.

And our view on this is a pre-tribulation rapture.

We have some slides I'm gonna be throwing up just so you can continue to see what our beliefs are and a little bit of kind of how we think things are gonna unfold in the end.

So we believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, so that the church is gonna be caught up to Jesus from the earth before the seven-year tribulation starts.

And we talked a bit about other views when we're going through uh 1 Thessalonians, if you wanted to go back and kind of listen to more of that and dig in a little deeper.

But what we didn't talk about in 1 Thessalonians, which we're gonna be talking about this morning, is how we see all of this unfolding.

And I want to talk about this first, because then I think it's gonna help us make sense as we go through these verses one by one of how we see it.

So we believe that before Jesus, God's attention and focus was on his chosen people, which is the Jews.

But after Jesus came the first time, his focus and attention has shifted to the church, has shifted to us.

And no, we don't believe that God has abandoned Israel, has abandoned the Jews by any means.

That's called replacement theology.

But we do believe that his focus is now on the church, and that we also believe that once the church is caught up to Jesus Christ in the rapture, that God's redemptive focus is going to go from us back onto the Jewish people.

Specifically during this seven-year tribulation, this final day of the Lord, you know, which I want to talk about real quick.

You know, when we see this term in verse 2 of our text this morning, the day of the Lord in the Old Testament, it was always a time of God's judgment coming upon Israel specifically.

And it was always with the intent of getting them to recognize their sin, to repent, and then to come back to the Lord.

It's his mercy, as we're going to be exploring today, on Israel, giving them a second chance to come back to him instead of just destroying them because of their idolatry and their wickedness and all of the things that they were doing.

And we believe there is one more day of the Lord that is coming for Israel, and that's the seven-year tribulation that we see before Jesus comes back.

And we believe here that the Antichrist, or as it says in our text here this morning, the man of lawlessness, as we just read, will set up a seven-year peace treaty with Israel so that they will first be deceived by him and see him as a man of peace at first.

And I believe, and this is speculation, so take it with a grain of salt, but I believe that this peace treaty is probably going to include something about them being able to rebuild their temple once again.

Which I think could easily be done in three and a half years, the first three and a half years of the tribulation.

You can check out the Temple Institute online if you're interested in looking at the preparations that they've already done for this.

Then we believe that at the midpoint of the tribulation, so at that three and a half year point, and after the temple's built, the Antichrist will set up an abomination in the Jewish temple and demand that he be worshipped as a God and be worshipped as God alone, no other gods.

And that's called the abomination of desolation.

I know this is a lot, pay attention, but it'll all unfold as we go.

And it's at this moment, at the abomination of desolation, at the 3.5 year mark, that Israel will realize, uh-oh, this is not the Messiah, this is not a man of peace.

This guy actually wants to kill us.

And they're gonna flee to the mountains, and God will supernaturally protect them during that time.

And then we believe at the end of the seven years, Christ will return.

He's gonna destroy the Antichrist, he's gonna cage up Satan for a thousand years, and Christ is gonna rule on earth for that literal thousand-year period.

So at this point, if your head is swimming or this invokes fear in you, I just want to remind you of what I reminded you in 1 Thessalonians and last week.

When Paul spoke of end times, it was to encourage the church.

It wasn't to freak them out, it wasn't to do anything like that.

It was always to set them at ease.

It was to give them something to look forward to in the midst of their persecution, to remind them this life is short.

Be encouraged, you know, something better is coming in Jesus.

And that's what we're gonna see him do exactly today in this text.

We're gonna see him clarify some things from 1 Thessalonians, we're gonna see him give them some direction regarding end times.

He's gonna encourage them.

And apparently they're just really troubled in this time.

Now, one last thing.

If you are of the mindset of, I don't want to know this, I don't care about this, I want to keep my head in the sand and plug my ears and la la la la la, you know.

We'll see today that Paul taught this church about this while he was with them.

And that's important because he was only with this church for about three or four weeks, most likely.

So within three or four weeks of them being saved, Paul made sure that they knew all about this and they saw it as important enough to address it two more times in his writings.

