2 Thessalonians 2, What’s Bothering You?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

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2 Thessalonians 2 What’s Bothering You?

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2 Thessalonians 3, What Do I Do?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

2 Thessalonians 3, What Do I Do?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

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2 Thessalonians chapter 2, be reading the entire chapter, hear the word of the Lord. Now concerning the coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the
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Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way for the day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called
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God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be
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God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things and you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
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Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way and then the lawless one will be revealed whom the
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Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
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The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power in false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.
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Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
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But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the
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Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through the sanctification by the
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Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us either by our spoken word or by our letter.
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Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, are you bothered by something?
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Maybe a personal problem? Want to come up and share now? We all come up and tell what's bothering us.
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A lot of people have something that is bothering them, a relationship problem or maybe a lack of a relationship, something going on at the job or in the family, a health problem maybe or money problems, which means not enough of it.
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I've never heard anyone complain about money problems. I got too much of it. We're bothered by it, but most of us learn to carry a certain load of bother, not panic because we're a little bit bothered by this or that.
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We know that the world isn't coming to an end if we have not quite enough money. We're going to have to take a second job, whatever, to make ends meet or whatever.
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Or if we're a little overweight or something just as it perfect, we're bothered but not devastated.
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So what's bothering you? If you invest in the stock market, you learn that it's easily bothered. If there's some rumor or some bad news, investors will panic and sell.
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When the pandemic hit almost four years ago now, it crashed and smart investors knew that was the time to keep a level head and at least hold on, or even if you're really a venturesome, buy.
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Don't be rattled by the short -term news. The stock market rewards the stable who aren't spooked by emergencies, who aren't easily bothered.
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Well, the unstable are easily shaken in their relationships. They might panic if they don't get a reassuring text message every hour from their boy or girlfriend.
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They'll live from drama to drama, sometimes provoking the dramas themselves by reading some comment, some benign comment.
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You can do better. Snap out of it. That was a long time ago. Or chill out. They'll react, what do you mean by that?
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They'll put the most dramatic interpretation on the comment and then be deeply bothered by their interpretation.
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Or maybe it's a lack of a comment. What's not said. Then they panic. They haven't heard reassuring words in an hour or two.
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The relationship or the family is falling apart. I'm going to die alone and forsaken.
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Always drama. We have something similar in churchdom. World crises often provoke a wave of end times teachers and preachers and writers trying to capitalize on the panicking people.
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They say if you want to pack a church and now you're going to have an end times conference and talk about the Antichrist and the rapture and that kind of thing.
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And the people will flock to hear that. They're often provoked when things are bad out in the world.
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There's a war started, something like that's going on. In the 1970s, when America seemed weak and communism seemed strong, there's a fall of South Vietnam.
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There was the bad economy, all kinds of crazy things going on. There was a craze of end times speculation with the book,
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The Late Great Planet Earth, being the bestselling nonfiction book of the entire decade. A copy of it was in my high school library and I read it.
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And through that, I was converted. In early 1991, when
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Iraq invaded Kuwait and the U .S. was threatening to attack, an American preacher in Singapore preached a series on how this was a sign of the end.
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It's going to bring Gog and Magog from the north and the Narrageddin and all that kind of stuff. Sorry, didn't quite pan out.
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I'm sure there was another outbreak after September 11th, 2001. About a decade ago, there was a craze about blood moons, like with a book,
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Four Blood Moons, which hit the bestseller list after there was an unusual spate of the moon appearing red, which happens when the moon is in the earth's shadow or umbra.
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Some people, think about that, some people are so unstable that if the moon happens to fall in the earth's shadow, they take that as a dire sign of a soon coming catastrophe.
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And some enterprising writers take that as an opportunity to make some money. The point is, some people are easily troubled.
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They're unstable. Well, here the apostle tells the church not to be easily bothered, be stable, calm down, when it comes to thinking about the end.
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We see that here in three very unequal parts. First, the problem, where we'll spend most of our time.
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Second, the promise. And finally, the prayer. Well, the problem is that the
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Thessalonians are troubled. They're shaken. In verse two, the word there described a boat was tossed in the waves.
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Imagine a small boat out on the waves. And it describes someone who's just unstable and upset by some news they think has come.
