All right, go ahead and open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 2. 1 Thessalonians 2. Tonight will be in verses 17 through 20. 1 Thessalonians 2, beginning in verse 17. But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person, not in heart, We endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you, I, Paul, again and again. But Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before the Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory. and our joy. It's the passage we'll be considering tonight. Before we get to that though, I wanted to ask for those of you that were here last week with Dr. Van Doodenward, I believe you guys covered verses 13 to 16, who can get me up to speed on what y'all talked about last week? Where are we left off? Not all at once, please. Yes? We talked about how Paul was thankful to God for the Thessalonians and for how they received the gospel as the word of God and not as the word of man. And then also he was thankful that the word was producing spiritual change in their lives. What's the distinction between... How does Paul mean they received his preaching as the word of God? I was preaching the Word of God. Yes, Mr. Cantino. Yeah, very good. Anybody else have anything to add to that? It's one of the most important verses for the Reformed understanding of Scripture. and that God's word, the meaning of any particular passage is not just the words on the page. but all of the good and necessary consequences, all of the proper deductions from that word, so that God's intent in writing it includes more than the words themselves, but all of the necessary fallout from those words. And the classic example that I go to all the time, this is Paul saying that, that the accurate preaching of the word of God is in a very real sense, the word of God. As the preacher is unfolding correctly the text, God is speaking through him. And the classic example that I always go to to point this out is Matthew, I think it's 22, where the Sadducees come to Jesus denying the resurrection. And he says, you are wrong because you do not know the power of God, nor do you know the scriptures. And Jesus points them to Exodus chapter three. And he says, for Moses said, God through Moses said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore, he is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And Jesus' point there is because God used a present tense, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 400 years after those guys died, there's a sense in which they're still alive, therefore, the resurrection. Jesus is saying that the good and necessary consequences of the teaching of scripture are the word of God as well. And so Paul has been ruminating on his ministry to the Thessalonians and his great affection for them. And he's going to now turn at the end of chapter two and begin to talk about how eager he is to see these dear Christians again. And you all know what it's like to be away from those whom you love. for an extended period of time, and then you start thinking about times that you shared together. Maybe these are friends from a camp, or maybe they're cousins or some other kind of extended relatives that you only see a couple times a year. But you think about the time that you spent with them, and then you instinctively, reflexively desire to see them, but there's something in the way. Maybe it's time, if they live far away. It's distance. You don't have freedom in your schedule. You've got obligations. There's something in the way. And that's the point that Paul is at, at this point in the letter, is wrestling through that. And so we're going to look at this and it's going to break down pretty neatly into three sections. Paul's desire is verse 17, Paul's desire. Paul's opponent, verse 18, and then why it matters to Paul, verses 19 to 20. So his desire, his opponent, and why it matters to him. First of all, we'll look at Paul's desire. Who wants to be brave and bold and look at your Bible and look at chapter two, verse 17, and tell me with courage, what is Paul's desire according to chapter two, verse 17? To be with the Thessalonians. To be with the Thessalonians. Well done. That's some, that's some exegetical brilliance there. Now what's interesting is, is not, uh, is it, what we're going to focus on is, is not building up to that desire. So that's explicitly on the surface. But what's interesting to consider is why does he long so much to see them face to face? We learn a lot about our relationships, particularly in the church from Paul's desire as he lays it out in this passage. So he starts 17 by talking about how they have been torn away from the Thessalonians. I think that, I know that's how the ESV renders it. Is that how the, who has something else? I know Dusty probably has a King James, Anya has a King James. What's that say? Torn away, something like that. Being taken from you for a short time. Being taken from you. All right. You got something else, Jack? I have a little English problem. Okay. What do you got? Try even harder to see. No, the first part of verse 17. being bereaved. Bereaved of you? Okay. Interesting choice. It's actually, it's actually a good one. The more that I think about it. He starts talking about how they've been torn away. And that's of course a reference to, as we've talked about the last couple of times that I was here when we did