Alright, let's look here in 2
Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 6. Paul says, seeing it is a righteous
thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble
you, And to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus
shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord
and from the glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified
in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe, because
our testimony among you was believed in that day." I want to talk
about salvation from separation. Salvation from separation. Christ Jesus saves His people
from the separation of hell because he bore that separation himself
in their place on the cross. Christ Jesus saves his people
from the separation of hell because he bore that separation himself
in their place on the cross. We're going to look first of
all at what hell will be for the unbeliever. Now that's a
serious, serious subject. This is not a pleasant thing
to look at. But it'll be needful to look at it to see what hell
will be for an unbeliever because it'll help us to appreciate the
second and the third point. The second point, we're gonna
look at how God's people are saved from that separation. And then thirdly, we'll look
at what heaven will be for the believer. First of all, what
will the eternal punishment of hell be for an unbeliever? What will hell be for an unbeliever?
Well, it will be the righteous tribulation from God. Look at
verse 6. Seeing it as a righteous thing
with God. God is righteous and everything
He does is right. So, it will be a righteous thing
with God. To do what? Verse 6 says to recompense,
to repay, to give back, It will be a righteous thing with God
to recompense tribulation. The word means trouble. It means
affliction. It means burden. It will be a
righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble
you. He's writing to believers here
when he says you. In the world of believers troubled.
We're afflicted, we're pressured, we're persecuted by those who
know not God and those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. They may claim to believe the
gospel of Christ, but they don't obey the gospel of Christ. And
we receive much trouble from them. Hell will be righteous
tribulation from God upon all who trouble God's saints. It
will be a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation
to them that trouble you. It will be a righteous thing.
What else will it be? It's going to be just vengeance
from God. Look at the second part of verse
7 there. He says, When the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire,
taking vengeance, taking vengeance on them that know not God and
that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. For everybody
that doesn't know God, for everybody that doesn't obey the gospel
of Christ, the scripture describes everything about the day of Christ's
return as judgment and a flaming fire. It's described as fire. Whether it'll be actual fire
or not, I don't know. But fire, flaming fire, is something
that you and I equate with misery and punishment and torment. You
remember how Mount Sinai in the Scriptures when it quaked with
fire and it was smoking and trembling and all that whenever the Lord
gave the law and the people ran from the mountain? Well sinner,
if Christ returns and you are yet under the curse of the law,
under the broken law of God, The holy justice of God demands
that everything about his return will be a just vengeance of flaming
fire upon you. This vengeance is not like what
we think of as vengeance. This vengeance is justice. This
vengeance is a just recompense, a flaming fire. Christ himself
will be revealed in heaven, coming from heaven in flaming fire upon
the unbeliever. His mighty angels will be revealed
from heaven in flaming fire. His vengeance shall be flaming
fire. The eternity of hell shall be
flaming fire. Fire. In Mark 9, the Lord Jesus
described it as fire that is never quenched. The worm that
never dies. Fire that's never quenched and
a worm that never dies. He said, as therefore the tares
are gathered and burned in the fire. the tares that are pulled
up out of the field that aren't any good, they're just old weeds
and thorns, and you pull them up out of the field and you burn
them in the fire, you just throw them in the fire and burn them.
