Over in 2 Thessalonians chapter
2, if you want to turn there with me and follow me in the
Scriptures this morning, I hope you will. I hope you will keep
your Bibles open. I have two or three places to
turn to in the Scriptures. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2,
the Apostle Paul here has been speaking of the comment of our
Lord Jesus Christ. I think this is so. I'm not for
sure about this, but I think this is so. If you'll read these
two epistles, 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, the apostle
probably says more about the second coming of our Lord Jesus
than all of his other epistles, than any of them. And for some
reason or another, and I can only comment on it maybe here
in a second, as we look down through this chapter, he spoke
so much of the Lord's coming that it began to disturb them. He says here in verse 1, look
at it in verse 1, Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the second coming, His coming in
glory, and by our gathering together unto Him. That's a glorious time. He's coming to gather His saints. The Bible says a lot about that.
He shall gather all nations before Him, but especially His people
will be gathered unto the Lord. They'll be raised from the dead
and be gathered unto the Lord. And then He goes on here in verse
2. He says that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled,
neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as
that the day of Christ is at hand." And it wasn't the coming
of the Lord that troubled them. That was a comfort to them. That's
their hope. But someone was either writing
letters to them, like Paul accused two of the men doing, saying
that the resurrection had passed already. And it had disturbed
their minds. This is the only letter that
Paul finishes that said, the salutation of me, Paul, with
my own hand. And he signed all his epistles. And that's one of the things
he said here in verse 2. Don't be troubled if you get
a letter with people saying, Paul wrote that and I didn't
write it. And it's things that disturbed
them about the coming of the Lord. Some of it wasn't even
true. And yet, there are certain aspects of the Lord's coming
that is very solemn. And just before His coming, the
Bible says a lot about that. Just before the Lord's coming,
how terrible things are going to be. Even the church is going
to be in a sad state, the time of trouble. Some call it Jacob's
trouble. And so he goes on in verse 3
and says, Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day
shall not come, the day of the Lord shall not come, except there
come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed,
the son of perdition. Now what he's beginning to tell
them here is before the Lord comes there has to be a great
falling away. And he says that hasn't happened
yet. And what the Apostle Paul is teaching is that in his day,
the coming of Christ was not imminent. It was not immediate. Now, you can't tell some people
that because they said, no, the early church was looking for
His return immediately. Well, they were wrong then. It's
been 2,000 years and He still hasn't came. The Apostle Paul
never taught that the coming of Christ was imminent in his
day. He said certain things must happen.
One, a falling away. A falling away from the body
of truth, from the body of faith. Men will be leaving it. We see
that today, don't we? We see that today. And what happens
when this happens? When the church, when the professing
church begins to fall away from the truth of the gospel and becomes
very laxed, doesn't stand against sin, doesn't stand for the grace
of the Lord. What happens when the church
reaches that position? It opens the door for the working
of Satan, doesn't it? And that's what he said that
day, the day of the cross won't come until first there comes
a falling away, and when this falling away comes, what happens
then? The man of sin shall be revealed. That just opens the
door for Satan, doesn't it? And here's what he does. Here's
the workings of Satan in verse 4. Whether he does it himself
or does it through his ministers or through his converts. He opposes and exalteth himself
above all that is called God. or that is worshipped, so he
as God saith in the temple of God, showing himself that he
is God. That's Satan's, always been his
desire. And when men begin to think that
they're their own God, you know where they got that from? Satan. That's always been his desire,
to be God. And he was lifted up in pride
about that. And Paul said, Remember ye not when I was with you, I
told you these things in verse 6? And now ye know what withholdeth,
that he may be revealed in his time. And then he goes on in
verse 7 to tell more in detail about it. For the mystery of
iniquity doeth already work. John even said, There are many
antichrists in his day, didn't he? Antichrists had already taken
such a hold in his day. Then this mystery of iniquity,
only he who now letteth, and this word is completely opposite
than the meaning it is of our day when they translated this
out, to let mean to enter. But now let means you let them,
doesn't it? So we read this today, only he
who now restrains will restrain until he be taken out of the
way. Something or somebody is restraining the work of the devil.
