Let's turn in the word of God to first, the book of Isaiah, rather, sorry, the book of Daniel. That's what I meant to say, the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 12, and then to 2 Thessalonians chapter one, let's stand to hear the word of God. Daniel chapter 12, and then 2 Thessalonians chapter one. Just a few verses from Daniel chapter 12, about the end of all things, the last judgment prophesied by Daniel the prophet. At that time, Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that time. And at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament. And those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. Now 2 Thessalonians. And we will begin the beginning of the chapter. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds towards each other, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer, since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, inflaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God, on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. When he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. Therefore, we also 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. The name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you. and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the word of the Lord. We turn in the study of the word back to 2 Thessalonians this morning, again to chapter 1. If you were here Last time we were studying 2 Thessalonians. Well, we've been for weeks studying 1 and 2 Thessalonians under the heading of the return of the king. The last time we turned to this passage, which was two weeks ago last week, I preached from Luke chapter one on the virgin birth in the morning. Now we're going back to 2 Thessalonians. But if you remember, we look at the whole chapter and we focused in particular on this wondrous reality Holy Spirit works reality that these believers in Thessalonica, while going through the crucible of suffering, were at the same time abounding in the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. Their faith was growing, exceeding the love of every one of you abound toward each other. And so that we boast of ourselves, boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith." And we saw there's an allusion back to 1 Thessalonians there, even the beginning of that book, where the faith, hope, and love, the patient hope and love of these believers in the crucible of suffering was evident to all the churches in their region. And Paul could see it too, together with Silvanus and Timothy. And he said, for this reason, I am bound. We are bound to thank God always for you all. I'm gonna move ahead in the chapter. In a sense, we're gonna look at the whole thing again, but with a different focus now. And I focus on the apostles return to the theme in this church of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So many of our problems in the Christian life can be traced to a very simple problem. A very simple root problem is that we keep forgetting the very end. We so quickly are distracted, diverted, sometimes willfully, sometimes in weakness, but we somehow can live sometimes, it would be a shame for a believer, I don't know if a believer could do this, but hopefully never for years, but certainly for days, maybe for weeks, not thinking, about Jesus coming back and seeing Him face to face. That this is the great end of all things. That He's coming. And when our vision is blurred or inaccurate, not clear, not biblical, or when we're forgetful, When we stop thinking about the end, it immediately has consequences for the present. You can't separate the end from now. You know this. If you know that something's coming, you make preparation for it. If you were to travel to a foreign country, you'd probably get a passport. Because you would know that without a passport when you landed actually now you can't even get on the plane But let's say you could get on the plane when you landed what would happen? They'd say hey, you're not coming in here. You don't have a passport go back home get on that plane the simplest thing So, what do you do you go to the passport office? You filled these forms and you pay a significant sum of money to get this little book to carry with you in order that when you get to your destination You will be admitted You know, some of you are retired, but if you're not, it's coming. And it's going to come a time when you, because of your body, maybe your body and your mind, you won't be able to work the way you were once able to work. And you should be getting ready for that. You should be planning, thinking about that. And as you are able, not without trust in God, not trust in riches, but make prudent Preparations to take care of your family and yourself in the future. Suppose you were driving down I-26 from Asheville to Spartanburg and there was a sign that said that the Green River Gorge Bridge was out. What would you do? Just keep driving? Like nothing? Suppose that there was a barrier across the road that said the Green River Ridge was out, which is in a sense what this sermon should be in your life. Stop and take notice, there's something coming. Would you just mindlessly drive around and keep your foot to the floor? Or would you say, no, I don't really want to drive off a cliff? No, you would change the course of your present existence and order in response to the clear knowledge of a future reality. Now, if in all these little inconsequential