You know, he said in 1 Thessalonians, I do not want you to be unaware or ignorant regarding these things.

And I just want to encourage you of the same thing today, to not be ignorant, don't put your head in the sand.

I want to encourage you to study this stuff, to know this stuff, to understand it for yourselves.

Even if it's just little by little, you just gain a little bit more each time.

With the verses that we're gonna be pulling up and talking about today in Daniel and Matthew and Revelation and things like that, take note of those and go study those on your own so you know these things for yourself.

So that all leads us in.

Really long intro today, but that leads us to verse one, and we'll start picking this apart.

Verse one.

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to be easily upset or troubled.

You see, right off the bat, he's trying to calm them, encourage them, have them take a little bit of a breath, because uh we'll see why in verse two.

But I just wanted to point out one thing.

In verse one here, in the original Greek structure of the sentence, the coming of the Lord Jesus and our being gathered to him are two different events.

I'm not gonna get into it today, but if you want to dig in later, the article the applies both to both of the nouns in this sentence, speaking of individual and separate events.

So if you want to dig deeper, by all means, you can you can go into that.

Now look at why he's trying to calm this church down in verse 2.

He says, not to be easily upset or troubled, either by a prophecy or by a message or by a letter, supposedly from us, alleging that the day of the Lord has come or is present.

This Thessalonian church was dealing with some false prophets and people saying that I have a direct message from the Lord.

There's even people forging letters and saying, hey, this is from Paul.

You guys need to listen to this, but they wrote it themselves.

And it's a young church, as I already mentioned.

Maybe some of these people were still a bit gullible.

Maybe some found controversy exciting, or they like to be in the midst of drama, or they like to argue.

Maybe some loved every wind of doctrine that came through, and they like to grab on and talk about it because it was the latest and the greatest, and they just wanted to keep up with the latest and the greatest.

And Paul, right here, he says, No, stop that.

Do not do that.

And as an encouragement to us here today as well, those are all things that we need to avoid.

All things that we need to not get caught up in ourselves.

Paul tells them to not let this trouble them because they should already know this stuff.

He already taught it to them in person.

He already wrote about it in the first letter.

He already made it clear in his first letter that they will know beyond a shadow of a doubt when Jesus shows up for his church.

That was one of the things he wanted them to know.

You will know if the day of the Lord has come.

You know, there's Jesus, there's shouting, there's the trumpet of God.

It's not gonna be a quiet event.

Christians will not have to be convinced when that day comes.

Paul even ended 1 Thessalonians with an encouragement slash admonishment to this church to test all things.

He was telling them, don't believe everything you hear.

Don't believe everything you read.

Next week, in uh next week's text, he's gonna say it again.

You can look at it right here in our own chapter, verse 15.

Stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught, whether by what we said or what we wrote.

For us here today, when it comes to God's word, you've heard me say this before, and I love it.

If it's true, it's not new, and if it's new, it's not true.

So I want to encourage you, if you hear something or you're taught something that you don't see in God's word, or it contradicts the long-held doctrines of Jesus Christ, and it's upsetting you, you know, the word upset right here in this, it means like a ship on a stormy sea, just tossed to and fro, taking on water.

That's what that word upset means right here.

So if it's riling up inside of you in that way and you're consumed with fear, just take Paul's advice.

Stop.

Take a breath and remember what you know.

Test all things, as Paul said.

Line it up with God's word, test it for yourself.

Ask yourself has anyone else ever arrived at this doctrine or this conclusion of Jesus Christ?

I'm not talking about little interpretations of Scripture, I'm talking about doctrinal conclusions contrary to God's word.

And if the answer is no, none of this lines up with his word or previous doctrines of the church that are long held, that means it's not true.

And this church was upset and they were troubled because people were trying to lead them to believe the day of the Lord has come.

We are already in this day.

Maybe these false teachers were assuming because of the per persecution that we know of that was already in this church, like this is so bad.

The day of the Lord must be here.

Because I can't imagine things getting worse than this.

And I personally believe that the only reason that this would really stir up this church like this is if they were told that the day of the Lord was upon them, and they were expecting to be caught up before the day of the Lord was upon them.

And they think we missed it.