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Here, it's caused by someone telling them that Paul is saying that the day of the
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Lord has already come. The day of the Lord is the Old Testament way of speaking of God's judgment.
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Well, we would call it the second coming, but in the Old Testament, it's called the day of the Lord. It's also used sometimes like here in the New Testament.
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Isaiah chapter two, verse 12 says, the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty.
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It comes with fire, and so it is the same as what Paul referred to in chapter one, verse five, as God's righteous judgment.
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That's why he described it like he did there in chapter one.
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It's a revelation with God's powerful angels and flaming fire, inflicting vengeance, bringing eternal destruction.
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So it's not something as subtle or mystical or private or deniable.
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If you can debate whether Jesus has come, I mean, there's someone willing to say, no, he hasn't come.
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If you can debate that topic, well, then, he hasn't. So don't be shaken by claims that he has come.
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Now, here in chapter two, Paul is addressing that problem directly concerning the coming or the appearance.
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That's the key word, the appearance. In Greek, it's parousia, the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. When he appears in a way that is seen by all, and in the second half of verse one, are being gathered together with him, what some people now call the rapture.
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Don't be bothered by claims that it happens or that it has already happened.
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Notice the order of the named events, right? The appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him.
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Over the last century or so, many evangelical Christians have accepted the idea that the rapture happens before Christ returns, usually seven years before.
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But notice here two things. First, Paul mentions the appearing, that's the second coming, right?
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Remember? The appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, he mentions that first, that's the second coming. And then the gathering, what's now called the rapture, which some say is separate from and before the second coming.
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But why would he mention the second coming first if it was after the rapture?
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If you remember last year when we were in 1 Thessalonians chapter four and five, we saw that the rapture is part of the events of the second coming.
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It's the glorification or the resurrection of believers who are alive when
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Jesus comes. I don't know if you call it a resurrection because they're not dead, but it's their glorification.
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We saw that it's like the practice in their day when a king would come visit one of his cities, an entourage from the city would go out to meet him, right?
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You don't just wait for the king to come right in, you go out to meet him when he's nearby and escort him into the city.
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And so when Jesus comes to the earth over which he already has all authority, his people, us, will go to meet him and escort him back, were his entourage.
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So here Paul mentions first in verse one, Jesus is appearing. And then when that happens, our gathering to meet him.
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Now, second, remember the problem, the Thessalonians are bothered by the report that the day of the Lord has already happened.
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It's kind of over and somehow they missed it. Now, if Paul had been teaching them a pre -tribulation rapture, that is that Christ gathers his people years before his second coming, if he'd been teaching them that, then you would expect him to say, right, don't you know that it could not have happened yet?
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Because you haven't been raptured yet, right? Wouldn't that be the first objection?
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In fact, so obvious an objection that Thessalonians would have come to it themselves, but he doesn't say that.
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Indeed, in verse three, when he says, let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come, that day, the day of the
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Lord, the second coming, will not come unless something happens first.
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He doesn't say unless the rapture happened first, unless we're gathered first, unless the church is taken out of the world first because God can't pour out his wrath on the earth while the church is in it.
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He doesn't say anything like that. He lists things that will have to happen before Christ returns, before he appears.
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A rapture is not one of them. The problem is that the
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Thessalonians were bothered by the report that Paul was saying, the day of the Lord has already happened. And so verse two, don't be shaken in your mind or disturbed.
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Don't be bothered by a spirit. Probably he means a prophecy, someone prophesying the day of the Lord, I've returned already, or a spoken word, that is someone telling you, or a letter in my name.
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Paul says, you know, if it says it's from me, you get this letter from someone, some messenger gives it to you, you don't know who he is, and the letter says
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Christ has already appeared. Then you know it's a forgery. Just ball it up, throw it away.
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Because in verse three, that day will not come unless three things happen first.
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First, the rebellion. Second, the man of lawlessness is revealed.
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And third, the restrainer is taken away. The rebellion translates the
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Greek word, which you'll recognize, learn a little Greek, it's apostasia, apostasy.
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And so some people take that to mean, well, that it's just that, it's just what we call in English an apostasy, a religious falling away.
