Second Thessalonians 1:9-10 Consequences of the righteous judgement of God
2 Thessalonians 1:9-10 · Andrew Molloy · Aug 1, 2021
Thessalonians, No. 27
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261923466761

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're in 2 Thessalonians 1 through 9. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10 is where we're at today. Okay, and the verses are starting at verse 9 of chapter 1, 2 Thessalonians. or these people will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power when He comes to be glorified in the saints on that day and to be marveled at among all who have believed.

For our testimony to you was believed." Brief review here a couple Thessalonians was to assure them that their sleeping loved ones and fellow believers there in Thessalonica would not miss out on the coming of Christ. They thought that they had missed out because they had died of Christ's second coming. So the first Thessalonians was to address that issue primarily. He gives them hope and confidence that their sleeping brothers, and Paul uses the term for sleeping, will precede them slightly in a resurrection of their bodies and then a catching up together with the living in Thessalonica to meet the Lord in the air. That's 1 Thessalonians 4 17. This was new information for the Thessalonians, and it's even a new revelation from the Lord to Paul, this, the rapture.

And I think it's, he only mentions it or goes into it relatively in detail. One other place in Scripture, I think it's 1 Corinthians, or 2 Corinthians. So anyway, a short time passes, and then Their minds become unsettled again. They're being persecuted and now it's really intense. Or it's more intense than it was perhaps. And it catches them flat-footed.

And then they believe that, wow, we're being persecuted and now we're in the day of the Lord. And then they're really confused about that because these false teachers come and they tell them that they're in the day of the Lord. So Paul, just a short time after that the day of the Lord can't come without certain requirements being met. And it's an impossibility for them to be in the day of the Lord or the great tribulation. And so they needed to get their focus back on the blessed hope of the rapture.

So that's a brief review. That's where we're at here in this. Verse nine and 10 are very transitional. transitional verses, so it's just sort of in-between verses of a greater theme. So I'm kind of talking about the greater theme this morning, piggybacking off what Bob had taught last week, because it's all kind of one thing here. And so in verse 9, says, these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. So the first question we have to answer is, who are the these? These are people, of course. But it goes back to verse eight that Bob taught last week.

And so there's two groups, those that do not know God and B, those do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus and those might seem like the same people and perhaps they are some commentators and I like the commentators who say this they define the A those who do not know God as Gentiles and the B those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus those are Jews and the reason for that is of the circumcision, much in every way. So the Jews have some special place in God's heart, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. So they've been committed with the oracles of God since the Abrahamic covenant. And they're a class of people who are God's people.

And so it makes sense that they're the bees. When Christ came as their Messiah, they rejected him. So they should have easily seen, I say in this last point here, that they really easily should have seen that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and that he was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. you know we can see it now looking back on it with all of scripture we have available to us but they should have seen that so that's why they could be this B part those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord and then the A are those who do not know God would be Gentiles because Gentiles are just the masses of people on earth who don't have that Eternal destruction, what is eternal destruction? It's Olethros, and it's not annihilation as we think of destruction, but it's ruin or death.

So it's used in 1 Corinthians 5.15 we, I think Roger talked about that in that 10 a.m. class, to talking about this man who was seeing his stepmother deliver unto Satan such a run for the destruction of his flesh, same word, olethros, or elethros, so it's the same word, they're just gonna, they're just gonna be put away from the presence of God rune, not annihilated, but in death. So the question is, when will Christ drive them away from his presence in verse 9? When will that happen? And I think this verse in Matthew 24 and 25, Christ talks about this very issue. 24, 45, who then is faithful?

Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom the master, when he comes, will find him so doing. Assuredly, I say to you, that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says as he put it in his heart, my master is delaying in coming, and begins to feed his fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware and will cut him into two and appoint him as a portion with the drunkards.

And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So Christ is talking about people in the day of the Lord or the seven year tribulation period who aren't seeing the signs of the second coming and going about their business and beating their fellow servants and eating and drinking with drunkards and the Lord's going to come in judgment and he's going to cast them into the lake of fire where they'll be weeping and gnashing teeth. So that's when it's going to happen is at at the end of the tribulation. Also a couple other parts where it sets up this eternal destruction and this casting away from the presence of the Lord is in Matthew 25's parable of the ten talents. This, and the master cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness. In that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So that seems to be a theme of where these people will go when they're cast away from the presence of the Lord in verse nine.