That's me.

That's my assumption here.

But I think that's the only reason that would rile them up to this capacity is that thought.

Because if they believed that they were going to live through the tribulation, why would they be so troubled?

They'd be like, hey, we're just, you know, one year closer to going home to be with Jesus.

So Paul says in verse 3, Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.

That's pretty self-explanatory.

So go to verse 4.

I'm just kidding.

So basically it's saying here if you think we're in the day of the Lord, where are these two things that I've already taught you about?

If you are in the day of the Lord, the apostasy and the man of lawlessness would be present as well.

So if you think you're in the day of the Lord, where are these things?

You know, let's talk about the apostasy first.

Not an apostasy, it says the apostasy here.

Your translation may read the great rebellion or the great falling away, even.

Speaking, really, what this is speaking of is defectors.

Think of defectors, which means abandoning allegiance to one cause to only take up the opposing side.

That's what this word means here.

There's gonna be a great rebellion like this of people siding with Satan and actually getting behind him, and as we're gonna see, actually start worshiping him.

And the second reason you would know if you were in the day of the Lord is the man of lawlessness would already be revealed.

If we were in that day, you would know who the Antichrist is.

You know, there's a prophecy in Daniel chapter 8, verse 23 through 25 that I want to read you, speaking of this man of lawlessness.

Daniel 8:23–25

It says, Near the end of their kingdoms, when the rebels have reached the full measure of their sin.

Sounds familiar, a ruthless king, skilled in intrigue, will come to the throne.

His power will be great, but it will not be his own.

He will cause Outrageous destruction and succeed in whatever he does.

He will destroy the powerful along with the holy people.

He will cause deceit to prosper through his cunning and by his influence, and in his own mind he will exalt himself.

He will destroy many in a time of peace.

He will even stand against the Prince of Peace.

We know that's Jesus.

Yet he will be broken not by human hands, but as we'll see by the breath of Jesus Christ at his coming.

So this is the man of lawlessness.

We have picked up the term Antichrist from John, so we we typically use that more.

But you might see the son of perdition is another name for him as well.

So what Paul's saying here is another way to know if the day of the Lord has already come, the Antichrist will be revealed.

You will know who that is.

First, as a peacemaker, seven-year peace treaty with Israel, and then he will destroy many in that time of peace, it says.

So Paul's saying, you haven't seen either one of these happen.

So how could you possibly be in the day of the Lord?

He goes on regarding the man of lawlessness.

Look at verse 4.

He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship, so that he sits in God's temple, proclaiming that he himself is God.

Don't you remember that when I was still with you, I used to tell you about this.

Again, this is the abomination of desolation, prophesied by Daniel, prophesied by Jesus.

We we see it in Revelation as well, right at the midpoint of this seven-year tribulation, three and a half years.

Now, I want to acknowledge some other views here because you're gonna hear these arguments quite a bit if you're ever talking about this with people about end times.

And that's the concept of preterism.

And that is the view that all of the prophecies that are in the Bible have already happened.

Basically at the end of writing the Bible, that all ended, there was no future prophecies to come.

That's called preterism.

There's even partial preterism where they believe there's some things that have not come, but most of them have.

But they either believe that in 167 B.C., uh Antiochus IV uh did this when he slaughtered the pig on the altar in the temple in Jerusalem.

I don't see that because Jesus spoke of these events that we're talking about this morning in a future tense in Matthew 24, which we'll see.

But some believe that this took place in 70 AD by the Romans when they came and they destroyed the temple.

But that event doesn't come close to fulfilling the prophecies that Jesus gave in the Old Testament or what we see in Revelation.

Neither one of those comes close to actually completing all the things that Jesus talked about.

So I want to show you Matthew 24.

So go ahead and turn in the left to your Bibles to Matthew 24.

I know this is a little more technical today, but I don't know how else to do this.

So there's just a lot here today.

But go ahead and turn to Matthew 24.

And while you're doing that, I just want to talk to you about Revelation 13.

Because again, this is all coming up.

But in Revelation 13, the Antichrist is giving power, is given power by Satan.

And Satan's throne and his authority are also given to this Antichrist as well.