this study, the riot that erupted in Thessalonica that's recorded in Acts 17. Verses 1 to 7 where where Paul and Silas and Timothy basically have to sneak out of town at night in the dark because the town is coming to Arrest them so he's talking about how they've been torn away and even though that happened he can't wait to get back to them because of As has been a theme for most of our study of this letter, Paul loves these people. He loves them deeply. Just the opening words of verse 17 hold forth that in familial terms. He describes them as brothers in the first part of verse 17. Leon Morris explains, the apostle strongly desires to return to the scene of his labors, a desire arising from his deep regard for his converts. He calls them brothers. And then his word for torn away, the most literal Greek rendering there would be having been orphaned of you. And so there's a strong familial bond there. And it's important to note that in the Greek word there, and the concept of orphan actually works both ways. Like we hear orphan and we tend to think child with no more parents. But orphaned, it could also work the other way, a parent who has had their child taken from them. So actually, even though I kind of made fun of it, bereaved works rather well there. The point is that he's trying to get across this is a deep, loving bond that he has for them. And because of that deep love for them, there's a sense in which they could never really, truly be separated. That's why he says that we've been torn apart for a short time, in person, but not in heart. in person but not in heart. There's a true, although mysterious, sense in which all true believers are always united, are always together. because we are in Christ, and Christ is never separated, and so we cannot be separated from one another. Our confessional standards would point to this. Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 25, section one, speaks of the invisible church. It says, the Catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ, the head thereof, and the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth All in all, so it speaks of this mystical communion that we have with all believers across time so that not even death ultimately separates us. Paul talks this way about the church in Ephesians chapter 1 as well. We actually sing about this every Lord's Day when we sing the doxology, right? We sing, praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him all creatures here below. praise him above ye heavenly hosts. We're admonishing the saints who have gone on to glory that they also are to join with us in the praise of God. So there's a sense in which believers across all time are always connected to fellow Christians. And I, I'm going to lay down for you. I don't fully understand that. I just can say the Bible teaches that the believers, those who are united to Christ by faith are one in a real sense, although admittedly it's mysterious. You're always connected to those fellow Christians who are nearest and dearest to your heart. However, while that is true, there's something else that we need to learn that's very important about Christian fellowship here, and that's that even though Paul and these believers in one sense have never been separated, he still very much desires physically being reunited being brought back together in time and space, as it were. G.K. Buell points out, the main point of chapter 2, 17 to 20 is Paul's longing to be with the Thessalonians again, which is expressed repeatedly to the point of awkwardness to underscore his desire for reunion. goes through and he basically just walks through the whole passage. He expresses his separation from them by the metaphor of having been orphaned, highlighting that he wants to see them begin again because they're members of the same family and works through passage. And the point is, it's very important to Paul that they know not only are we connected in heart, but that I want to be physically present with you all again. And the takeaway then is that the Christian life, is more than physical, obviously, but it is not less than physical. God made you body and soul, and therefore God cares what happens both to your body and to your soul. And that may sound obvious to some of you, but lots of Christians have mistakenly picked up a form of Gnostic thought that's very prevalent in our culture. Can anybody tell me, does anybody know what Gnosticism is? Try it. I know the term well, but I don't remember the definition. Okay. Anybody have a loose idea of what Gnosticism is? G-N-O-S. Yeah. Is it special knowledge? Okay. Yes. That is what it means. Reserve knowledge for extra holy people, is that right? Yes. And what, does anybody know, there's a particular thing that's associated with this. So it's not special knowledge. Yes, that's correct. What is this special knowledge? It has to do with the distinction between the body and the soul. All right. Gnosticism. The special knowledge is a lot of different things, but one very key thing that they all have in common is that the physical material world is bad in Gnostic thought. And the spiritual world is good. So everything that's physical is bad. Everything that's spiritual is good. And the way that that works into Christianity is a lot of Christians have this idea that When I die, my soul is freed from this prism that is my body. My soul