Now that could be the Holy Spirit. That could be the Holy Spirit
working through the church. Even some of our forefathers
said even the governments are restraining Antichrist. And that
could be so too. God used all kinds of means. But there's coming a day before
the coming of our Lord where all this means will be taken
out of the way and then He's going to have full run. He goes
out to deceive the nation. And then when that happens, verse
8, that wicked shall be revealed. And it's going to be so bad that
only the cometh of the Lord will destroy Satan and his works.
Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall
destroy with the brightness of his coming. The church is no
match for Satan and his works. She only is as the Holy Spirit
works in the church. And when the Holy Spirit works
in church, in the church, you'll see the kingdom of Satan fall
then. But if the Holy Spirit is not active in the church and
active in our hearts, we are no match for Satan. The church
is no match for Satan. Look how he works in verse 9.
Even him who is coming is after the working of Satan with all
power and signs and lying wonders. Now his power, he does have power
when God gives him permission. His signs are counterfeit. His wonders are lying wonders. That's what he does best, is
lie, isn't it? You see all the supposed miracles
today? They're not miracles. You see
some preacher lay his hand on somebody's head and knock him
out, or they heal somebody that's had polio all their life. Then
later you find out what? The person's as well as you was.
They had him in a wheelchair just to pretend to be sick. So
they could raise Him up. Wonders, they said. Oh, the crowd
just goes wild until they found out it was a lie. Whose lie? Satan's lie. And with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Now here's the bad part about
Satan's lies, and you begin to see it. He works by deception,
doesn't he? He has his lying wonders. He
deceives people by these lying wonders. He whispers things into
men's minds and deceives them. Remember Eve? You shall not surely
die. Ain't that what he told Eve?
You've completely misunderstood what God told you. You won't
really die. But what happens? She died. Satan is a liar. And the Lord
Jesus said he's the father of it, didn't he? When he speaketh
a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he's a liar and the father
of it. And the way he deceives men is
by whispering a lie to their heart, and they believe it, and
they're deceived. That's the way he deceives the
whole world. He works in the mind. If our
gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God
of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not. He whispers lies to the man's
mind. And it gets so bad, the Apostle
Paul said, you're just before the coming of Christ, that men's
hearts will be so deceived and so hardened against God and the
gospel of Christ. In verse 11, for this cause even
God Himself shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe
a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth,
but had pleasure in unrighteousness." So what's the prevailing attitude
before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ? It'll be one of
deception, one of believing a lie, But not about just anything. He's not talking about you went
to buy a used car and the used car salesman pulled one over
on you and you get home and you realize, man, he lied to me.
He deceived me. If that's all it was about, it
wouldn't be too bad. But he's talking about a deception
concerning the salvation of the soul. Not receiving the love
of the truth. that they might be saved. Believing
a lie and being damned as opposed to believing the truth and being
saved. That's what he's talking about.
This is the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
perish. This is the mystery of iniquity. And this is what makes it such
a mystery. People in the last days, I guess
it started somewhere around the 1880s, isn't there somewhere? All of this overwhelming desire
to hear about end-time prophecies. It's been this way now for over
a century. If you announce that you're going
to preach on end-time prophecies, you can fill a stadium up. There's
books written and movies made about end-time prophecies. And
the world is looking for this wondrous mystery that's going
to be revealed that everybody's going to say, oh my, we didn't
know that. Isn't that amazing? But you know, it's not going
to be like that at all. You know the mystery that's going
to be revealed? Men are going to be shocked.
The world is going to be shocked that they're lost, that they're damned. that all
of this time they've been deceived and believed a lie. That's the
mystery of iniquity. And that brings me to my subject
this morning. I want to look just for a few
minutes on two prominent lies of our day. Two prominent lies
of our day and the reason these two things are so vital. is because
they're connected to this very thing about salvation or damnation. They're vitally linked to the
gospel. And when you hear them, you probably
say, Bruce, I didn't realize that was so simple. It is so
simple. And this is what's going to be
the mystery of iniquity when people finally wake up and say,
why didn't I see that? Why didn't I see that? So here's
the two prominent lies in our day. And don't smile when I tell
you my first one, because that's how simple it is. Here's a lie
that men are deceived about, and Satan has helped deceive
them. And it's this, people are basically
good. Now that's simple, isn't it? You may say, well, what's the
point of that? But we'll see here in just a minute. Basically
good? Or am I essentially evil? That's so important, and we'll
see that in a minute. The mystery is this, that though
this is so evident, it's so evident within the heart and the conscience
of a man, it's so evident all around us, it shouldn't be a
mystery. But that's the mystery of it.
that is hidden. We can look around us today.