He said, so it will be at the end of the world, the Son of
Man will send forth His angels and they'll gather out of His
kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity. That
is, things that are unequal, trying to come to God in a way
that's not equal. They don't equal out. Inequity. And he'll cast them into a furnace
of fire, and there'll be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now I
want you to get this. It'll be just because they obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It'll be just because
they would not believe God. It'll be just because they would
not believe Christ. It'll be just because they wouldn't
submit to the truth that Christ alone is the holiness and the
righteousness of God. They would not believe the truth
of the scriptures. They wouldn't believe the truth
of the gospel they heard preached. They wouldn't believe anything
to do with God whatsoever in the heavens and in the earth
had declared His power and His Godhead. They wouldn't believe
anything about God. Instead, they called God a liar
and tried to come to God by their wisdom and their will and their
works, expecting holy God to receive Him, rather than bow
and submit to Christ Jesus and trust Him to save you. Just trust Him to save you, just
like you would just fall back in somebody's arms and trust
Him to carry you. You wouldn't believe the truth. God is satisfied with His Son
and He's satisfied with His Son alone. And all that come to Him,
He said, I'm the door. And He said, if any man come
to the Father, he's going to have to come by Me. There's no coming
to God but by the Father. Instead, They're going to meet
God under the curse. They're going to meet God having
broken the law of the holy God that is the just judge of heaven
and earth. So it will be just fire of holy
justice on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Fire that's never quenched, a
worm that never dies. Now look at this next thing in
verse 9. And hell will be everlasting destruction Look at verse 9,
who shall be punished with everlasting destruction. Have you ever heard
of something like that? Everlasting destruction? Normally when there's destruction,
it happens and it's over. This is everlasting destruction. It means it's not the end of
being. It means it's the end of all
well-being. It means it's not the end of
life. It means it's the end of all the comforts of life. It
means it's a destruction which will never end. A destruction
that will be everlasting destruction. You know, God's just and God's
eternal. So God's justice is eternal.
And eternal justice can't be satisfied by a man who's not
eternal. And we're not eternal. We can't
satisfy eternal justice. The law is spirit. We're carnal,
sold under sin by nature. We can't satisfy the law. God's
punishment of the wicked is going to last eternally. Eternally. The wages of sin is death. Look at Revelation 20. I want
you to see something. Revelation 20. The wages of sin
is death. That's the payment for sin. It's
death. And death, that physical death
will be because of the wages of sin, but that's not going
to be this everlasting destruction we're talking about. This death
is a death that never dies. It's called the second death.
Look here in Revelation 20 and verse 6. Blessed and holy is
he that hath part in the first resurrection. That is, he that's
been born of the Spirit of God and resurrected in newness of
life by God the Holy Spirit, born again of the Spirit of God,
blessed and holy is that man. He obeys the Gospel. He believes
God. He's going to enter into God's presence. And the second
death on such, the second death hath no power. His sin has been
put away. It's been taken care of by Christ.
But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign
with Him a thousand years. They're going to reign with Him
forever. It'll be eternal salvation with Him. Revelation 21.8. Look
at that. Look over there, one page. But
the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers
and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall
have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death." The lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death. See, that first death,
that's why we tremble. That's why men who are subject
to bondage and are fearful of that first death is because Sin. Sin's the sting of death. And
men know they have that sin still on their conscience. And they
know that when they depart from that first death, there's a second
death. There's judgment. That's the
death that causes men to torment and fear. That's justice. Alright,
go back to 2 Thessalonians and let's look back at verse 9 again.
2 Thessalonians 1.9. It's going to be righteous. a
righteous tribulation, a recompense. It's going to be just vengeance.
It's going to be a fire of everlasting destruction. It's going to be
the second death, this death that never ends. Now this next
thing I want you to pay particular attention to. The sum and substance
of this everlasting destruction, the sum and substance of this
justice being poured out, the sum and substance of what hell
will be, will be separation from the Lord. Now look at verse 9. Who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of His power. from the presence of the Lord,
taken from His presence, and taken from the glory of His power. Sin makes a sinner desire that
which is so so destructive for us. That's what sin does. It makes us desire that which
is going to ultimately destroy us. You know what the first thing
that Adam and Eve did after they sinned in the garden? And God
came walking in the garden. And they heard His voice. And
you know what they did? It says, they hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden. That was their first reaction when they heard when
they heard the gospel speaking himself, their first reaction
was to hide from the presence of the Lord. And then throughout
his life, this is what a sinner does. This is in Job 21, if you
want to look at this. I want to read this to you, but
throughout a sinner's life, this is what he does. This is a good
description. He does the same thing. He's
wanting to flee from the presence of the Lord all his life. Why? He don't want to hear the gospel.