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But the word in Greek generally just means kind of any kind of rebellion, a military revolt, a political insurrection, or a religious apostasy.
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What is the rebellion? Well, here they're waiting on the rebellion, the day of the
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Lord, Christ's second coming can't happen first unless the rebellion happens first. And then after that,
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Christ can come and we will be gathered to him. But what is it? What's the rebellion that we're waiting on here?
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Is it the Jewish rebellion against Roman rule that started in AD 66? I don't know if you know your ancient history.
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This letter was probably written about AD 50. So the Jewish rebellion hasn't happened yet.
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It'll come in about another 16 years. Is that what he's referring to? Is that what they're waiting on?
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Maybe. Or is it a religious apostasy? Like the falling away of much of the formerly
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Eastern and Southern Roman Empire, which for a while was mostly Christian, became
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Islamic, fell away, apostasized into Islam in the 7th century.
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Or is it the acceptance of icons into Christian worship, which is really just idolatry, which had been, icons had been strictly prohibited, but were imposed on the church in 787?
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Or is it the slow slide into sacramentalism? Nobody began kind of in the early church, but particularly in the
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Middle Ages. Or is it Protestant liberalism? Or today, is it the great de -churching that's going on right now in America?
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Paul tells them not to be troubled because the righteous judgment of God won't come until the rebellion comes first, like he was expecting one singular kind of massively important rebellion.
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Now, our problem now is that we have a lot of rebellions to choose from, right?
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I just listed a few of them. You can name more. Which rebellion is it, Paul, if we could talk back like 2 ,000 years ago?
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There's a lot of apostasies now that fit the bill. So whatever it is, and avoiding speculation, and a lot of people like to get carried away by speculation over the chapter, but whatever it is, whether it's the
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Jewish -Roman War of 66 to 70, or something else, for us, it's already happened.
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At least enough of them have happened to fit the bill. And so the Day of the Lord can happen at any time, at least as far as the rebellion is concerned.
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Well, the second thing that must happen is that the man of lawlessness must be revealed. Interesting that the word for man of lawlessness being revealed is the same word as for Christ being revealed in chapter 1, verse 7.
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It's where we get the word apocalypse from. At the apocalypse, there are revelations.
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That's what apocalypse means, the book of revelations, the book of apocalypse. There are revelations, and the revelations both of Christ, He's revealed, and of His opposite.
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In 1 John, called the Antichrist. In Revelation, called the Beast. Here, 2
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Thessalonians 2, the man of lawlessness. He must be revealed before the Day of the
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Lord, before God's righteous judgment, before the second coming, before it has come. Now, who is he? Who is the
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Antichrist? Well, you've all wanted to know. Now we'll find out for certain. Well, we see four descriptions of him here.
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His first title is the man of lawlessness, which shows that he's antinomian, meaning he's against law. He doesn't recognize any law beyond himself that binds him.
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He doesn't submit to any standards that are beyond himself, that can restrict him or guide him.
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He's what the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called the superman, or ubermensch in German, the overman.
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He's over everyone. All the rest of you simple people are bound by laws, but not me. I'm one of the ubermensch, the overpeople, the supermen.
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He lives as if God is dead, and so he doesn't submit to any laws from God, but imposes his own will on others as the law.
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It's the triumph of the will. It's what Nazism was all about. It's seen in the 18th century
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French king Louis XIV, the sun king, who said, I am the state.
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It's seen in the 19th century Pope Pius IX declaring, I am the church.
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It's seen about a decade ago when the U .S. Supreme Court thought it could arbitrarily redefine marriage.
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It thought it had the power to do that, something that lasted from all of human civilization. Here, this is what we think it is.
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It's all lawlessness. Second, the Antichrist is doomed. He is, at the end of verse three, the son of destruction, which means it's in his nature to be destroyed.
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It's his destiny. He will be destroyed. He will go in the scrap heap of history. Now, he'll think he's a champion, a winner, and he'll boast about it.
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Today, they'll say, well, we'll be on the right side of history. History is going to prove us right.
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Well, no, it won't. The Antichrist is destined to lose.
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Third, the Antichrist is the enemy, the opposition in verse four. He sets himself in opposition to God or anything that is worshiped, anything that is exalted besides himself.
