So if you would, turn with me
to 2 Thessalonians 1. 2 Thessalonians 1. And it's not too long of a chapter,
so I'm going to read the whole chapter. 2 Thessalonians 1. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus
unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank
God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your
faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you
all toward each other aboundeth. so that we ourselves glory in
you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all
your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure. Which is a manifest
token of the righteous judgment of God that ye may be counted
worthy of the kingdom of God for which ye also suffer. Seeing it as 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. Wherefore, also
we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of
this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness
and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and ye in him, according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I know I've spoken of persecutions
and tribulations before, not necessarily in detail, but I
have mentioned in several of my messages. I find it all over
the place in scripture that God's people will suffer, will endure
persecution, tribulation, and trials. Again, we read it right
here in 2 Thessalonians 1, and I particularly want to to pay
attention to verse five, verse five, which is a manifest token
of the righteous judgment of God that ye may be counted worthy
of the kingdom of God for which ye also suffer. I just want to say, there have
been some of God's people who have had to physically endure
persecutions and tribulations, I mean severe. I've not had to
do that, at least not yet. But all of God's people do endure
persecutions and tribulation. It is our lot in this world.
It is one good reason why we do not forsake the assembling
of ourselves together. We are ridiculed and we are troubled.
The Greek word for to them that trouble, that's the Greek word
for all those four words in verse six means to crowd. This world
makes it hard on God's people in the path they walk with God
by His grace. I might not always see it. I
do believe God gives us grace that we can sometimes do as the
old adage has said, like water off a duck's back. Sometimes
we can let them just go on, it doesn't bother us. But then there
are other times it can get us down. You know what the persecution
and tribulation can be? And it's not limited to this,
but this is the basis of it all. Verse eight. Verse eight. In flaming fire, taking vengeance
on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ. When men reject God's gospel
of his son, they persecute the sovereign God of heaven, whom
his people are a part of his kingdom, being his church. I want to go through some things
as it concerns this text, and in particular verse five. What
is the manifest token here? The righteous judgment of God,
counted worthy, and suffering for the kingdom of God. What is the manifest token here?
This is a mouthful, really. I mean, all of it's included
prior to this. All of that is included. So what is the manifest token?
We can boil it down to this. The manifest token is God's grace
in giving us faith to believe him. And this faith causes us
to believe God. It causes us to obey his gospel. I heard a quote about faith,
and I've used it in several of my messages by Carol Poole. You
do not exercise faith, faith exercises you. Speaking of faith,
we read in 1 Peter 1 and 7, we read, that the trial of your
faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth,
though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and
honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. It says the
trial of your faith, not your trial, the trial of your faith. Faith is a gift of God. And God
knows, since he is the author and the perfecter of faith, he
knows what his faith, which is given, will do in trials. Faith looks to him. Faith will
cause men and women to believe the gospel when someone preaches
it. It will cause them to have exceeding charity. And that is
agape love toward one another because they also believe his
gospel. These others also believe his
gospel. This is all because of his grace. Isn't that something though?
It is grace that God gives us faith and sends us trials of
that faith so that it causes us to look to him, to look to
him, to look to him. What else are we going to do?
To whom else are we going to go? Christ is our only hope,
but yet we are full of this flesh, and if he does not do this, that
is, try our faith, we will quickly become despondent. We will quickly
become complacent. We will quickly be filled with
pride. His faith, which enables us to
believe Him along with His grace and Him giving us these tribulations,
are a manifest token that God loves us and that we are His,
Joe. God will not let these things
go. People will persecute us, but
God has righteous judgment. Now there's two parts here, I
believe, of this righteous judgment spoken of here. There is a righteous
judgment of God which says, these are my people because my son
died for them and I have given them faith and they believe his
record, they obey his gospel. In them having this faith, what
does God tell us? There are several verses and
you all know them, but I'll pick one, Galatians 3, 6. Even as
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Those whom have faith, God says
they are righteous. That is a righteous judgment
from God because that faith is the faith of Christ. And Christ's
faith did what? It went to the cross to pay the
debt of sin I owe. That certainly makes me righteous
before him and him doing that. But there is also a side of this
righteous judgment for those who do not believe his gospel. I want you to understand that
if you do not believe God, if you do not believe the record
God gave of his son, then you persecute Jesus Christ. There
are some who will mix in the works of man with the works of
God. They are persecuting the Christ
of glory. Why do they do this? Galatians
6, 12. As many as desire to make a fair
show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised only lest
they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. If you
believe and you preach or you teach or you tell men and women
of this gospel, which says Christ has done it all and there's nothing
left for you to do for salvation, men and women will not believe
that. And they in turn will preach
God's work and man's work. That is, they will preach grace
and works. But these two do not mix. Some
may quickly say, but you have to believe. That is a work, isn't
it? It most certainly is. And it
most certainly is something that we must do. But the scripture
tells me that this is the work of God, that you believe on him
whom he hath sent. So God does the work in giving
you faith with which to believe. This is the token which counts
you worthy. The faith which he gives causes
you, it exercises you into belief of the truth. But this world
knows that if they preach that, then tribulations will come.