You bring up the gospel around him and he gets offended. Job
21. He gets offended at it. He doesn't want to. It makes
him uncomfortable. He'll get up and walk out of
the room. He doesn't want to go to church with you. He doesn't
want to be around it. Why? Why doesn't he? Look at
Job 21 7. Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty
in power? Their seed is established in
their sight with them. They see their children established
and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from
fear. Neither is the rod of God upon
them. They're not chastened by God. Their bull gendereth and
faileth not. Their cow calveth and casteth
not her calf. That means in all their business
is productive. They're fruitful in their business.
It was like a man raising cattle. They sent forth their little
ones like a flock and their children dance. They take the timbrel
and the harp, rejoice at the sound of the organ. Life's a
party. Everything's good. They spend
their days in wealth. They spend all their days in
wealth, and in just a moment they go down to the grave. But
they got all these days to spend in wealth, and all this prosperity,
and all this power, and that death thing is just going to
be a moment. Therefore they say unto God, depart from us, for
we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What's the Almighty
that we should serve Him? What profit should we have if
we pray unto Him? Lo, this is what God says, their
good, their good is not in their hand. I got the hands full of
this world. I got the hands full of everything
this world can give them. The counsel of the wicked is
far from me. Their word, their counsel to
one another, to you, to everybody that listens to them is, Don't
take that gospel business too serious. Man, we got it good. Why do we need to pray to God?
Look at how good we got it. That's man's life. All through
his life, he wants to be away from the presence of the Lord.
And the day when Christ returns, The desire of the wicked is going
to be the very same. He's going to want to flee from
the presence of the Lord. Isaiah says, In that day a man
shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which
they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and
to the babs. They're just going to throw them
away. And what are they going to do? They're going to run into
the clefts of the rocks and into the tops of the ragged rocks
for fear of the Lord and for the glory of His majesty when
He arises to shake terribly the earth. They're going to try to
get away from Him. Just like Adam and Eve did in the beginning.
Just like they tried to do all their lives. And when His old
holy angels... Now look at Matthew 25. Look
at Matthew 25. And our God... I'm going to tell you what our
God does. Our God gives us what we want. That's exactly what
He does. He does. If He leaves you to
yourself and you want to flee from the presence of the Lord
all your life, or if He by His power makes you willing to desire
Him so that you want Him and nothing else, either way, the
Lord's going to give you what you want. That's so. Look at
Matthew 25, 41. All their days, they didn't want
to be in His presence. So Matthew 25, 41 says, Then
shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me. You didn't want to be with Me?
So now He says, Depart from Me. Ye cursed into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels. Look down at verse 46. And these shall go away. That's
what they wanted. So they'll go away into everlasting
punishment. Everlasting punishment. But that
won't be the end. That won't be the end. The second
death, that second death, that will itself be the punishment
of death. That will be the punishment of
justice, is that second death. Separated from the presence of
the Lord. And it'll be a place far removed from the glory of
His power. From the glory of His power.
Now, Christ the Lord is the glory of God, and He upholds all things
by the word of His power. Everything in this earth right
now, He upholds it by the word of His power. He's the brightness
of His glory, the express image of His person, and upholding
all things by the word of His power. Peter said, the heavens
and the earth which are now, right now, by the same Word,
the Word of His power, are kept in store. They're held in place
right now. Reserved under fire against the
day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Everything's
being reserved, held in place by the Word of His power. It's
the glory of the power of the Lord that keeps the hell that's
in men's hearts. The very enmity against God that's
in men's hearts. The power of God that keeps that
from just breaking out in unbridled lust and unbridled wrath in this
earth. It's the glory of His power that
does that. You think of the evil you see
in this world. Think of that evil. You see murder and you
see wars where nations try to kill nations. You see men robbing
men. You see just awful, awful things
you can think of. And folks will say, well, I just
can't serve a God that would allow that. Oh, that ain't nothing. That ain't nothing compared to
what's coming. If he's not just to do it now, he's just to do
it now, he'll be just to do it then. Hell's gonna be the just
judgment of God. What you see when you see wrath
and you see all that carrying on, it's just a just judgment
of God in the earth, just a little foretaste of it. That's all it
is. But the Lord only permits the wrath to come about that's
going to praise Him, that's going to be good for His people. And
the rest of it, He restrains it by the Word of His power,
by the glory of His power. He does it for His glory and
the good of His people. And they don't even know it.
