FBC Morning Light – July 28, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Thursday morning to you. I hope your week is going well. Today we're reading in 2

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Thessalonians, opening up this chapter, and we're confronted right away with a very interesting reality about God.

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There's a lot of people who think of God as kind of the doting grandfather, emphasizing that God is a

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God of love, and He is. God is love. But interpreting that to mean that therefore any depiction of the deity as being angry, as being wrathful, as inflicting judgment or punishment, is a distortion.

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They say that that's a distortion. But is that biblical? Or is their notion of God and God's love, is that distorted?

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The only place that we have accurate revelation of who God is and what

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He is like is in the revelation He's given to us, the written revelation, the

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Bible. We will not find out what God is like in our own imagination. I'm afraid that those who want to insist that God is only lovey -dovey and doesn't exercise any wrath or judgment or punishment and all that, they've created a

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God of their own imagination. It's more important that we listen to what the

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Bible has to say as the Bible tells us what God is like, because then we can get an accurate picture and an accurate understanding of what

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He is like. In 2 Thessalonians, we find out that this God of love, who loves his people, in his great love sent

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Jesus Christ into this world to be a sacrifice for sin and to save his children, this

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God of love is also a God of wrath. Listen to this text. He says, "...it

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is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us, when the

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Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels." So he's talking here about a time in which the

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Lord Jesus will return from heaven, and he will return with his mighty angels, and he will do this, "...in

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flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our

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Lord Jesus Christ." I don't know about you, but that sounds a lot like wrath.

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In flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who despise the gospel, those who will not trust

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Christ as their Savior. He goes on to say what the destiny of such ones is.

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He says, "...these shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the

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Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired among all those who believe."

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All right, so you have here two sides of the character in the person of God. There is great expression of love.

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He is demonstrating great love for his people, because his people, being abused and maligned and persecuted and despised because of their faith in him, he takes vengeance on those who so mistreat his people.

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Out of his love for his people, he exercises wrath against those who mistreat them.

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Those who refuse the gospel, those who will not trust Christ as their Savior, they spurn the love of God.

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In judgment, they experience everlasting destruction from the presence of the

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Lord. You see the fruit of the love that God in Christ has for his people, because when he comes in that day, we will glorify him.

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We will so love him who loved us that we will glorify him and we will eternally admire him, the one who showed his love for us.

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Is God a God of love? He absolutely is. He loves his own. He loves his people.

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He loves those for whom Christ died. But does that mean he's not a God of wrath?

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Not at all. He is both. Those are like two sides of one coin.

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Think about it as a parent. Do you love people? Of course you do.

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Do you love your children? Of course you do. But if somebody comes and attacks your child, are you going to do whatever you have to do to protect them?

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You absolutely will. Is it because you hate that other person so much?

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No, you hate what they're doing to those whom you love. This is the idea emphasized here in this text.

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I hope that you who know Christ will take great comfort and encouragement in this, that your

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God loves you so much that he will stand up for you and he will defend you in the last day.

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Our Father and our God, we thank you for this glorious and wonderful truth, and may we rest in it.

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We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your