Or the ten virgins. The ten virgins, you know, there's some of them trim their wigs, some of them didn't and they were unwise. And later, the unwise virgins came to the door that had been shut off to them and said, Lord, Lord, open up for us. A reply came, truly, I say to you, I do not know you. So they're shut out of that knowing of people.

The Day of the Lord's Judgments has two parties, two defendants, and that is Israel and Gentiles. The church, of course, has been raptured, so we're not there. But for Israel, they are brought out from the Gentiles. It says in Exodus 20, just like in the days of Moses, pleading with God in the wilderness. Or God pleads with them in the wilderness. And Israel will be pleaded with by God face to face. And they'll be passed under the rod. You know, it talks about a rod, like the sheep going under the rod. Ezekiel 20, 35 through 38.

And I've forgotten kind of the details of this, that God's going to judge Israel separately from the Gentiles. And the Gentiles is the one we're more familiar with, is the sheep and the goats judgment. They are separated, the Gentiles, the nations, sheep from goats. The Gentile goats final destination is Kind of the same thing that Christ was talking about in Matthew 25. Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. So it's very clear on what's going to happen here in this casting them away from the presence of the Lord. And by the way, goat. In this day and age, goat is a good thing. Like Tom Brady, he's the greatest of all time. But in biblical times, you're still a goat. Not a good thing.

So the conclusion is, the righteous judgment of God, also covered by Bob last week with a couple of verses that he presented in 6 through 8 of last week, is pre-planned and pre-determined, and it's a programmatic judgment package, and it's a package of things. So you have the sheeps and the goats, you have Israel in the, I think because they're in the desert already, they've already hidden in the winds, in the wrath of the Antichrist, so God goes out there and he's gonna cast out the rebels. and then the trumpet judgments and the seal judgments and the bowl judgments. It's a whole program.

And last week the discussion was by a few people, I think, what is God doing in judgment today? How is he judging today? And does he judge the world today? And that's hard to answer because It seems that the evil kind of gets rewarded in this day and age, and the righteous are kind of crushed, like the Thessalonians. And it's hard to see that God takes this judgmental stance.

I'm wondering, and I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on this, is the day of, we're in the church age, the day of the Gentile, if he's saving up all of his judgment for these programmatic judgments in the last day in the tribulation period and then of course he'll judge the dead at the great white throne judgment it's very hard to say how he judges today but because it's not recorded right and Job seems to think that you know it's the unrighteous are sort of prospering. So that's just a question I have. I'll just leave it out there if anyone wants to. Yeah, Andrew, I think you're right about that.

I think it's very hard to see in today's world, if you think of the present world right now, it's hard to see God's judgment upon the unrighteous. We see calamities affecting both the unrighteous and the righteous, but it's hard to see the ones that are necessarily singled out for the unrighteous. It seems like the reverse of that. It's like you say, it seems like the righteous are suffering in our age. yeah yeah and if you talk about earthquakes and you know that building collapsing like in Florida right you know there was probably believers in there it's just general I think it's just generals the weight of sin and the consequences of sin sin has a natural law or a It's just sort of that, just chaos. The chaos of sin. Or the consequences of sin.

Yeah, right. So yeah, that's a big subject of what God is doing today with judgment. But we know, I mean it's very cut and dry what He does starting with the rapture. How that happens. My conclusion then is these judgments occur at the close of the tribulation, right after the second coming of Christ, with us, with the saints. But just prior to the inauguration of the thousand-year millennial kingdom, because he wants only the righteous to go into the kingdom. The righteous are going to be cast away. The result is the unrighteous, those who have, without the knowledge of God, and those who are disobedient to the gospel of Christ, which some commentators say referred to Jews from verse eight and last week, will be cast into eternal separation and darkness, eternal death, and not be admitted to the earthly glorious kingdom. Bicknell here says that heaven is primarily the presence of God, and hell is the loss of that presence.

And that kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Into the second part of verse 9 into the first part of verse 10, 10a. The theme here is the second coming of Christ, so we'll move on to that. And Paul is moving the Thessalonians' understanding. He opened up the doctrine of the rapture in his first letter, but now he's shifting in the prophetic program to the second coming here in 9b and 10a. The rapture's Christ coming in the air to gather the saints, and the second coming is him being revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire. That's from just a couple of verses ago, verse 7 of 2 Thessalonians 1. So we're on to the, he's moved on to the second coming of Christ. The rapture is invisible to the world, the world doesn't see it, but whereas the The second coming is public.