The wicked don't even know it. But right now, those that don't
believe God and obey His gospel are benefiting from Him upholding
all things by the Word of His power. That's right. But when
Christ says, depart from me, and he removes his presence and
the glory of his power from the wicked, there will only be outer
darkness and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Can you imagine a place
without the stability of Christ upholding all things and restraining
the wrath of the wicked? No light. His light's gone. The
presence of his light's gone. It's called outer darkness. You can look out there in the
space, you know, and in some of those pictures and you see,
and it's just, it's just dark out there. Outer darkness. And then it's called a lake of
fire. I was thinking about this. Why
is it called a lake of fire? You think about a deep, deep
lake. I remember there was a lake in
a cave. You remember that down in Murfreesboro, Tennessee? We
went over there, and there was this lake in this cave. This
cave was just out in the middle of the woods, and you could go
out there. And on one side, you could go down in it a good ways,
but on the other side, it was a lake. Starting at the mouth
of the cave, it was a lake. And some fellas one time tried
to go in, and they wanted to see how far that lake went. And
they went in that lake, and they were trying to take a thread
and stretch it out so they could find their way back. And they
ran out of thread and got lost, and nobody ever saw them again.
They never came out of there. But it's a huge underwater lake. And divers have tried to go in,
see how deep it is. And they say this thing is just
deep. It's a lake of darkness. And it's a lake. You know what
about a lake like that? It's just a huge lake. We're
talking about like a sea. It don't have any stability.
You can't drop anchor. I mean, there's no depth, no
bottom to it. It's just no stability there.
Without Christ being the power that upholds all things, there's
no stability. Everything's unstable as water. The lake of fire. And the hell
of hell, look at Luke 13, Luke 13. This is going to be the hell
of hell right here, Luke 13, 28. There will be an everlasting
sight, an everlasting vision that will never diminish whatsoever,
an everlasting sight. You may leave this world being
blind as a bat, God's going to give you sight if you go to hell.
He'll give you sight. He'll get your eyesight back.
And this is what you'll see right here, Luke 13, 28. There shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God in you
yourselves thrust out. You'll be forever seeing bliss
and joy and glory with God and His saints, and ye yourselves
cast out. And look at chapter 16, Luke
16, look at verse 26. Remember this parable? That man
in hell, the rich man in hell, begging for somebody to come
and just dip their finger in water and put it on his tongue?
And look here at Luke 16, 26, and the Lord said, Beside all
this, between us and you, there's a great gulf fixed, so that they
which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they
pass to us that would come from thence. So there a man is in
hell with this eternal sight. And it says, and by this sight,
being able to see the bliss of heaven, And it's great go fix
so that you can't go there and they can't come to you. It says
there'll be wailing and gnashing of teeth. I was thinking about
this. You ever heard of the stories
of like the most fearful thing for a prosecuting attorney is
to get convicted of a crime and have to go to prison where he's
put a whole lot of prisoners. You think about you think about
that false preacher. who had the responsibility to
teach his congregation the truth and didn't do it. And they're
in hell now, and he's in hell with them, and they see what
they could have had if he'd have just told them the truth. You
think there'd be wailing and gnashing of teeth on him? You
think about that father and that mother who could have spent their
time in this world teaching their children the gospel, and they
spent all their time giving them the world instead. Oh, they had
their good times while they had them. But now for eternity they'll
be sitting there seeing what they could have had and they'll
be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now that's not a good picture.