If we'll just take time, if the world would just take time to
look around what's going on around it, they would have to conclude,
I better reevaluate what I think about human nature and the human
condition. In our day alone, look at the
governments that have fallen. Look at the millions of people
that have been slaughtered by their fellow man. And we're told
right now that the pressure, the stress upon nations, one
nation ready to fight another nation, it's like a pressure
cooker ready to explode. I was reading just this week
that since 1973, just telling you about when you look around,
what do we see? Since 1973, when the Supreme
Court made the decision, Roe v. Wade, that it was okay to
kill unborn babies, you know how many babies have been killed
since 1973? Sixty-one million that they've registered. Sixty-one
million that they've registered. We saw it this week, didn't we,
down in Florida. Seventeen, mainly, teenagers
slaughtered. We're told now by the news media,
when we get into the religious realm, in some of the mega-churches
we're told that Even the news media are exposing those ministers
that prey on people, that defraud people out of their money. And we've got access now to all
this media. We can get on the Internet. And
if you want to see corruption of every kind, to every degree,
just look on the Internet. Everything today is showing to
us as we look around us that this statement that men is essentially
good is a lie. What's going on around us? Do
you think that young man that killed those 17 people, do you
think he's essentially good? How could we say that? And yet,
when we consider ourselves, are we any different? And you say,
well, all society isn't like that. But doesn't every man or
woman have the potential to do that? And it's not what's within
them that's restraining them. It's something outside that's
restraining them. Let God remove His restraining
hand, and then what happens? But we don't have to look around
us. to find out man's essential evil of his heart. We have to
go to the Word, don't we? Go to the Word. And we can't
listen to what man says. You hear a man, and yes, he's
essentially good. He'll tell you that. Solomon
said every man will proclaim his own goodness. but a faithful
man who can find. Everybody will look at his thoughts,
his evil thoughts, and his evil words and his evil deeds, and
they try some way or another to justify them. So you can't
trust what man's telling you. You can't trust what your heart
tells you. Your heart will lie to you, won't it? Because our
hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
If we want to know man's condition, we have to see what the Bible
says about it. I want to show you a couple of
places right quickly and show you why this is so important.
Look over in Romans chapter 3. This is one of the places we
always go to because the Apostle Paul has dealt with it here,
the sinfulness of men, and he's did it so plainly that we go
here often to prove it. In Romans chapter 3 and look
in verse 9. Romans chapter 3 and verse 9.
The Apostle Paul had been speaking in chapter 1 about the sin of
the Gentiles and chapter 2, the sin of the Jews. And then he
reaches this conclusion in verse 9. What then? Are we Jews better
than they Gentiles? No, in no wise. But we have proved
before, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. And what he means there, they're
under the immediate influence, they're under the dominion, the
power, and the guilt of sin. They are all under the judgment
of sin. And then he goes on to begin
to describe it in verse 10. And he begins with that which
is essential. I'm telling you, if a man don't
have this that he mentions here in verse 11, then there's no
need to go any farther. Look what he said. Verse 10,
"...there is none righteous." No, not one. And what he simply
means there, there is none that are possessed with that holiness
which God demands and requires for men to have. When he stands
before God, when God looks upon him, not one man, and he makes
it, he emphasizes this, doesn't he? No, not one is possessed
of that holiness of heart that God can look upon and say, now
that pleases me. That is good. That is righteousness. That is holiness. And you know
if there's no holiness of heart, if the heart is not holy, then
how can anything else be holy? That settles the whole issue,
doesn't it? But he goes on, look, in verse 11, that understandeth there is none
that seeketh after God." Now, Paul wasn't talking here about
civil things. Of course, the natural man understands
civil matters. He understands politics. He knows
how to build a house. He understands sciences, science. He understands that. He understands
moral issues. He knows it's not right to murder,
doesn't he? He can understand it's not right
to steal or to defraud people. But what he's saying here, there's
none that has spiritual understanding. There's none that understands
God and His spiritual conduct and His spiritual nature and
His attributes. There's no man that understands
himself. He don't know his own heart and
his desperate misery that he's in and the way of salvation by
Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "...the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for there
are foolishness in them, neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned." Now if we stop right here, we could
say, how does this jive with this lie that's being told today
that man is basically good? Doesn't jive, does it? So he's
under the guilt and dominion of sin. He don't have this righteousness,
this holiness that God requires. And therefore there is none that
seeketh after God. You know something you won't
find one man that of his own initiative seeks God in Jesus
Christ to be saved. He don't understand God, so he
doesn't seek God. He'll seek food. He'll even pray
if he's hungry. God, would you give me some food?