And so they do not preach it, we just read it. Some are very
subtle at doing this, that is mixing grace and works. But no
matter how subtle and deceiving they are to us, they will not
deceive God. But we must also see in our text
this righteous judgment of God against those who do not believe,
verses 6 through 8 of our text. 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. What is the basis of
this tribulation? Men and women hate God and they
will not believe him. It says, on them that know not
God and that obey not his gospel. I would say it's pretty important
to believe the gospel of God's grace in the face of Jesus Christ.
They do not believe it is by grace alone in Christ alone.
And if that's what you believe, you are spitting in God's face
when you do not believe him. You are nailing him to that tree
as a blemished sacrifice, unworthy of paying the debt when you believe
not his gospel. If you trouble God's people who
try to hold forth the truth of the gospel, God will deal with
you. We may not see it, but God will
deal with those who do not believe him. He may not do it now, but
he will in flaming fire take vengeance on them. God says,
vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
How much comfort does that give God's people? It gives me comfort. That gives us a reason to hope
in the salvation of God that he will have us with him one
day. Knowing these things and having
the faith God has given to me by His grace, it causes me to
be able to do this by God's grace given to me, Matthew 5, 44. But
I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you. He is my protector. even if I
get my head cut off for preaching the gospel. Why is that? Because I am counted worthy,
all because of his work and works. So counted worthy. And we've
already went through this when we talked about faith. We are
not counted worthy because we suffer. We suffer because we
have been counted worthy. by that God-given faith in Christ
Jesus. That faith which is his and his
faith saved our souls from everlasting destruction and damnation. Being
counted worthy has nothing to do with what we have done or
what we shall do. The token of faith which we have
been given is what God says. He accounts that to us for righteousness. These tribulations are a part
of growing up in God's kingdom, if you will. And in growing up
in this kingdom, there will be suffering that goes along with
it. So suffering for the kingdom of God. The kingdom is where
the king is. The king is the one who watches
over the kingdom. He has built his kingdom by himself
and he will keep his kingdom by himself. We suffer because
men hate this God. Whether we know it or not, God
says that this world hates him. But believers know, they know
this because they also at one time hated the God that they
now love. But these men and women hate
God, that is they hate the God of scripture. This book from
beginning to end is about the Son of God doing the work of
building his kingdom. We know he suffered. So what
is it then if we suffer? It is because of him that we
suffer because they hate us because they hate him. Turn with me to
John 15. John 15. John 15 verses 18 through 27 I'm gonna read. John 15 verse 18. If the world
hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye
were of the world, the world would love his own. But because
ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the
world, therefore the world hated you. Remember the word that I
said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If
they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they
have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these
things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they
know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for
their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my
father also. If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now have they both seen and
hated both me and my father. But this cometh to pass that
the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They
hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify
of me. And ye also shall bear witness,
because ye have been with me from the beginning. This world will hate you. As
it goes on to say in John 16, they will do these things to
God's people, thinking that they do God's service. But they neither
know God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit.