Every eye will see him. This is Revelation 1. The rapture is Christ coming personally for us. The bridegroom for his bride, which is us. He does not send emissaries of angels down to get us and escort us up to Eden. He comes himself in person. And only the redeemed will hear his voice. And only the redeemed will hear that trumpet call. on the day of the rapture. The unbelieving world will have no idea what just happened.

It's kind of like someone meeting you at the airport. You know, you could do that in times past before September 11th, 2001. You could park your car, walk someone through the airport, through security, to the gate, and then And when they were getting off the plane, you could meet them right at the gate there. And now that's not such a thing because you can't really get into the airport. We personally escort people back to the car.

It's that personal thing that this Rapture is, is how I thought about it this week. The whole theme of 7 through 10 here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 is the second coming. And so we'll just read in detail what the second coming is here from Revelation 19, 11 through 16. And it says, now I saw heaven open, and behold, faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like flame of fire. And I put a note that that's what 2 Thessalonians 1 7 says, just about the exact same thing.

And on his head were many crowns. He had a name written on it that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, follow him on white horses. Now out of his mouth comes a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations. And he himself will rule with a rod of iron. And he himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of the Almighty God. And he has on his robe and on his thigh written, the name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I'm moving on now to verse 10 and how he comes to be glorified in the saints on that day.

In 1 John 3.2, the the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be but we know that when he is revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.

Point two here the church's body glorifies him together with the 24 elders around the throne in that scene John's revelation, Revelation 4.11 glorifying God saying worthy are you our Lord and our God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things because of your because of your I'll have to change that because of your something will be they existed and were created I'll look at what word I missed there. I'm sorry about that But you get the picture. And then on the last point here, on that day, we are fully glorified, in glorified bodies, and we are united with Christ for all of eternity. And I thought of John 17 here, where Christ says, in the glory which you gave me, I have given them, that they may be one, just like me.

We are one. So he's sharing all his glory with us. And now we're fully glorified with him on that day of this presentation in verse 10. And 1710 of the Gospel of John is very much like our verse 10 in 2nd Thessalonians. And that's in the last part of what I put down here. And all are mine, and all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And you see the parallelism of verse 10 when it says, when he comes to be glorified in the saints on that day.

And right there in John 17.10, it's a prophetic statement and he seems to be stating that exact same thing. there in John 17. We're gonna have all his glory, he's gonna share his glory with us, and we're gonna reflect his glory, and it's, I think it'll be just an amazing thing to see as verse 10 says as well, at the, let me go back there. At the end of verse 10, it's to be marveled at, people will marvel at this scene, this last day, just the glory and light that will occur on that day. So more thoughts on 9 and 10.

Brief thoughts. On that day, at the second coming, we are at rest already, and that is stated in just a couple verses earlier. We are at rest. when this great day of the returning of the Lord in judgment comes. Macintosh has man's day is the church in tribulation. The Lord's day is man is in tribulation. But there's two different tribulations here. The church is in tribulation today and affliction as we studied the other week. But it's not the great tribulation. the Lord's day is the great tribulation, the great one.

So I like that, what Macintosh said there. He also said, when the day of the Lord arrives, it is not to trouble his people, but on the contrary, to trouble their persecutors. If Christians were in the great tribulation, it is morally impossible that the day of the Lord could have set in When the day comes, it will be rest for believers. Moreover, it would impugn the righteousness of God, because we are one with Him. See you next week. Yeah, that's good, Andrew. That's good. Yeah.

A final thought here is with all this, you know, I've been in this study first Thessalonians and second Thessalonians it becomes really hard to even justify a mid-tribulation rapture or a post-tribulation rapture just because of what Paul lays out that they are at rest and the day of the Lord hasn't come and the tribulation they're experiencing is just a token that they're part of the kingdom of God, that they're believers, and they're getting picked on by Satan. So now I'm, you know, I always gave the mid-triggers some slack. And now after this, just in this study, you just can't do it, because, boy, it's almost like if Yeah, I was talking about that Florida collapse. So you have this building in Florida and half that building collapsed, right?

Totally. But the other half you saw was left standing. And so half the people were fine. The other people all died. And so if I was thinking if you knew that your wife or your husband or one of your kids was in that building and because The Lord gave you this prophetic knowledge, perfect knowledge that it's going to collapse. So on this day, overnight. And you knew that they were in the sturdy side of the building. Would you tell them to get out before the other half collapsed?