If he's broke, he'll pray for money. But he will not seek God
for salvation on the terms of the gospel. Why not? Because
he don't understand that. He don't understand that. They are all gone out of the
way in verse 12. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. They are all gone out of the
way. What way? Well, God's way. The way of communion
with God. There's not one single man that
enters into fellowship with God, to enjoy God, and to worship
God, and to serve God. on his own initiative. Every
man has turned to his own way. I used to know this dear man,
he's been gone for years, but he said, until the Lord saved
him, he had this ideal that him and God was walking in parallel
paths. And all he had to do was just
step over in God's path and go the way he was going. Until the
Lord showed him, you're going in the opposite direction. You're
going downhill. You're going to hell. He wasn't
in God's way. And then he makes another claim
against man. They are all together become
unprofitable. This word means useless. It means
worthless. It means spoiled. It means rotten. Unprofitable. Rotten. We've all,
if you want to smell something that smells really bad, get you
some potatoes and put in a bag or a bucket and set them in your
utility room, wherever you keep your potatoes, and let them start
rotting. That's one of the most horrid
smells I've ever smelled in my life. And can you imagine if
one potato smells so bad that you've got to take it out in
the yard and dump them all out just to find it? How would it
smell if the whole bag was rotten? They have all together become
rotten. You can't find one good man and
one good woman here and there. They've all become rotten. Stinking and rotten. Man! Isn't that something? And then
He doesn't stop there. They become unprofitable. There
is none that doeth good. None? You know what this is telling
us, brothers and sisters? The heart of an unregenerate
man has never produced one thing that's good. It's never had one
thought that's good. It's never spoken one word that's
good. It's never did one deed that's
good, that it produced itself. There is none that doeth good,
and he emphasizes that, no, not one. How does this jive then with
this that we're being told today, that man is essentially good?
And then of course he goes on, you can read it as he goes on,
he begins to talk about man's relationship with man. But my
goodness, why go there when man is not right before God? There's
no wonder we have men killing each other. There's no wonder
he goes on to say the way of peace they have not known, destruction
and misery are in their path, their feet are swift to shed
blood, how one man treats another man. And if you don't fear God,
then you're not going to fear man. If you don't regard God,
then you're not going to have any regard for man. That's why
we have to have laws among us, isn't it? If everybody was a
believer, we wouldn't have to have civil law. We just wouldn't. We wouldn't need court systems
or divorce courts, wouldn't we? But he says here in verse 10,
as it is written, and then he goes on to describe man, Where
is this written? It's written over in Psalms chapter
14. I want you to look over there
right quick because this really means something about who wrote
this to begin with. Who is it that said this? And
look over in Psalms chapter 14 and look in verses 1 through
3. This is where the Apostle Paul took Romans 3 from, at least
a great portion of it. The fool hath said in his heart,
there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done
abominable works. There is none that doeth good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone
aside. They are all together become
corrupt or filthy. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. Whose estimation is this? God's. This is God's estimation. It's God that looked down upon
the children of men. And it's God that examined. And
it's God that determined there's not one man that's good. There's
not one man that's holy. That every man had gone out of
the way. That's God's estimation. It's
as though God looks upon Bruce Crabtree and He says, Bruce,
I want you to sit right here. I've got something to show you
and tell you. I have evaluated you. You're
inside. You're an essential being, your
spirit, your heart. And this is the conclusion I've
come to. This is the decision I've reached. You're essentially bad. That's
God's determination. So it wasn't just Paul's doctrine. It was God's determination of
this. How do I feel about myself this
morning? If I have to stand before God
and judge myself, what's my opinion of myself? Is it the same as
God's? Or do me and him have a fuss
about it? God has got a controversy with our generation and it's
over this very thing. God says one thing about them
and they think the very opposite about themselves. And this issue
is important and it's critical because it's a gospel issue. Who did Jesus Christ come unto
this world to save? Sinners and nobody else. Nobody else. Sinners. His name shall be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. They that behold need not a physician,
but they that are sick. Go learn what that means. I will
have mercy and not sacrifice. I did not come to call righteous,
but sinners to repentance." Not one righteous man has ever been
called to repentance. You don't need it. It's sinners.