That's not a good picture. That's what hell will be. That's
something of what it'll be. But we had to see that awful
description to see this glorious second point. How are God's people
saved from this separation of eternal destruction? That second
death will be eternal destruction because we're not eternal. We're
not eternal. But God the Son is eternal. He's
eternal. And He came and He joined Himself
with human nature. And that He might fulfill all
righteousness as a man for His people. And that as a man, He
might go to the cross and condemn sin, condemn the curse, condemn
the condemnation in the flesh for those that God the Father
gave Him before the world began. On that cross at Calvary, Christ
Jesus, being God the Son, was offering His manhood through
the eternal Spirit by which He satisfied eternal justice for
His people. He satisfied it. Christ on the
cross suffered the eternal destruction that was the just due of His
people. That's what He suffered. And He finished it for His people,
though, because He's eternal. He satisfied eternal justice.
You know that picture of the scapegoat presented to the Lord
alive. That's how he was presented.
Presented to the Lord alive to make atonement with the goat
that died. So you have two pictures there.
You have the picture of the goat, the lamb that was slain, whose
blood is taken into the holiest of holies. And you have the picture
of that scapegoat who had all the sins of the people put upon
him. And he bore that alive. away
into a land not inhabited. That second death, that curse,
will be a living death. It's a death that never dies.
It's a worm that never dies. And on that cross, Christ was
alive when He was made a curse for His people. And He was bearing
that living death on the cross when He hung there. And God was
just in punishing Him. Because the Lord laid on Christ
the iniquity of all the elect of God. from past, present, and
future. He laid the sin of all His people
upon Him. And when the sin of His people
laid upon Him, He became the guilty one in place of all His
people. I don't pretend to know exactly
what all took place on the cross with Christ. There's so many
types and shadows in the Scriptures. Everything in that tabernacle
from the foundation to the top of it, and all the instruments
in it, and all the service in it, and all the lambs, and all
the offerings, and the ordinances, and the washings were all given
to give us aspects of what Christ did on the cross. So for me to
be able to tell you what happened there on that cross, I can't
do it. But I do know this much. I do know that for that scapegoat,
it said, Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of that
live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children
of Israel and all their transgressions and all their sins, putting them
on the head of that goat. Now that was just a shout. That
was just a type. That wasn't a type with Christ. They were
put on him. and shall send him away by the
hand of a fit man into the wilderness, into the wilderness. And the
scapegoat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land
not inhabited, a land not inhabited. And he'll let the goat go in
the wilderness. Even in that type and that shadow,
it said that when that scapegoat, that scapegoat was reckoned so
impure, just in the type, that the man, that fit man that led
him out into the wilderness, before he could come back into
the camp of God, he had to ceremonially wash himself before he could
even come into the camp. That was showing that that scapegoat
was picturing a true impurity laid upon that scapegoat, is
what it was showing. That's what Christ was bearing.
The scripture says, that second death said, it will be separation
from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. In
just justice. It will be separation from the
presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. So God,
when He's there, made sin with all His sins upon Him. The sins
of His people upon Him. In justice, God forsook Christ
on the cross. The Scripture says, He was cut
off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people
was He stricken. What was that striking? What
was that bruising? It was being cut off from the
presence of the Lord. It was being removed from the
presence of the Lord. Sin is the transgression of the
law, but really and truly, what is sin in you? What's the curse
in you? The curse in me. What makes my
body wrinkle? What makes my body bruise? What's going to make me return
to the dust? Being cut off from the life of
God. If Christ is in you, the body's
dead because of sin. It's being cut off. He was cut off. Darkness covered
the earth for three hours. And he cried out in the ninth
hour, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God,
why has thou forsaken me? He was paying the wages of the
second death for what his people owed to divine
justice. He was cut off from the presence
and the glory and power of the Lord. Now you get this. There He hangs with all the sin
of His people upon Him. There He is with Satan. The glory
of God's power was taken away so that Satan could do with Him
whatever he wanted to do with Him. And Satan's bruising His
heel in every way. Not just what you can see, but
in ways you can't see and I can't see. And God has removed his
presence from him. And he bore wailing and gnashing
of teeth. I know he did in what we could
see. I know he did in those thieves hanging on the cross that threw
it in his teeth and said, you know, and the men that passed
by, he said he was God. Let him come down off the cross.