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He can't stand the idea that someone somewhere is worshiping and admiring and praising anyone other than himself.
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So he is the enemy of what other people, like us, worship.
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He's our enemy. Now, he is the same spirit we've seen in this country over the past few years trying to tear down statues to anyone who is respected, always smearing anyone that was respected in the palace, find something wrong about them, make sure there's something wrong about every mortal, and they'll say, tear it down because they want to be respected.
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He's like communist dictators who oppose anything to be worshiped other than themselves, like in North Korea.
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Christianity has flourished in South Korea, but in the North, the dictator opposes anyone or anything being worshiped besides himself.
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Fourth, the Antichrist is the self -exalter. He promotes himself. So he exalts himself above all, even above all gods.
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So after what we just talked about, how he's the enemy of God or gods or religion or of anything that is put, that is respected above him, anyone else who was admired, besides that, tearing down everything else, he builds up, exalts himself.
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Now, we've had men rise up who promoted themselves, like Caligula, who ordered the Roman emperor, who ordered an idol of himself to be set up in the temple in Jerusalem, God's temple in Jerusalem, but he died before it was followed through.
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Or Domitian, Roman emperor near the end of the first century, who proclaimed himself, and this is put on his coins,
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Lord and God. And we've, well, he didn't keep him from dying. And we've seen some who are particularly enemies of the
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Lord and tried to stamp out worship of the Lord, like Antiochus or Antiochus.
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Remember from Daniel, the little horn who boasts great things and does as he pleases and who opposed the worship of the
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Lord, tried to kill the Lord's people. We saw all about that in Daniel, but until modern times,
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I don't know of any leader like this in 2 Thessalonians 2, who opposes all other gods.
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Even Antiochus set up an idol to Zeus, and he didn't set up an idol to himself.
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He didn't oppose the worship of the Greek pantheon. So this suggests here in 2
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Thessalonians 2, someone other than the Roman emperors, because they didn't oppose other gods either.
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The Romans wanted the people to have their gods. They got to believe in all gods. Anything, as long as it kept you in line, they were all for it, even if they required them to burn a pinch of incense to the spirit of the emperor.
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They persecuted the Christians, not for believing in Jesus, but because the Christians did not believe in any other god, especially not that Caesar was
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Lord. They would not say that. That's why he would persecute them. Now, I don't know anyone in ancient times who was an enemy of all other gods, like what we've seen in modern times, particularly from communism, like what's described here in 2
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Thessalonians 2. Here in verse 4, he is the man of lawlessness whom
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John calls in 1 John 2 as the Antichrist. He takes his seat like he's enthroned in the temple of God, proclaiming himself as a god.
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Now, who is this? Now, does it refer to the literal temple in Jerusalem, the temple of God?
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You think, well, there's got to be that literal temple, but we don't have any record of anyone enthroning himself in that temple and declaring himself to be a god before it was destroyed in AD 70.
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There's nothing. I believe it was the Roman general Titus who eventually conquered Jerusalem. He didn't do that, as far as we know.
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Or is the temple the church? Paul calls the church the temple of God. So does the man of lawlessness set himself up as head of the church, the vicar, a representative of Christ, in Christ's place, claiming to have the chair of Saint Peter?
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That is where he sits, and he speaks ex cathedra, Latin for from the chair.
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Both the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 London Baptist Confession say that's who the man of lawlessness is.
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He's the self -idolizer who tries to get you to believe in himself and his organization rather than in Christ.
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Now, we might wish we knew what Paul had told the Thessalonians. He mentions in verse 5, it sounds like to me there's something he doesn't want to put on paper.
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It's fatal. Other people will see it outside the church. In verse 5, do you not remember that when I was with you,
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I told you these things? I told you. But we believe
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Scripture is sufficient, and so we're told everything we need to know. So be content with what is revealed, and don't be bothered by speculations, like the
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Thessalonians were. They were bothered by the claim that the day of the Lord had already come.
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But Paul tells them that the third thing that has to happen before that day is, in verse 6, that the restrainer has to be taken out of the way.
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There's something or someone restraining the man of lawlessness.