The gospel is good news of reconciliation, is it not? The gospel proclaims
reconciliation. And the very term of reconciliation
states that there was a division between these two parties. And
only the gospel could reconcile these two parties together. Suppose
there was a king and all his subjects rebelled against him.
And he sent his son, at a great cost to himself, to reconcile
his subjects to himself. And yet when the son did that,
all the subjects of the king came to him and said, we didn't
really rebel. Wouldn't that just add to their
rebellion? How can we deny our utter rebellion
against God in the light of the bloody, shameful cross of Calvary? Calvary not only reveals the
love and tender mercies of God in redeeming, but it manifests
the awful, awful sin of man. Why was the cross needed? How can we deny our utter rebellion,
our essential evil, in the light of Jesus upon the cross? Has
God somehow misjudged us? Has He exaggerated our condition
when He tells us that the heart is deceitful above everything
and desperately wicked? Has He misjudged us? Have we
misunderstood the cross? Is it truly a sacrifice to reconcile
the ungodly, or is it just a mere jester on God's part to let all
of us know that He believes in us still, and that He's thinking
well of us and wishes us well? If we don't understand the essential
sin of men, then we won't understand the cross either. When we were yet enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of the cross. The cross is a clarion call against
the lie of our day that men are essentially good. See why it
is so important? This is what is going to be the
mystery of iniquity that is revealed when Satan is finally bound and
threw into the lake of fire. What else is more important than
knowing ourselves to be sinners since Christ came and died to
save sinners? In Hosea chapter 5 and verse
15, listen to this. The Lord was always, the most
difficult, if you could say the Lord was having any difficult
trouble with the Jews, it was always this. They were always
a self-righteous people. They were people that thought
too highly of themselves. And I'm telling you, it was difficult
to beat them off of their thoughts that they were basically good
people. You see that in the Scriptures,
don't you? Paul said they have a zeal of God, but not according
to knowledge. Look how the Lord Jesus had trouble with them in
His day and all through the Old Testament in the same way. We're
basically good people. And the Lord come to him in Hosea's
gospel and said, I'm going to meet you like a lion would meet
you in the way. And I'm going to tear you and
then I'm going away until you do this, until you acknowledge
your offense and seek my faith. See what's required in salvation? It's coming to think properly
of ourselves. That we've been offensive, that
we've been against God, that we've even lived as His enemies. And the Lord says, you're going
to acknowledge your offense. And then you're going to seek
my face. Then you're going to find me. David used that same
word in Psalms 51 and 3 after he committed all of those horrible
sins with Bathsheba and killed Uriah. He said in verse 3, I
acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me. And then he seeks forgiveness
of sins. Lord wash me and I shall be clean. But it was only in the light
of this that I am a sinner. I'm a sinner. They call it compartmentalizing. And here's what people do. They
take their sins and they put them over here in one compartment.
And they say, boy, those are some bad things. I've done some
bad things. Then they take themselves and
put them in another compartment and say, but basically I'm a
pretty good fellow. And being a pretty good fellow
takes the edge off of the evil that I've done. Can you imagine
David going to the Lord in prayer And he says, Lord, I've done
these evil things, but basically I'm a pretty good fellow. Can
you imagine that? Boy, he doesn't say that at all.