Let him save him if he's God. Gnashing, wailing upon him. And he bore the worm that never
dies. He cried out and said, I'm a
worm and no man. You know what he was doing? He
was burying the worm that never dies. And this is all injustice. This is God forsaking his son
there. That lamb, that substitute. And
all the while that he's doing that, this is what's the mystery
to me. God's just in doing it because
he's made the sin of his people. He's that scapegoat burying that
sin away into that land that's cut off. That's what he's doing.
And at the same time, he's that high priest who had taken off
all his illustrious garments, and all his high priestly crown,
and all his high priestly robe, and he had on nothing but that
pure, spotless, white, linen garment with which he could enter
into the holiest of holies with the Lamb, with the blood
of a Lamb. And I think that has something to do with all of the
Psalms that we read where if you just take David out of it,
You have the man after God's own heart who's praying prayers
like, Lord, don't take Thy presence from me and remove not Thy Spirit
from me. Not in sin, not in rebellion,
not in condemning. He justified me. He said, but
you are holy. but he's doing it in utter dependence
upon him. Even after all this hell's been
unleashed upon him, even after God's removed himself from him
and turned his back on him, instead of he himself joining in with
all the hosts that you can see and you can't see, the powers
of darkness, visible and invisible, wailing and gnashing upon him,
instead of him wailing and gnashing back upon them and reviling back
at them and cussing back at them, you know what he did? He cast Himself on the care of
the Father. He entered into the holiest of
holies. He's presenting Himself to the
Father. Holy. And because he was heard in that
he feared, in that he was that holy, spotless, harmless, holy
high priest. At the same time now that he's
guilty and bearing all this sin in his own body on the tree and
being wounded and bruised by being forsaken of God, yet he
never turned rebel against God. And he's entered into his presence
and presenting himself to him and saying, Father, is this enough? Is this enough to satisfy justice? Psalm 13, I've been looking at
that for a few months now. Oh Lord, how long? How long? How long will my enemies prevail
against me? How long? And I read every commentary
I could find, and everybody's saying, oh, this is just sin
and unbelief, and David praying this prayer. That's Christ praying
in faithfulness to His Father while He's bearing the sin of
His people on the cross. And you know how that psalm gets,
you know how it ends in the end? But I've trusted in Your mercy. I've trusted in Your mercy. Now
brethren, I'm telling you something. That's the holiness that his
people are sanctified with. That's the sanctification that
his people are sanctified with. That sanctification that didn't
turn rebel, even when at the same time he was satisfying the
justice of God and made guilty before God and cut off and bearing
hell and separation in his body, yet he remained just in his soul
to God. I can't explain that. I don't
know. That's what happened. And there was another lamb on
the Day of Atonement called a burnt offering. Remember that? And
it's a different, that word burnt there, that burnt offering is
a different word from the word sin offering. Sin offering means
a torture and a burning, justice. Burnt offering means a sweet
smelling savor. The whole time it was going on,
it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It was making satisfaction
to the justice of God at the same time that He was satisfying
His justice. I think it was more of a delight
because it was manifesting the glory of God. It did more than
just make satisfaction of God. It manifest the glory of God's
perfections in what was going on right there. The faithfulness
of God, the justice of God, the mercy of God, the loving kindness
of God. Oh, just go on and on. But after this, Jesus knowing
that all things were now accomplished, when Jesus therefore had received
the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and he
gave up the ghost. And you know when he entered
into glory in his resurrection, he didn't enter into glory with
sin. A sinner can't come into the presence of God. Nobody with
sin on them can come into the presence of God. He had put the
sin away. He entered into the presence
of God, that righteous one. that advocate with the Father,
that propitiation for our sin. He entered in there to the Father,
and the Father said, I'm well pleased. It's done. Oh, righteousness
is accomplished. Salvation is accomplished. The
wages of sin are paid in full. He's condemned death in the flesh. There's no charges that can be
laid against His people ever again. Righteousness is settled
by His own blood. He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for His people. So then, what will heaven be
for those who know God and obey the gospel of God? What will
heaven be for those that hear this gospel and say, that's a
wonderful God? That's a merciful God. That's
a loving God. I would be a fool not to trust
Him. And they cast their care and
all their hope and all their eternal salvation into His hand
and say, Father, Lord God, my Redeemer, save me. What's heaven
going to be for them when He returns? Be very brief here. To know God is to be known of
Him, born of His Spirit, to obey His Gospels, to believe on Him,
rest in Him from all our dead works, to believe that we're
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be the propitiation,
to be the mercy seat through faith in His blood, through faith
in His blood. You believe in His blood, you
believe what His blood accomplished, declaring the righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed to the forbearance of
God, declaring God's just and the justifier of them that believe.