Or would you let them stay? They'll be fine, you know? That side doesn't collapse. And I was thinking, no way you would call them up and say, get out of the sturdy side of the building, even though they're not in it. So why would Christ allow his church to stay in even the first part of the tribulation, the good side of the building? They're going to survive.

They'll be fine. but the other side would play. He would never do that. No one would do that for a loved one, you know? So that's sort of the thinking I had, but maybe you guys have a better example. That's good. That's good. Okay. Are we doing pretty good on time? Yeah, we're doing good. Okay. I'll take you through this. I put a supplement just in case we didn't have enough time. I was going to just add this, but now we have some, and it's just bullet points, but this is kind of piggybacking on what Bob said last week.

He had this section that said, what is the basis for God's repayment in judgment, in verse 6? What's his basis? And I say, why is God right to cast unbelievers into eternal darkness? So this is just the things I adapted from Macintosh and this long article he had on the coming of Christ. So from God's side, he says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, John 3, 16. Christ came in perfect love.

He was the brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person. Yet he was lowly, humble, gracious. He was a social man. He was seen from day to day during his ministry, walking about the streets, going from house to house. He was kind and affable. He was easily approached by even the poorest, taking up little children in his arms in the most gentle, winning, and tender way.

He went about his days on earth He was feeding all the hungry, healing every sick who approached him in faith, cleansing the lackers, meeting every form of human need and misery. At the bidding of all who stood in need of succor and sympathy, he went about doing good.

The unwary servant of man's necessities, he never thought of himself or sought his own. He sought his own interest in any one thing. lived for others, it was his need and dream to do the will of God and gladden the sad and weary hearts of the sons and daughters of men. His loving heart was ever flowing out in streams of blessing to all who felt the pressure of the sins-tricking sorrowful world.

Here we have the marvelous fact before our eyes that the Word has been trodden by the Blessed One, the Creator, the Sustainer of the Universe, the lowly, self-empty, loving, gracious Son of Man. He came in love, that perfect expression of God's love, to rescue mankind who had sinned against God and deserved nothing but eternal perdition because of sin. He came not to crush, but to heal, not to judge, but to save and bless. So that's God's side.

What's man's side? The world cast him out. The world wanted no part of him. They gave him over to the Roman authorities without cause. Not only that, it preferred a murderer, a robber, in exchange for this holy, gracious, righteous man. Pilate asked the crowd, whom do you want me to release to you? And the crowd said, not this man, but Barabbas. They said, give us the murderer and put away Jesus.

This is the world we live in, where one guilty of this terrible act, and unless one repents about who Jesus Christ is and what he did, we are all part and parcel of this guilty world, and must save, we lie under the full guilt of the act. And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all forewitnesses of the terrible act. We must pronounce these four evangelists to be false witness of crucifying the Lord of Glory. The world is not getting better, or it's not improving, nor is it getting any worse, any finer.

It crucified the Lord at one moment of time. In God's eyes, it is stuck in that moment of time. Therefore, And here's the judgment part. Therefore, the day of the Lord, with all of its darkness, destruction, wrath, and doom, is perfectly reasonable, given that previous narrative, and that reasoning, and that case that Macintosh lays out. The world must account to God for the death of his son, for having nailed him to the cross between two thieves. On that, what a day of reckoning it will be. How red, he says, will be the day of vengeance. How awfully crushing the moment in which God will draw the sword of judgment and avenge the death of his son.

How utterly vain the notion is to say that the world is improving. Improving, he says, though stained with the blood of Jesus. What blind fatuity and wild folly it is that the world is improving, or that we are to bring about the kingdom So that's from his article called The Lord's Coming.

It was a Macintosh treasure. And I just thought that was good. That's a really good rationale for this casting away people forever from the presence of God. You know, it's very clear. So there it is. There's the supplement. We went through that. We are done. Kind of on a... Yeah, it's a somber note. Yeah, yeah. Right. That's true. But it's true.

Look what God did and look what man did. And you can really argue the reason for this judgment from his side, from his perspective. So, I'll close in prayer. your grace and your mercy. We thank you for your son, that he died on the cross for our sins, and that we can escape what will happen to the world in your program of judgment. But we thank you for your righteousness in it, and we understand that you're a righteous and holy God. We just thank you for who and what you are, Lord. Jesus, amen. Thank you, Andrew.