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And so when he's taken out of the way, then the man of lawlessness will be revealed. It'll be obvious who he is.
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Oh, that's who he is. He's been held back by something up until now, and then whatever is holding him back is no longer there, and so now we see who he is.
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Now, what's restraining him? Well, some say it's the church. The church is restraining the antichrist, and when the church is taken out of the way at the rapture, then he is revealed, they say.
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But that wouldn't make any sense. In verse 6, he tells the Thessalonians, Paul, speaking to the Thessalonians, you, church, you know what is restraining him.
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And whatever it was, whatever the strainer was, they knew it.
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They knew what Paul was referring to. Paul had taught it to them. But if it was the church restraining and they knew it, which they did, they couldn't possibly think the day of the
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Lord had come already because they are the church and they hadn't been taken out of the way. That would be obvious to them.
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They would have known that they would have been raptured if that's what Paul had been teaching. They would be taken out of the way, but they weren't, so they weren't taught that.
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Well, here the mystery of lawlessness, that is the hidden truth of lawlessness, mystery of lawlessness, this mystery that lawlessness has about it, that it has been or it's soon to be revealed what it's about, is in verse 7, that mystery is at work.
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The rebellion against God's law is already in play, but there's someone restraining it.
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It's at work, but it's kind of being held back like a dog, a vicious dog, but it's all chained up, can't do everything it wants, can only hurt whoever's in its little circle.
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It's being restrained, lawlessness is. And then he says, he, notice that pronoun, he, in verse 7, he who now restrains it, that's the mystery of lawlessness, will do so.
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He'll keep restraining, keep tying him down until he, the restrainer, is out of the way.
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He is a person. A person is restraining lawlessness. It can't be the church because the church is not, isn't spoken of as a he.
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Now, some say he's the Holy Spirit, but if, is the Holy Spirit going to be taken out of the way?
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Well, if so, then no one could be born again after that. So, that doesn't seem possible.
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Is the Roman government represented by the person of the emperor? Is that who it is? Maybe. Maybe now for us, government in general, whatever country we're in, represented by its head?
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Maybe. We should be bothered by speculations, but be firm on what we know.
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We know already from time to time, restraints have been taken away.
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And lawlessness then increases. And so, the love of many grows cold. Jesus said, because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
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It's unlike what many people today think, where they think love and law are in contradiction.
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If you really love someone, let them go, let them free. No, that's wrong.
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Lawlessness produces lovelessness.
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Now, we've already had many rebellions and antichrists and many restraints taken out of the way from time to time.
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John said in 1 John 2, verse 18, many antichrists have come.
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In Revelation 13, the beast, which is another way to talk about the man of lawlessness, the antichrist, receives a mortal wound.
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That means he's killed, right? You receive a mortal wound, you're dead. That's what it means to receive a mortal wound. And you would think, oh, that's the end of the beast.
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He's dead. But the mortal wound, it says, is healed, which is kind of contrary to the definition of mortal wounds.
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But the point is, not to contradict itself, the point is likely, I think, that the antichrist keeps coming back.
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I don't mean back literally from the dead, you kill that one person, but you kill one and another one comes up.
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That spirit keeps coming into another person. You debunk, you refute, you defeat, you don't reelect, or you kill the antichrist, but he keeps coming back.
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Many antichrists have gone out into the world. You kill Hitler, you have Stalin.
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Then you have Mao. You leave the church where the man who sits in the chair of St.
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Peter says, I am the church, and you get cult leaders who do as they please and say,
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I am the newborn Christ. It never stops until the end, until Jesus ends it.
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So don't be too bothered by it. Will there be one last, kind of grandest of them all, lawless one, idolizing himself perhaps now, perhaps restrained by the rule of law?
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Well, it seems so in verse 8. The Lord Jesus will kill him with the breath of his mouth.
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In other words, with his word. He speaks the word and he kills the lawless one when he returns.
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In Revelation chapter 1, verse 16, John sees Jesus in this vision, and he sees him as having a sharp two -edged sword coming out of his mouth, figurative for how his word kills his enemy.
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Then in Revelation chapter 19, verse 15, Jesus is coming to rule the earth. It says, from his mouth, that is from his words, comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.