things, We do this, how much more? It's the how much more argument when you think about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the most profound evidences of the effect of sin on our emotions and on our thinking is how little we think of the future. How long are you going to live? Some of you might be one more day. You might be young. One more day. What happens after that? Right at the Hebrews, appointed for man, wants to die, and then the judgment. You're going to be before the face of God. You could be a minute away from that. One minute. And then what's after that? What the Bible calls eternity. Never-ending conscious existence. If you and I were to make it till the day that Christ himself comes, we're gonna see that the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trumpet of God, the dead in Christ will rise first, and we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the air, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will always be with the Lord. A few months ago, just a few months ago, preached from that text, and I mean, think about it. Jesus, streaming from glory with his holy angels, shout of an archangel, the sound of a trumpet, to be swept up and meet Jesus in the air. What is it about our spiritual lethargy that we think so little of these things? Maybe you think about them often. Then count this as a reminder to keep doing that. We're going to meditate on that reality again from 2 Thessalonians, but with a particular note. And the note is going to be what I call the doctrine of the two ways. It's not a phrase I've invented, but it's a simple truth taught through the scriptures that there's going to be a final reckoning, a judgment. That when Jesus Christ comes, there's going to be the final sifting of humanity. That there's going to be the final reckoning, the final decision. We read this from Joel chapter three. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision on the day of the Lord. And God's gonna make a decision about you. About where you will spend that conscious eternity. The doctrine of the two ways from Psalm one is that God will destroy the wicked and he'll bless and take the righteous to be with himself. And all of you and I are headed there. A little review of the flow of the chapter that helps us get to that point. It's in this chapter again, that great judgment. I said a moment ago, the chapter was about the question, what kind of Christian are you under pressure? The crucible of suffering that the Thessalonican church was in had produced fruit. faith, hope and love in abundance. It is like finding, you know, a succulent fruit tree loaded with goodness in the middle of the Sahara Desert in terms of the natural man. That's what was happening there. And the question we need to ask is why were the Christians willing to suffer this way and what kind of suffering do Christians go through? Well, sometimes we go through the suffering of what I call what we could call deprivation. Things that we would like to have, we don't have. And in our world, this might slowly start looking like this. You miss a promotion because you believe that God has ordained marriage between one man and one woman. And all the implications of that, any opposing view are creeping into your workplace. And finally, you're gonna be forced to answer somebody in HR. And you may lose your job or your promotion Because you hold to what the Scriptures say. You might lose on ease or pleasure. You're called to a life of self-denial as a believer. It's a resist temptation. You may lose friends in this world because they think the way you live is foolish. You're to say daily no to what the world offers. Take up your cross daily and follow Christ. And there's a storm coming here. One of the first ways, unless God has mercy in our culture, if our culture continues to head the way it's heading, we're all going to start to be tested in these ways where things are going to be taken away slowly, bit by bit. And we're going to be asked if we're willing to just let go of simple comforts and pleasures. The next level of persecution is what the Thessalonians were going through, and that's the suffering of persecution, not just deprivation, but persecution, no longer simply taking things away or comforts away. But the aim in Thessalonica was life itself. They weren't just making life difficult, but people were dying for the faith. And that's implied in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 13 and Acts chapter 17. And that's also happening in this world. You just heard me pray about the 11 men in Nigeria, 10 of which were beheaded this week and one shot on camera, videos on the internet, I haven't seen it, intended to strike terror into every Christian everywhere. And so 11 families this week are without brothers or fathers or sons because they were identified with Jesus Christ. This happens today in the world. One of the questions is why? Are Christians willing to suffer such things and deny themselves to this end? Why do Christians keep being Christians and what hope is there? Well, there's two answers in the Bible about this suffering. And the first is we are willing to suffer because Jesus Christ first suffered for me. He took up His cross and I follow Him as a disciple and I am willing to lay down my life because He first laid down His life for me. But there's a second answer that Paul gets to in this chapter, which is linked to the first answer, the