So the world starts worshiping Satan and the Antichrist in this time, saying, Who is like the beast?

That's the term used for the Antichrist.

Who is like the beast?

Who is able to wage war against it, against the beast?

And then it says, it, the beast, was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months.

Three and a half years.

And it was blaspheming God.

This was from that three and a half year mark, from the abomination of desolation onward.

And you can find that in Revelation 13 if you want to go study that on your own.

But now that you're in Matthew 24, look down at verse 15.

And I want you to see this with your own eyes, partly because it's a long passage, but I'd love for you to go back and study this chapter later as well.

So Matthew 24, 15 through 25.

So when you see the abomination of desolation, words of Jesus here, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.

That means pay attention when you see that.

Verse 16.

Then those in Judea, take note of that, in Judea, must flee to the mountains.

A man on the housetop must not come down to get things out of his house, and a man in the field must not go back to get his coat.

Woe to the pregnant worm woman and nursing mothers in those days.

Pray that your escape may not be in winter or on a Sabbath, because he's speaking to Judea.

For at that time there will be great distress, the kind that hasn't taken place from the beginning of the world until now, till the abomination of desolation at the three and a half year mark, and never will again.

Verse 22.

Unless those days were cut short, no one would be saved.

For those days will be cut short because of the elect.

Those in Judea.

Verse 23.

If anyone tells you then, see, here is the Messiah, or over here, do not believe it.

For false messiahs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

Context says, that's Judea.

Take note, I have told you in advance.

Now back to 2 Thessalonians 2, 6.

But I just wanted to show you how this all lines up.

You know, that's the words of Jesus that we're looking at right there.

We're looking at Revelation.

We're going to look at Daniel as well.

We're going to look at our text today, and all of these texts are interwoven and they're saying the same thing.

Paul goes on in verse 6.

And you know what currently restrains him, so that he will be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one now restraining will do so until he is out of the way.

The spirit of Antichrist is already at work in the world today, if you haven't noticed.

All we have to do is just look around.

We see the hate that people have for Christians around the world.

We don't get it nearly as much as in other countries.

But people are being persecuted and they're being killed for their faith in Africa and in the Middle East right now.

We see it in our own country.

It's just more so like hate for Christian values.

This absolute disgust for biblical and moral values that Christians hold.

But it's going to get worse.

And it's going to be unrestrained during the tribulation.

If you haven't figured it out in this text here, the current restrainer that's being talked about is the Holy Spirit.

And I just want to make sure that as we're talking about this, that you don't think that the Holy Spirit is absent from earth during this time.

No, because people are going to be saved during this time, his ministry will continue in a believer's life.

It's his restraint against Satan and lawlessness that's going to be lifted.

So imagine if we are living in restraint now, what things are going to be like without that restraint anymore.

Much worse than any Christians are experiencing in this world right now.

He goes on in verse 8.

And then the lawless one will be revealed.

The Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of his mouth, and will bring him to nothing at the appearance of his coming.

That fires me up every time I read it.

That's how strong Jesus is.

How strong our God is that we worship.

Isaiah 11 4 speaks of Jesus striking the land with a scepter from his mouth and killing the wicked with the command of his lips.

In Revelation, there's three different times there where we see Jesus described, and three different times where we see a sword coming from his mouth in Revelation.

In Revelation 19, 15, it says, A sharp sword came from his mouth so that he might strike the nations with it.

So we get to see in Jesus' second coming, Jesus the Lion.

You read through the Gospels, you see Jesus the Lamb.

But what's to come is Jesus the lion, the warrior, with a sword protruding from his mouth.

And I just love this verse because when he comes back to judge the earth, the antichrist isn't going to be sitting there battling him for days.

He's got nothing.

Christ battles him with the breath of his mouth and simply at his appearance and brings him to absolutely nothing.

You know, Satan and the Antichrist, as we're reading these verses, they may seem powerful.

They may seem even more powerful in the tribulation, you know, being without restraint.

But Jesus shows up.

This guy's got nothing.

Just his appearance alone, this guy gets wiped out.

That's one of the reasons I'm not a preterist, is because none of what we just talked about happened in 167 BC or in 70 AD.