Go home and read again that chapter 51 of Isaiah. And the fifth verse, but he went
right to the source of his problem. He didn't say, Lord, I've done
these bad things, but I'm basically good. He said, Lord, I was shapen
in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. What's he
saying? I've done these evil things because I'm evil by my
nature. So it's a gospel issue, isn't
it? It's a gospel issue. Jesus healed those who had need
of being healed. This is our trouble today. We
can't find any sinners. We absolutely can't find sinners.
That's why this place isn't full this morning. I said, please
preach to me the Gospel, Bruce. Please let me hear of Christ
and His redeeming blood. They don't need Him. Isn't that
our problem? Joseph Hart wrote one of his
famous hymns, and one line of his most famous hymn said, A
sinner is a precious thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. The Holy Ghost has showed him
His sinfulness. You know, we hear people say
this all the time, and boy, it's big in our day that men are essentially
good. But if that's so, then we don't
need a Savior. It's a Gospel issue. That's the
first lie. And it's so simple. The second
prominent lie goes right on the heels of that, and it's this,
that God will not punish sin, nor the sinner, because of it.
I had a man to tell me that. I want you to turn back over
to our text again, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter
2. I had a man to tell me that he
He believed that God was too good to punish sin. And I thought to myself when
he told me that, I had a conversation with him about it. I said, well,
does that mean that God's goodness makes void His justice? That God is so good that He would
be unjust to punish sin? Or he's so good that he cannot
punish it to the degree we deem it deserves to be punished or
God deems it deserves to be punished? It would be fine if he just annihilated
people. And that's what he got to believe.
I said, well, if you don't believe in eternal punishment, what do
you believe in? He said, well, when a man dies, he's annihilated.
He ceases to exist. And he said, that's the justice
of God. No, that's his opinion. His opinions. Look here at what He says again
back in our text in 2 Thessalonians 2. And look at this word He uses
here in verse 12. We don't get the sense of it
in our English translation. That they all might be damned
who believed not the truth but had pleasure and unrighteousness.
This word damned They tell us in the Greek, and it's not our
translator's fault. You just can't translate out
of the Greek into the English and get the full meaning of it.
This word, damn here, means to gather evidence, to try or to
judge, to reach a verdict, and then to punish. It means all
of that. One word in the Greek means all
of that. Evidence is collected. It's examined. A verdict is reached
of guilt and then the subject is punished. He is damned. He is damned. Look over here
in the first chapter and look in verse 4. The Apostle Paul
deals with this in the first chapter in verse 4. So that we
ourselves, glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience
and faith in all your persecutions, and tribulations that you 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
you also suffer." And here was one of the things that they suffered.
Sin, it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation
to them that trouble you. Now what recompense was he talking
about? And the man said, one man said,
he said, well, that's their death, that God was going to annihilate
them in death, that they had persecuted God's people, so in
death they would just be annihilated, cease to exist. Well, how many
wicked people who have persecuted God's church live to be old and
then die at a very peaceful death? If all the retribution was just
annihilation, I don't look upon that as being much punishment,
do you? When Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus, was filling the pains
at the end of that rope, was that a just recompense of his
betrayal of Jesus Christ? Or when Ahab accused Naboth of
blaspheming God and had him stoned to death. And God said, they're
going to shoot an arrow through your heart and the dog is going
to lick your blood. Was him feeling the pains of that arrow, was
that final retribution? No. And Paul goes on to explain
that here in this passage. Look in verse 7. And to you who
are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven with His mighty angels, in flame and 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 of them that believe in that day. Everlasting destruction. Everlasting destruction upon
sin and the sinner because of it. When the Lord told those
Jews in Hosea, I will return to my place until they acknowledge
their transgression. He wasn't just saying until they
confessed that they had sinned. But confessed what their sins
deserved. The punishment their sins deserve. How would I judge myself this
morning if I stood before God in my sins? What would I say
about myself? And here's the thing. We must
bring our thoughts and the judgment of all things and submit them
to the truth and judgment of God's Word. We're not like God. We're not
like Him at all. We don't understand the way He
understands. We don't judge, even ourselves,
the way He judges us. We've been around sin, and we've
sinned all of our known life, and we've got hardened to it.