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The rebellious world is subdued by the word of Christ. Here in verse 8, the
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Lord will kill the Antichrist with his word. He will bring him to nothing. He's already been destroying
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Antichrist with his word, exposing them with his truth through his church, or sometimes maybe ordering with his decree for governments to destroy rebellions.
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And he'll do it one more time at the end by the appearance of his coming.
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In verse 9, the appearance of the lawless one. Notice that word, appearance of his coming, referring to Christ and the appearance of the lawless one.
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In verse 9, in contrast to the appearance of the Lord Jesus. But the appearance of the lawless one will be by the activity of Satan.
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In other words, Satan will be behind it. The lawless one is Satan's agent, and it'll be with all power and false signs and wonders, things that make you go, wow, that's impressive.
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Can you imagine he can do that? There will be miracles, or maybe just amazing achievements.
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People will think, well, how could he not be the right one? Look at what he did. He made the trains run on time.
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He improved the economy. There's no unemployment now. Everybody's doing great. He brought peace to the world.
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No wars anymore. Free medical care for all. He will deceive those who are perishing.
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In verse 10, people are deceived because it says they refused to love the truth and be saved.
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Oh, they may have heard the truth. They may have even been raised hearing the truth in church every
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Sunday, but they don't love it. They love money instead. Or maybe they love their ego, love being told how great they are.
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Therefore, at the beginning of verse 11, because of their choice not to love the truth, they refused it.
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Notice that. They made an act, I will not love this truth. They may mentally say, well, that's true, but they just refuse to love it.
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Because of that, God sends them a strong delusion.
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Think of that. The delusion comes from God. You may think, well, God doesn't lie to people, doesn't delude them.
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Well, no, he doesn't lie, but he will delude them. God will delude them, not by lying, but by doing precisely the opposite.
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By telling them the truth. But they don't love the truth. And so their hatred of the truth leads them to react against the truth and choose to believe some delusion.
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You know, like men can become women or vice versa. People who do not love the truth are driven to deception when they are exposed to the truth.
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And so the Lord Jesus said to the unbelieving scoffers in John 8, verse 45, because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.
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He didn't say, in spite of me telling you the truth, I've told you the truth, in spite of that, you didn't believe me.
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No, he says precisely because I told you the truth, my telling you the truth causes you to not believe.
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The truth is the cause, at least of some unbelievers, lack of faith. Why do they not believe?
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Because they don't love the truth. And so unbelievers do not love the truth. God sends them the truth and they react to that by accepting a delusion.
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In order that, in verse 12, in other words, this is the reason, in verse 12, why did
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God send them the truth? And God knew that doing that, sending them the truth, would result in them fleeing to a delusion instead.
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Why did God do that? God's purpose in deluding them with the truth was that they might be condemned.
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That's God's righteous judgment. He sends the truth to drive those who do not love the truth into destruction because they had pleasure instead, instead of the truth, in unrighteousness.
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Their problem is their lack of love for the truth.
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Well, what's bothering you? Second, briefly, the promise, verses 13 to 15, rather than be troubled, rather than be unstable, panicking.
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He says, be stabilized by the promise, the promise that you will obtain the glory of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. You will be glorified. So we ought always to give thanks for you.
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Think of that. You'll be glorified, so the result of that, we should give thanks for you. Just like chapter one last week, Paul's praise of them wasn't flattery, just kind of buttered them up before criticizing them.
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You should give thanks for those who will be glorified by Jesus. You are beloved by the
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Lord. You're those he doesn't delude to their destruction. You're those he chose to love instead.
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You're loved by God. Why though? Why are you loved by God? Because you've done this or that?
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No, because, not for what you've done, but because, why does
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God love you? Because God chose you. You think, wait, that's all dependent on God.
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There's got to be something about me makes him love me. No, it's not. Sorry, it's not you. God loves you because he chose you.
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I guess I figure he's going to choose you. I'm stuck with these people because I chose them. I might as well love them, I guess. You're not loved because you chose him.
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It's the other way around. He loved you because he chose you. And so then, after he's chosen you and loved you, then you choose him.