None of it.

Paul goes on in verse 9.

The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan's working with every kind of miracle, both signs and wonders serving the lie, and with every wicked deception among those who are perishing.

So Jesus had signs and wonders, if you remember.

It was to prove that he was preaching the truth.

It was to prove that he was the Messiah because it was prophesied in the Old Testament that he would do those things.

His signs and wonders were backing up the message of truth that he was giving.

Satan will have signs and wonders, but it's to serve the lie.

With the Holy Spirit no longer restraining him, Satan will get to show his power.

He is powerful, probably more than we can even imagine.

But we only see a restrained version of his powers right now.

So just again, imagine what it'll look like when those powers are no longer restrained.

And those that are not saved, they're gonna go right along with it.

That's those that are perishing right here.

And I think Israel is gonna be part of this group that is deceived.

And then 144,000 of them at the abomination of desolation will have their eyes open, like, oh, this is not the guy we thought.

And they're gonna flee for their own safety, but their eyes will be opened at that moment when he says, he stands in God's temple and says, I am God, now worship me.

And then I think that's when they realize, oh, this Jesus guy that we've rejected for however long it's been, he's the Messiah that we've been waiting for all along.

And they're gonna flee to the mountains for their own protection.

But regarding those that are perishing, look at the next part of verse 10.

They perished because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved.

This isn't cruelty that we're seeing here.

And we kind of talked about this last week.

Nobody's gonna be without excuse.

These are gonna be people we're talking about here that made their choice.

A choice to not accept the love and truth.

And God is simply going to let them have their way.

Like a toddler begging for more dessert when it's the worst thing that they can have in that moment.

And finally, God says, I gave you the truth over and over and over again.

You've made your choice, now accept it.

But he's talking to adults.

He's not talking to toddlers, he's talking to adults that have made this choice.

Now look at verse 11.

For this reason, their choice that they've made, for this reason, God sends them a strong delusion so that they will believe the lie, so that all will be condemned, those who did not believe the truth, but delighted in unrighteousness.

It's like God says, if you don't want the truth, well then here's the lie.

Have your way.

Delight in the unrighteousness that you have chosen for yourself.

You know, as you read through passages about the tribulation, as you read through Revelation, you can start to think, wow, that's gnarly.

That's this is some gnarly stuff going on, God.

But remember at the beginning of today, we talked about the day of the Lord, you know, how that was historically what God would do to draw his people to repentance, to give them a chance to recognize their sin and repent for their own sake, because that is what was best for them.

Because God loved them too much to leave them in their sin and the destruction they were causing themselves and the people around them.

And every time that Israel chose repentance, God was waiting there with open arms for them.

He was always ready for them to repent, and he was gonna bring them back.

And when they actually did that, then he just showered them with love and his blessings.

You know, it's really the story of the prodigal son.

You know, okay, go live your heathen life till it's so horrible that you want to come running back to me, and I'm gonna have my arms open once again for that time of repentance.

We see that with God over and over again when they just went off the rails.

God was always trying to draw them back to repentance and accept them with loving arms.

The tribulation is all about God giving them and the rest of the world a chance over and over and over again to repent.

And for those that refuse God's love and truth over and over and over again, he finally says, Okay, have your way.

Just get sucked into this delusion and this lie and just go delight in it because that's what you really want in the deepest places of your heart.

If you have ever read Revelation and you think, wow, God is so cruel to these people on earth, I want to encourage you to go back and read it again and look at how it's actually God's mercy.

He's giving them chance after chance after chance to see how things are without Him.

What things look like without the restraint of the Holy Spirit that we get to see now, giving them opportunity after opportunity to repent.

And finally they they reach a point where they're just no, no, I'm not gonna do it.

And God says, okay, go delight in this unrighteousness, go delight in your sin.

Have your way.

And if you're here today and you just realize that you've been chasing after that lie, you've been convinced that the world has more to offer than God does, this world is gonna be destroyed.

If you keep reading on in scripture, you'll see that there is an end date to this world, and then God's gonna make a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem.

And that's where we'll get to spend eternity.

