Clear Teaching in Cloudy Times
Text: 2 Thessalonians 1: 1-
Proposition: The temptation to let our circumstancesdirect our understanding of the second coming of Jesus needs to be balanced by the context of Scripture.
Introduction: It’s been awhile since we last talked about the young church at Thessalonica, a church that was rapidly growing yet at the same time experiencing intense persecution and ostracism. When Paul writes the second letter to the Thessalonians it is just a brief letter but it addresses three distinct issues that the people were struggling with. The first issue was the obvious struggle against the rejection they were experiencing. For many this was bringing them to the point of despair, cast out of their families, cut off from being able to work, ridiculed and beaten physically. This persecution led to the second issue, they had interpreted this as a sign that the end times were upon them and that they were suffering as a sign that Christ was returning at any moment. The third issue, many were quitting their jobs, shirking their responsibilities believing that the second coming of Jesus was so close they need no longer work for a living.
Doomsday predictions, they can be genuine in their concerns but completely off in the timing and details. Religious leader William Miller began preaching in 1831 that the end of the world as we know it would occur with the second coming of Jesus Christ in 1843. When the 1843 prediction failed to materialize, Miller recalculated and determined that the world would actually end in 1844. More than 100,000 people believed him. Harold Camping has predicted the end of the world as many as 12 times since 1960. His most publicized predication was for May 21, 2011, a date that he calculated to be exactly 7,000 years after the Biblical flood. When that date passed without incident, he declared his math to be off and pushed back the end of the world to October 21, 2011.
The doctrine of the imminent return of Christ has been a central foundation stone of the church since Christ first declared it yet the temptation to predict or misinterpret Scripture on this because of current events has caused many to struggle with their faith. So Paul writes to the Thessalonians this second letter and in it he gives three responses to their present concerns:
1. Don’t despair, the justice of God will prevail.
2. Don’t be misled; certain things must yet occur before Christ comes again.
3. Don’t be foolish, be faithful, occupy until He comes.
It’s in reply to this first point that Paul writes the first chapter of this book. Have a look at 2 Thessalonians 1.
I. God Uses Both Suffering and Blessing To Grow and Strengthen the Church.
Paul greets this little church in his customary greeting and then speaks of the amazing way they have grown as a church. In verses 3, 4 he says, “We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all 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…”. He was compelled to praise God for the love, faith and patience these people evidenced, especially as they faced all kinds of setbacks and persecutions.
But it begs the question, ‘If God really loves us and is sovereign why does He allow suffering and trials to come into our lives?’ Is it that God uses suffering to shape us in some way? When Michelangelo carved that famous statue called ‘The David’, he did it out of a block of marble that all the other sculptors had rejected, seeing within it the image he was after. In essence, everything that wasn’t ‘David’ he cut away. Perhaps God uses suffering like that with us, He chips away the things that are not the image of who He is in us. Randy Alcorn in his book, ‘If God Is Good’ wrote, “ God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on His grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, impart wisdom, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in times of sorrow, increase our faith and strengthen our character.” (pg 396) In the midst of all their suffering the Thessalonians were being shaped into the bride of Christ.
It’s this response to these trials and struggle that Paul calls the “…manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer…” How we handle suffering, how we persevere through trials and even persecutions is the manifest evidence of God’s presence in us. Our worthiness is in Christ, the process of trials and suffering is a sanctification driven cause, not a salvation qualification. I think the worthiness Paul refers to here is the preparing of us for heaven, work done here for what will soon take place there. God blessed this little church at Thessalonica and it grew like a corn stalk in its faith and love for each other but God also allowed the blistering heat of persecution to fall on it. From this truth Paul then makes a conclusion which is a foundational principle in Scripture…
II. The Righteous Judgment of God Repays For Both Good and Evil.
When Paul says (vs 6,7), “…it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you and to give you who are troubled rest with us…”, he is referring to the truth that we are all accountable to God, whether we believe in Him or not. For those whose faith is in Christ and who endure through various trials and sufferings with a faith that holds fast He will reward with rest, the enduring peace of eternity and the attending rewards for their good works. For those who persecute and oppress they will be held accountable. In both cases the actions of God to reward and to condemn are called ‘a righteous thing’. God’s action of allowing suffering to refine His people is difficult for us to accept. I like the way Alcorn put this, “God doesn’t simply want us to feel good. He wants us to be good. And very often the road to being good involves not feeling good.”(pg 196 If God…) . Yet even in these times ‘it is a righteous thing with God’. It means His motives are pure, His intended outcomes will prove to be good. So Paul seeks to assure the Thessalonians of the justice of God towards those who persecute the church, people who are stubborn in their unbelief. Look how he describes this in verses 7 and on, “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power…”. What Paul is describing is the second coming of Christ and the final judgment that follows after it. There are two contrasting pictures here yet they both have same effect on the people who have rejected Christ. The first picture is that of the evident inescapable presence of Jesus as He comes with His mighty angels in flaming fire. It is a picture of utmost dread, the Jesus they have mocked, abused and refused to believe in now comes visibly to eyes of the people of the world and it is a terrifying sight. The contrast to this picture is the utter absence of Jesus when people are judged with, “an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” The nature of hell is not only that it is a place of everlasting destruction but worse than that it is a place that is eternally separated from the presence of God and from His glory and power. Hell is the most ironic terror in the entire history of mankind because it is the very thing people who are godless have longed for, an existence without God and yet when they actually get what they have sought it is more empty of hope and full of sorrow than ever could be imagined. In the darkest of times in days past, in the most desperate conditions of war, famine, earthquake, disaster… God is present. It is His presence that brings hope, effects relief, restores balance, brings life. Never has any man ever known what it is like to have God’s presence actually removed away, separated from them. The emptiness of that loss of His presence is the chief characteristic of the anguish of hell.
So how could God possibly be able to call this act of holy vengeance ‘a righteous thing’? It’s a righteous act to not put sewer water into drinking water, it’s a righteous act to not put food contaminated with salmonella onto the banquet table. In the same way it is a righteous act to not mix holiness with sinfulness. The truth is that apart from Christ there is no separation of sin from mankind. God’s wrath is against that which smears and detracts from the truth of what it means to be holy. Salvation in Christ wraps us in His righteousness, it is His perfect holiness that covers us, conforming us to the holiness that God not only values but is.
The first question is answered, the justice of God will prevail. Next comes the second question, ‘What must yet occur before Christ comes again?’ Next week…