We can hear all the ungodly language and our conscience is sort of
seared to it. We've got sort of used to it,
haven't we? And if we're not careful, we'll think God is like
us. But He's not. He's of two pure eyes than to
behold iniquity. He cannot look upon sin without
His mind being filled with indignation against it. That's why all through
the Bible you see him threatening to punish sin, not with annihilation,
but with eternal damnation. And we have to bring our thoughts
and submit them to God's Word. And it's only then we'll say,
that's the right thought. That's the right thought. And
when I see myself as an ungodly sinner by my very nature, And
when I know in my heart of hearts from God's Word that He's going
to punish sin, He must because He's holy and just as well as
good. And you know something? God is
good when He punishes sin, is He not? He's essentially good. And when
we see this, and when we judge sin as it should be judged, Only
then does the gospel of Jesus Christ become precious to us. Only then does it meet our real
need. Because this being so, I being
a sinner, that I keep remedying my sinfulness, that I keep delivering
myself from the judgment of God. And then when I read in the Bible
that God has sent His dear and blessed Son, and who has delivered
me at a great cost to Himself, then the gospel becomes sweet. Then it becomes precious. Then
I want to cleave to Him. who did all these wonderful things
for me. So it's a gospel issue, isn't
it? If you and I put in one column, everlasting life and all that
that entails, and we put in the other column, everlasting destruction
and all that that entails, Well, this column over here, everlasting
destruction, is what makes this column so precious. I bet you there'd have been a
lot of people who would not have bowed to Nebuchadnezzar's image
if that hadn't been for that fiery furnace. There'd be a lot of people today,
no interest in Christ at all. if they had not considered it
in the light of the consequences. And we have to consider that,
don't we? What's going to happen to unbelievers? What's going
to happen to those who have no interest in the gospel? What's
going to happen to those who simply neglect the gospel? Everlasting
punishment! What of those who have received
the gospel? Who have vowed to Jesus Christ?
He's all their salvation. They've got eternal glory with
Him. And we always have to weigh one
of those over against the other. And this generation is saying,
because I'm essentially good and God won't punish sin, so
let me eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow I die and it's over
with. But it's not that way, is it?
It's not that way. I would suggest to you this morning,
that you and I see a greater degree of God's wrath manifested
at the cross than we see in hell itself. People say that God would
be unjust to punish sin and the sinner for it everlastingly. Was He unjust when He punished
Christ? There's more wrath revealed at
the cross than there is in hell itself. The punishment in hell
has to be mitigated. It can't be all poured out at
one time. Those in hell are suffering today,
but there's more to come tomorrow and the more to come the next
day. They can't bear the eternal wrath at one time. But upon the
cross, God's everlasting wrath, His eternal anger was congealed. It was concentrated. and all
poured out into the body and soul of His Son in a mere three
and a half hours. And upon the cross of Jesus Christ,
listen, every transgression and every disobedience received a
just recompense of reward. And if we deny it, that we have
even sinned that we are enemies of God, then what hope do we
have? Because the gospel is for sinners, blood-red sinners. I'm a sinner and I can't deny
it. That I'm worthy of God's wrath, I will not deny. My conscience
has taught me that as well as His Word. But this has made the
gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ the best news I've ever
heard in my life. And still to this very day, I
can't get over it. Can you? Cannot get over it. And when somebody comes and says,
man, it's basically good, what they're trying to do is take
my hope away from me. What they're trying to do is
say, you might as well leave Christ. God's not going to punish
sin anyway. Don't worry about the cross.
Don't be earnest about it. That's Satan's lie, isn't it?
Satan's lie. Wasn't that simple? You can go
preach that to your neighbors and your co-workers, can't you?
And tell them when they say, you know, I'm really a good person. Now, you've got something to
tell them, don't you? Why don't you turn over here with me and
let's see what God says about you. You can go tell Him that
now, can't you? I've done some bad things, but
you've done some bad things that God's going to punish you for.
Man, you better flee to Christ. You better make sure you're in
Christ. God bless His Word.