But this world is not gonna last.

And all of us are gonna have one of two outcomes.

Those who are righteously judged by God and found innocent because we've accepted the gift of Jesus, the cleansing of his blood that he spilled on the cross in our place.

But then there's gonna be those that are righteously judged by God and found guilty of their sin by their own choice, and they're gonna be thrown into the lake of fire for all of eternity.

And Scripture says that by simply accepting in faith that Jesus died for your sins and paid that debt for you, making you innocent, that you will receive the righteous judgment in your favor.

Meaning, God's not gonna see any of your sin.

It's all washed away, it's all been cleansed, that debt has been paid, and God's just gonna see the righteousness of Jesus Christ in you and give you his righteous judgment in favor.

Say, welcome to heaven.

Come spend eternity with me in perfection.

Come spend eternity where there's no consequence of sin.

Sin isn't even seen anymore, and just live in that perfection with me for all of eternity.

You can do that right now in your seat.

Just say, Jesus, I accept you in faith.

I thank you that your blood is paid for my sin, and I accept that gift that you want me so desperately to reach out and grab a hold of because He did it.

He already paid for it.

We just need to accept it in our heart.

But then there's those of us today, we've already done this.

We know where we're going.

We know we have an eternity with Christ that's incredible.

So, what do we do with passages like this?

You know, we get to the end of this section.

This is really the the end of the end times in 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians here.

But we have to ask, what do we do with this?

Now that, you know, hopefully we've got some more knowledge and we've just kind of picked this apart, what do we do with this?

The answer is abide in Christ.

If you are abiding in Christ, do you know what you're already going to be doing?

Everything that we've covered in 1st and 2 Thessalonians.

Being a disciple of Jesus, following close and staying close in relationship with him, seeing what he does and then doing what he does, seeing how he speaks and speaking how he speaks, seeing how he thinks, and then having the mind of Christ for ourselves.

If we're abiding, we're staying in and knowing God's word for ourselves as well.

So that we don't get duped.

We don't get riled up like these Thessalonians did when these false teachers and false prophets and false letters started circulating.

If we're abiding in Christ, it means we're praying.

We're having these conversations with God constantly.

Pray without ceasing, Scripture says.

If we're abiding in Christ, we're walking by the Spirit.

If we're abiding in Christ, we're being a light for Christ in every circumstance, including persecution, as we've seen so much in these two books.

Where it means we're living by faith beyond our own capacity, doing things that only God can accomplish through us.

It means we're loving beyond our capacity if we're abiding in Christ.

Because it's God's love flowing through us, not something we're trying to muster up, but it's God's love flowing through us to our neighbors, to our coworkers, to our classmates.

It means sharing the gospel and being fishers of men.

I love that we're doing the bike thing today.

Pray that there's some great conversations with our community out there, that the gospel can be shared and people can be invited to church.

But if we're abiding in Christ, we're already doing all those things.

So we need to focus on abiding in Christ.

You know, all of those things I just mentioned, they're both the process of abiding and the result of abiding in Christ.

I don't want to scare you with Jesus is coming back, you better shape up and get busy and go, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

I think that's a shortcut to get obedience without the heart of abiding.

I don't get that tone from Paul.

I don't get that tone anywhere in the New Testament, actually.

Over and over again, we just see Paul was encouraging them to continue to persevere in abiding in Christ.

Because, like I said, if you're abiding in Christ, you're going to be ready for the Lord's return because you're already being obedient in all of those ways.

You know, this is actually what the disciple slash apostle John, who wrote the gospels in 1st, 2nd, and 3 John for his epistles, he writes in his first epistle, 1 John 2 28, he says, So now, little children, remain or abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

What was John encouraging his readers to do in order to be ready for the return of Christ?

Remain.

Abide in Christ.

So I think that should be our encouragement here today as well.

To engage in that process of abiding and allow God to make us more and more like Jesus as we become more and more dependent upon Him for everything.

Because John 15, same author, says, without Christ, we can do nothing.

Meaning we can do nothing of value on our own.

We can't muster it up.

It has to be complete dependence and abiding in Christ.

That's why we named this church that.