Do you believe that? I'll tell you what heaven will
be for you if you believe Him. By His grace, by His power, by
His Spirit, I'll tell you what it'll be. It'll be rest with
God's apostles in the Lord Jesus Christ forever. Look here, he
says there in verse 6, just as it's going to be a righteous
thing with God to recompense trouble to them that trouble
you, verse 7 he says, and to you who are troubled, it will
be a righteous thing to give you rest with us. Paul's an apostle
and he's saying you're going to have the same rest that these
apostles are going to have. Same rest. Rest with us when
the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels.
This is consolation and instruction now to you who are troubled resting
in Him right now. But this is what's going to happen
in that day. We're going to be brought into
eternal rest with Him forever. That makes me say I reckon that
the sufferings of this present time aren't worthy to be compared
with the glory that's going to be revealed. when that day comes. And then look at this, opposite
to that everlasting destruction, verse 9, from the presence of
the Lord or from the glory of His power, opposite to that,
we're going to enjoy everlasting joy in the presence of the Lord
by the glory of His power. Do you see here? Judgment really
did take place at the cross. Heaven was secured for His people
and judgment taken care of at the cross, right there. Then
it's going to be everlasting glorification. Look at verse
10. When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, He's
going to bestow glory upon us that we might behold the glory
which He had with the Father before the world was made. Remember,
that was His prayer. I will that they be where I am
that they might behold the glory that I had with you before the
world was made. He's going to bestow glory on us in order that
we might be able to see Him in all His glory. He's going to
give us a perfect knowledge and a perfect holiness. He's going
to make our bodies like unto His glorious body. We're going
to know Him fully in the glory of His person and His perfections,
His wisdom, His power, His faithfulness, His goodness, the riches of His
grace. Everything I've been fumbling
around here trying to tell you about and stuttering around and
trying to get it out to you. It took me hours and hours and
hours and hours to try to get all this just to say what I'm
saying to you. He can show it to us fully in perfection so
that there's no detail left out and you know everything He did. And He's going to appear in all
His glory to us for all eternity. And look, And you know what that's
going to be? That's going to result in everlasting
admiration. Look at verse 10. And to be admired
in all them that believe in that day. For all eternity we're going
to ascribe honor and praise and glory to Him and give Him all
the glory for saving us. How are we going to receive all
this? Is it going to be by our great works and by our goodness
and by our wisdom and by us making ourselves a little better and
a little better and working and working and working and working? Is that
how it's going to come about? Nope. Look at the parentheses.
It's going to be because our testimony among you was believed. It's going to be by faith. That's
it. It's going to be by faith. Believe
this testimony, sinner. I'm telling you right now, now
believe Him. This Redeemer has put away the
sin of His people. And this is going to be the eternal
destination determined before the world began for His people,
for all them that He redeemed. Do you find your heart rejoicing?
Do you find yourself seeing that He's put your sin away? Do you
find yourself saying, this is for me. He did this for me. I
can rejoice in Him. If you can, He did it for you.
I can guarantee you that. Because you can't rejoice like
that unless He did it for you. And believer, you just keep on
resting in Him. You continue in Him. Since He was forsaken
for us, He says, I will never forsake you. I'll never forsake
you. And he which testifieth these
things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come Lord Jesus. Amen.