cross-shaped life, but it's also because I am convinced that at the end of all things, Jesus Christ will make all wrongs right. that there will be a final reckoning, that there is a trajectory of history, that there's a great day, the day of the Lord, and that there's going to be a judgment, there's going to be a reckoning, and in the end, it will be shown to have been a worthy life to live and to give in the service of Christ, even if it meant dying. And that God will judge the wicked. Now, let's dig into this view of all things from verses 5 through 12 here in more detail. The central idea in the text, as Paul continues with the discussion of this suffering church, he says this at the end of chapter, end of verse four, he says, they have been undergoing persecutions and tribulations. And then the apostle says that these are manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God. Now, if you're to have one idea in your mind in this sermon, it is that phrase, the righteous judgment of God. That stands at the center of this text. What is the judgment of God? Well, this seems obvious, but let's give it a broad and simple definition. Here, the judgment of God refers to God's active determination of the ultimate destiny of every human being. God's personal, active determination of the final destiny of every individual human being. We'll see in a moment, that's what's in view in the text. Where is every individual human being going? That is up to God, the judge. What kind of judgment is it? It's the righteous judgment of God. What does that mean? It's not capricious. It's according to His fixed, revealed standard of righteousness in the Word of God. The Ten Commandments, the law of God, which we read this morning, according to His own unchanging character, He will judge the world. Paul has in view here as he speaks to the Thessalonians, the righteous judgment of God, and he sees manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God when he sees what's happening in Thessalonica. So the righteous judgment of God, His determination, His final determination, or His righteous determination of the final destiny of every individual, Paul is seeing evidence of the final reality already in time as the Thessalonians are persecuted by these antagonists. He sees what he calls, again, manifest evidence of God's final sifting of humanity in the present. And he sees it in the persecutions and tribulations that they endure. Now, how does he see this? Well, the first one, the first evidence, the first part of this manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God is in the privilege of present suffering for Jesus Christ. Evidence number one here, the first part of this manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, Paul sees in verse four, your persecutions and tribulations, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God. Now, how can that be? These are two ideas which in our natural mind are going in opposite directions, aren't they? What Paul is saying is that God's final judgment The final verdict in some way is being manifest in the present, that righteous final verdict, and one of the evidences is the present suffering of the people of God in Thessalonica. This is the evidence that they were counted. Look, keep reading verse 5. This is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. So suffering here for Paul is actually evidence for the sufferers of God's kindness towards them. Why? Because to them it was granted that they were counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which they also suffer. Paul says the same thing, a similar thing, in Philippians chapter 1. Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, granted, a gift, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, to have the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me." Paul sees the righteous judgment of God at the end manifested in the present in the gift and privilege of being counted worthy to follow Jesus Christ and the way of the cross. The suffering, if we keep reading, is evidence also that Jesus is coming with power to give you relief. It is a righteous thing, again with God, He's speaking of the righteous judgments of God, His acts in history, to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and, see the grammar, it is a righteous thing with God to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. The suffering reminds them then, first, that they belong to the kingdom of God and they've been counted worthy to belong to that kingdom. The suffering reminds them that Jesus will come one day to give them rest and relief from that suffering. Finally, the suffering, verse 10, is a reminder and evidence that when He comes in that day, He will be glorified in His saints and admired among all those who believe because our testimony among you was believed. The first part of the evidence of the righteous judgment of God for the church at Thessalonica was the privilege of living a cross-shaped life in following Jesus Christ. And that pointed to a future reality that God had counted them worthy of his kingdom and would vindicate them at the end. You think about this connection with clarity. Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 4 that believers suffer and we shouldn't be surprised that a fiery trial comes upon us. He also warns the church that we should not suffer as a murderer or a busybody or an evil person, that there's Christian sufferings, and all suffering is not Christian suffering, suffering in following Christ, but the believer's sufferings are, and it should be only for righteousness, as the apostles understood in Acts chapter 5, to be counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ. But the New Testament counts again and again suffering for Christ, listen carefully, as manifest evidence of God's future judgment of vindication for the people of God, the Christian paradigm, and life is always the cross. Second thing we're going to look at in the text. First, suffering as a believer and what that says about the final judgment for the believer. Second, Paul sees the opposite, present opposition to Christ and his people, also as evidence of the final destiny of the persecutors or the unbelievers. Now again, the same singular moment, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to fill this out a little bit more in verse 7. The judgment of God in verse 7 is linked to Jesus being revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God, who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. That Jesus, verse 9, will come in the glory of his power in that day to be glorified in his saints. He's talking about that singular moment in the future. And now he's connecting that future moment to the present and pointing out the persecutors. He's saying that moment, which is comfort and rest for the believer, will be terror for the unbeliever and the persecutor. Again, look at verse 9. The nature of that future judgment. These, those who afflict and persecute, those who trouble you, verse 7, One day Jesus in flaming fire will take vengeance on those who do not know God, who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse nine, these shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power when he comes in that day. What Paul is teaching here is nothing less than the doctrine of hell, teaching The two destinies, the only two destinies, rest and relief or punishment and hell. And when he speaks of hell and everlasting torment, where did he get that from? Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, will judge the nations. Matthew chapter 25. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, when all the holy angels with Him, He will sit on the throne of His glory. This is Matthew 25. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. The sheep to everlasting life. And then it goes, these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous to everlasting life. These are the grand themes that Paul links to present suffering, present affliction, the day of the Lord, and the final sifting judgment of Jesus Christ. They will be cast off, we keep reading, from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. And what Paul is really teaching here as he piles up these phrases is the conscious everlasting torment of the wicked away from the presence of God on account of their persecution of the people of God, on not knowing God, not having communion with him and not obeying the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, if this is true, you can't ask a more sober question this morning to bring it all into focus. If this is the destiny of some, who ends up there? And how can I know that I will not? Well, the text says, again, look at the Marks. Those who persecute God's people, verse six, if you've ever mocked a Christian or Christianity, You're in a dangerous place here this morning. Because that mockery and that persecution is manifest evidence in the present that the final judgment would be everlasting destruction. You need to repent. Now I want to encourage you. The wonder of the gospel is that the man who wrote this text was known as the chief persecutor of believers, the Apostle Paul, the chief of sinners, whose career was, until Jesus Christ arrested him and stopped him in his sin and reckless rebellion against the Lord of glory, his job was persecutor. He, concerning Zeal, Philippians 3, persecuting the church, again, 1 Timothy chapter 1, The chief of sinners, his job was to persecute believers. He repented and there was forgiveness. You think small thoughts of Christians or you have mocked a Christian or even Christianity, the call of this warning is to repent. The other markers here of those will be there are those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel. What does it mean to obey the gospel? Well, this tells us something, that the gospel includes both the promise and offer of salvation and the demand of obedience. What do I mean by that? When Paul says, if you don't obey the gospel and you don't know God, that means the call of the gospel, which comes with the promise of everlasting life and forgiveness. If you hear it and then you hear the words, repent of sin and believe, and you say, no, I will not respond. then you will be an object of divine vengeance and everlasting punishment on the great day of days. That's what Paul is saying. He's saying that there is this line that begins in history and will be ultimately manifested in the final day between the righteous and the unrighteous, the objects of mercy and the objects of wrath, and that you need to think about this. Well, three things that this clear perspective does for the believer. If we review the perspective, you need to boil it down to one moment or one phrase in the text. Verse seven, the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. Keep that in mind. The presence of