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Your choice for him comes from his prior choice of you. And in case you think, well, his choice for you is because, okay, he chose me, but that's because he looked forward to in the future that I was going to, you know, say the right prayer, that I was going to come to the invitation,
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I was going to love the truth, I was going to go to church and get baptized. It's because something prior in his mind about me, maybe in time it's about him, but prior in his mind.
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No, in the middle of verse 13, he says his choice was, God's choice was from the beginning.
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Okay, the Greek there should probably be that, from the beginning, probably not as the first fruits, which doesn't make any sense, as in the
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ESV here. The NIV is probably right in this case. From the beginning,
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God chose you to be saved. And you are saved through sanctification.
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I don't think that means by you getting holier, but sanctification means being set apart by the Spirit. The Spirit sets you apart from the rest of the world that he's deluding to their destruction, but he sets you apart so you're different from that.
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And he gives you grace. His setting you apart and your belief in the truth, which comes from what he does in you, your belief in the truth of the gospel, you believe the truth of the gospel and so he saves you.
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God chooses you first and then works through your loving and your believing the truth to save you. And in verse 14, you are then called through the gospel to believe.
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Right? The gospel invites you. Have faith in Jesus. And you hear that invitation.
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If you love the truth, he set you apart from the world. If God chose you first, then when you hear the gospel, you hear the call and so you believe.
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And so that, in verse 14, that is for the goal of getting the promise.
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What's the promise again? Obtaining the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, if you're bothered, believe the promise.
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So then, in verse 15, because of the promise, don't be bothered.
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Don't be agitated or unstable or panicky. Don't be chicken little every time you hear of a war or a pandemic or recession or blood moons, you know, going around crying out of the sky is falling.
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My life is over. Everything's horrible. No, don't do that. Hold on to the promise. You will obtain the glory of Jesus.
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So, the conclusion, the application, stand firm.
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Be stable. Hold to the teaching you were taught from Scripture, not from someone saying that they have the oral tradition preserved from the apostles.
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You don't know that. They don't know that. They're just saying what they're told. Who told it to them don't know what they're talking about either.
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Instead, stand firm and what you've been taught from the word of God. Third, the prayer.
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Paul prays for them again, starting in verse 16. Chapter two ends in a prayer, just like chapter one. And he prays to first our
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Lord Jesus Christ. That's unusual. He both puts Jesus first and then prays to him like he's
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God because he is. And then our Lord Jesus Christ and God our
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Father. May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father who, who, which one?
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You may, you read this in English, you think, well, who both of them together, two of them, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort.
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The two of them, right? It's kind of what you would assume, but is it the son or the father or both of them?
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Well, kind of both. You can't tell in English because we don't have a singular or plural who, there's reflexive pronouns, but in Greek they do.
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And the who is singular. And there's for one, there's one who loved us and was a giver of eternal comfort, gave us eternal comfort.
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There's one of them. And the verbs are singular. There's one, the one
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God loved us in the father and the son and the spirit too, of course. He also gave, notice the past tense, he gave in the past, it's already ours, eternal comfort.
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Remember last week we looked at eternal punishment, which goes on forever. Don't you want eternal comfort to go on forever too?
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Not just get a little shot of comfort and then you're annihilated. No, you're eternally comforted. He gave us that eternal comfort already rather than the eternal punishment that those he didn't choose to get.
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And he gave us good hope, not fantasy hope, not fake hope, but real hope for what is good.
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And he gave us all this through grace. That's who he is.
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This is all describing who he is, who we're praying to. And the prayer in verse 17, may he comfort your hearts so that you're not bothered anymore by whatever shockwave disturbs the stock market or the news media or closes schools.
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You have eternal comfort. And so the prayer be comforted now and may
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God establish your heart, make you firm, you're unshaken for every good work and word.
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But what are you bothered by? Screaming children, maybe? Hopefully not now by the news or even the rebellions and the lawlessness of the world.
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You have eternal comfort, so don't be bothered. Maybe be burdened if others around you don't have it yet.
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If they haven't yet been loving the truth, pray that they would love it.
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But don't be bothered. Instead, be thankful that God chose you first.
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That's why you chose him. And he loved you because he chose you through grace.
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So then, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God because God loved you first.