They do this with that same hatred that Saul did before God met
up with him. But God does not owe us anything. What we need to do is bow down
to Him and believe Him. Now I've talked about persecution
and I do want to point out there can be great physical distress,
great physical things that are done to God's people. I mean
unthinkable things. But it is all because they hate
the God and the Christ of scripture and they hate his gospel. But
persecution is not always just those kinds of things. I've already
mentioned it. You do not have to become a martyr
to have been persecuted by God-hating rebels. Let me give you an example
of persecution. This might seem quite negligible,
if you will, but it is not with God. It's not negligible. We
here at Chapel give. We willingly give money and we
give time so that we can have the TV broadcast. to go out to
as many people as it will reach. There are those who persecute
us simply by doing the following, turning the channel when they
see our broadcast is on, simply because they do not like what
we say. They are saying, and listen, they are saying this
to God, they are actually persecuting God. But they are saying when
they do this, I don't need God. I do not need or want to believe
him. This is persecuting God. You
know the account of Saul, right? He persecuted the disciples of
Christ because they proclaimed Christ's name. Now this had with
it some difficult physical things that went along with it. Very
difficult and evil things that were done to God's people. Men
and women were being put to death. As we know the account, Saul
was just consenting to the stoning of Stephen when God met him in
the way. But he was putting men and women
to death, or at least in prison. Paul the apostle, who was Saul
even, tells us he was persecuting the church of God and wasting
it. But when you do these things,
when you do anything to try and stamp out the proclamation of
His dear Son, when you put to death a child of God, when you
put in prison a child of God, when you won't hear a child of
God talk about Jesus Christ our Lord, you are persecuting Jesus
Christ the Lord. So hear it in Acts 9, 4 and 5. And he fell to the earth and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? And he said, who art thou, Lord?
And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is
hard for thee to kick against the bricks. Men and women, This
world hate God and his Christ so much that they will do the
only thing they can do to get to God. They will persecute believers,
God's chosen people. But you know, there are even
those who suffer for the gospel sake. They are not even a believer. They at least come right up to
persecution, even unbelievers. Unbelievers may go through trials
that we go through. When we were unbelievers, we
went through trials such as I'm about to show you until the book
God came in. You all know the passage, Luke
8, 9 through 15, the Lord's explanation of the parable of the seed and
the sower. Those who do not have the honest and good heart, at
least for two types of ground, they, for a little while, last
until temptation, or that is adversity, comes because of the
word, the gospel. Or they do not last, or they
care about everything else instead of Christ and his gospel, and
they do not bring forth fruit to perfection. But those who have been given
this honest and good heart, what does it say they do? They bring
forth fruit with patience. This did not come from them,
this honest and good heart. It came from above you. There
is not one child of God who has anything that it did not come
from God. Everything a believer has, he has it because God gives
it, else we would have nothing. But we will suffer in this life
in some way, some more than others, but we will suffer. John 15,
20, we read, remember the word that I said unto you, the servant
is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they
will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying,
they will keep yours also. God does have his people and
they will keep his sayings. So as we read in Luke, there
are those who suffer these things and what does it say? Those who
do have this honest and good heart, they bring forth fruit
with patience. How does this tie into our text? What do we read in our text in
verse four? so that we ourselves glory in
you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all
your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure. Endure. To hold oneself up against is
what the word means. Have you ever watched the weather
channel or something like that, especially when tornadoes or
hurricanes are coming through? Sometimes you will see a reporter
standing out there and they're leaning into the wind. It's blowing so hard they lean
forward into the wind to keep from being blown away. That's
what this is saying. The child of God braces in times
of trouble, standing fast in God's gospel. This the believer
does by the grace of God and by that faith given. Once it
is over, they just wait for the next one to come. So we may be
neglected, we may be ignored. People may leave us, but we are
to stand fast in the gospel of his dear son. We endure by his
grace. What else are we going to do?
Who else are we going to go? God enables us to see that hope
of eternal salvation, that salvation where we will one day be with
Christ and forevermore. We endure it because the gifts
of God cause us to endure. We have a good hope, that is,
we have a sure hope that we will be with Christ. 2 Thessalonians
1 10 through 12 of our text. 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. Wherefore also we
pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of
this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness
and the work of faith with power. That the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and ye in him according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He makes us meet
with these things. It is all about his honor and
glory. It is not about us, it is about
Him. May God be with us all, and we
pray also for His grace and Him giving us faith and patience,
that we might endure any manner of persecution, even unto death,
if that is needed. But the thought of every believer
who has been counted worthy will at least have this thought. Even
so, come quickly, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear Lord God,
thank you for allowing us to be here today, dear Lord. Be with all your people, dear
Lord. Cause us to stand fast in the truth of your gospel,
dear Lord, and proclaim it in all adversity, all by your power,
dear Lord. Be with those that are ailing,
dear Lord. Comfort them. And all these things
we ask in Christ's name, amen.