the Lord when he comes, verse 10, in that day. There's a singular moment in the mind of the apostle Paul that shapes his thinking. about ultimate destinies, and that's the second coming of Jesus, together with all his holy angels. And for him, that cuts through all present reality and shapes all present reality, both the suffering of God's people and the destiny of persecutors. And the future shapes the present. How should it shape it for you? Well, the first thing from this text that you should think about is that if God calls you to suffer, you don't need to be afraid. A lot of us fear suffering. We're afraid that some horrible thing will happen to our children. Some horrible thing will happen in this world. Kim Jong-un will launch a missile over. Our nation will collapse. We'll be persecuted. We'll lose our freedoms. And we can become so fixated and fearful about the possibility of living under opposition that we can become paralyzed with fear. It's not far off to think that that might be coming. I said it earlier in the sermon. In China right now, there's something called a social credit system. I don't know if you've heard about this. They use the power of the connected world and facial recognition and Credit cards and all these other things that if you step out of line with the all-powerful state You just your credit cards turned off. You can't get on a plane. You can't get on a train and Many Christians are being slowly squeezed ostracized by this powerful system Because they're associating with the wrong people and they are their thinking is not in line with the state If an evil ruler would arise in our nation, the same thing could very quickly happen here. The world could turn to evil very quickly. Very quickly. A lot of times we live in fear and we wonder, what would that be like? It could be a horrible thing. Also, Paul is saying to the Thessalonians, if that happened to us, he's saying to Thessalonians it is happening, He's saying to us, if that happened to you, you don't need to be afraid. But being in Christ, it would be manifest evidence, manifest evidence, listen to this, that you were counted worthy of the kingdom of God. And that's what all our sufferings are in Christ. They are manifest evidence, headline, capital letters, This one I have chosen in this fallen world to follow me by taking up a cross and suffering. And the more the fires of persecution turned up, the more evidence you would have of the privilege of following Jesus. And the more certainty you would have concerning the glory of his second coming, and the rest and rescue that he will bring to his saints. I was watching a documentary on the persecuted church. Someone who had gone through the wards in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s and witnessed the terrible wreckage of that time. and also related the persecutions of the prior communist era. And he said, you know, what I am praying for the church in the West in its ease and abundance is that you would know a little of the sweetness of communion with Christ in the fires of persecution, because I think it was then that we loved Christ more than we ever have. Don't be afraid of persecution. It's a privilege. Jesus, said the same. Again, the apostles in Acts chapter five, they were they rejoiced that they were kind of worthy to suffer for the name Jesus. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad. It's the same language of the apostle Paul, for great is your reward in heaven. And if you have Christ with the apostles saying this, nothing can be taken away. and you will be vindicated, and He will give you rest. Second, these truths should make you quicker to repent. The believer also should think about the holiness of Jesus Christ at His coming. The language of the text is the language of flaming fire vengeance. Punishment with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power when He comes in that day. Although this language is directed against the persecutors, the believer is the one who sees, hears, and understands the holiness of Christ. The reason the persecutor keeps persecuting is because he doesn't believe this is true. But in these words, we see something of the majesty, glory, holiness, perfect splendor, boundless power, vindicating glory of Jesus Christ. And it should cause your view of Jesus Christ and His holiness and power to grow. And it should make you, as a believer, filled with awe and wonder that your sins have been forgiven, can fall at the feet of the judge of all the earth, and know Him as your Savior. That when that manifest evidence of final judgment and everlasting punishment comes on the wicked, there's going to be a way, there's going to be a people that are going to be able to look at the same glory and with awe and wonder and worship fall down before the same holiness in safety because of the cross. You're going to hear Him say, Depart from me, I never knew you. You're going to see the judgment of the wicked before your very eyes, the workers of iniquity that will be carried away. We'll be witnesses to Christ's utterances of judgment against the wicked. We'll see it. Matter of fact, the Bible says we'll sit on thrones and judge with it. Again, this will be a future reality. For those who love and trust Jesus Christ, we've been shielded in Christ, saved from the wrath to come. But as we think about the manifestation of that glory, it should make us quick to repent of sin and turn to the Lord with humility. And if you've been playing games with sin, one of the reasons is you haven't been thinking clearly about the end. and let the thoughts of the holiness of Jesus Christ filter through your life, change your decisions, reorder your priorities, and make you willing to let go of whatever you need to let go of, remembering that He is a Holy King. Once I had to write a hard letter to a friend. He departed the faith. I talked with him, I spoke with him, I pled with him. And he had renounced Jesus Christ and followed a false religion. And finally I wrote him a letter and I said, my, my friend, my friend, you know, everything that I've told you, but there's a great day coming when I will have to stand before Jesus with you. And I'll have to tell him what I told you about him, where I will bear witness to the fact that I warned you about this day. I plead with you to repent now. There's an urgency connected to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Remember that Christ paid the price for us to be safe in that day and praise him for the cross. Third thing to look at briefly is the glory of Jesus Christ on that day. When he comes in that day, look at verse 10, to be glorified in his saints and be admired among all those that believe because our testimony among you was believed. What will be the glory of Jesus Christ when he comes? The Apostle Paul seems to be picking up on themes here from maybe Malachi chapter three, that the Lord will come one day to take up his jewels. Part of the glory of Jesus Christ will be the train of believers that he has redeemed that gather around him, those who will admire him. He will be admired among all those who believe because the testimony among you was believed. that the manifestation of the judge of all the earth will also be the manifestation of the glorious, all-sufficient, beautiful Savior worthy of eternal admiration for all God's people. And that should make you pray both for the persecuted church and for you as a believer. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. And to remember that when he comes, the one in whom you have believed will be there face to face to be admired. And you will see the glory of His power, holiness, beauty, and grace. So get on your knees today and pray. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, with a full sense of the manifest glory that will be on that day. Repent quickly of your sins. Remember that your sufferings are never in vain and live and long for that day of glory when he comes. Let's pray. Lord, we ask for this morning again, a clearer view, an eternal perspective. Lord, we pray that you would help us to see that your future judgment can already be manifest in present realities. Lord, that those who suffer for righteousness sake are being counted worthy of your kingdom and that those who persecute, mock, blaspheme and reject the gospel or that their judgment is being made evidence already in the present. We pray that our minds would often run to that final day. Lord, we thank you for the promise of the vindication of your suffering people around the world. The wickedness and the wicked will be destroyed. The kingdom of darkness will be vanquished, that there will be everlasting destruction, that there will be a final end to the sadness and suffering of your people. Lord, we praise you that there will be rest for the people of God, that there will be an end to suffering and tears on that day when you appear in manifest glory for the admiration of your people Lord, we long for that day. We pray that this eternal perspective would shape the small decisions that we make this week. Lord, that in everything and anything that we do, that we would recognize that right now counts forever. Lord, that today is linked to eternity. Lord, that your manifest, the manifest evidence of your righteous judgments begins now. We pray then that we would live in communion with you, obey the gospel, and long for that great day of vindication. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. We sing together, and I hope you have the insert. There's a hymn insert. Low he comes with clouds descending. And on one side of the page, you will see that there's verses set out, the printed side, those are the verses we're going to sing. If you're looking at the music side, make sure that you are singing the same verses that's set out on the back of the page. Let's stand and sing concerning the second coming of Jesus Christ. ♪ O'er the mountains proudly standing ♪ ♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free ♪ ♪ And the home of the brave ♪ Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! God, our only begotten Son, earth to reign! ♪ Every eye shall now behold Him ♪ ♪ Clothed in dreadful majesty ♪ ♪ Those who stand at night and saw Him ♪ ♪ Lips that melt into a dream ♪ the sea ♪ And the earth shall reawaken ♪ ♪ All who wait here must come round it ♪ ♪ Hear the trumpets proclaim the day ♪ ♪ Come to Charlottesville ♪ ♪ Come to Charlottesville ♪ Come, dear judgment, come, dear judgment, come away. The redemption long expected seems solemn from the fear. All his saints are dead and rejected, Thou shalt be their believer. Alleluia! Alleluia! ♪ Alleluia, sing of the day of God appeared ♪ ♪ Yet a remnant of my journey ♪ ♪ I am thy eternal throne ♪ Savior, take the power and glory. Make the kingdom for Thy own. O come, quickly! O come, quickly! Oh, come quickly, Alleluia, come, Lord, come.