is the real me and my body is just a vessel that I indwelt while I was here. A lot of people think that way. A lot of people think it does not matter what happens to your body, but that is not Christian teaching. That's not the way the Bible lays it out. The Bible says that God created Adam, body and soul and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils and then Adam, body and soul became living creature. The Westminster Shorter Catechism would also say that the souls of believers are at their death made perfect and do immediately enter into into glory. And their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection. That's Shorter Catechism 37. So the point that I'm getting at here and what Paul is laying out is it matters to him that that there is a soul-level spiritual connection with these people, but he's not content with just that. He wants to be physically present with them as well. Now, what are some implications that one might derive from the fact that communion with other believers is ultimately realized both physically and spiritually, as it were? What are some things that we might work out from that? I'll give you one. And this was a huge debate, even in the reform world during the pandemic. Why not just move church to online? Can't do that. For a time, for a season, yeah, if you're sick, it's perfectly permissible to stay home and watch the service on livestream. But it's not the church if we're not gathered. It's not the church unless we're together, uh, body and soul. Yes, for seasons and times it's, it's of course permissible, but there's a need for physical connection and physical closeness in the same way that, um, you guys probably enjoy getting together in the same room to talk more than, I don't know, a zoom meeting. Zoom meetings are terrible, but if you can be together, there's an intangible difference there. Um, I, I am not satisfied. You know, when I was, going to Charlotte every week for classes, I would do FaceTime calls with my wife and kids. That is not the same as being there. It's not even a close substitute. It's the best we could do in a pinch, but it's not the same. Why? Because there's to be a physical and spiritual closeness that we have with one another. All right, so that's Paul's desire. Let's talk about Paul's opponent. Verse 18. Again, deep skills are going to be required here to understand verse 18 well, but who wants to take a stab at who is Paul's opponent? Ponder. Satan. That's right. All right. Satan is Paul's opponent. Very good. And we're reminded of one very important thing here. And that's simply this. There is a real devil. Right now. I think sometimes we don't, um, We don't talk about him a lot, sometimes because it's uncomfortable, but also because while he's a very important figure in the Bible, he's not one that comes up in a lot of passages, right? There's the garden. There's some allusions to him in Exodus. There's some stuff in Job. So from Exodus to Job, just think about what a big gap that is in the number of books that are in between there. There's some stuff very early in the Gospels. He's not a, he doesn't get a lot of, if the Bible were a movie, we would say he doesn't get a lot of screen time, but he's a very important character. And so this is as good a time as any to just discuss what we know, because while the Bible doesn't address a lot about him, it does tell us some things that are very important. First of all, one thing that we know for sure about him is that he is a creature, which means he is not the creator. Now, when I put it like that, hopefully a lot of you are thinking, well, duh, Pastor Early, he's a creature. Of course, good. But again, subconsciously, a lot of people have this backwards idea that Satan is somehow like a bad version of God, right? Like they're somehow equal and God is the good one and Satan is the bad one. It's like a lot of people have the idea that the spiritual world is like, I don't know, the first run of Marvel movies where you've got Iron Man and then the bad guy is the bad version of Iron Man. And then you've got Captain America and the bad guy is the bad version of the guy who gets the serum and on down you go, right? A lot of people have that idea, but that is simply not true. Uh, he is a creature. Now what this means is Satan is not omnipresent. He cannot be more than one place at once. He is not omniscient. He does not have all knowledge. He's got more knowledge than you do, but he is not omniscient like God is. He is not omnipotent. That means he does not have all powerful. but he is still greater than us. He is a fallen angel. You can read about, generally it's agreed on that Isaiah 14, 12 to 17 discusses his fall. Revelation 12, four to nine explicitly states that he's a fallen angel from heaven. So he's powerful, but he is nonetheless still a creature. Another thing that we can say for certain about Satan is that he hates, hates the church. You can go ahead and flip in your Bible to Revelation chapter 12. Revelation chapter 12 is probably the most important chapter in the Bible on the devil. Revelation 12, beginning in verse 12. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows his time is short. And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given to the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she is to be nourished for a time and times and half a time. There's a lot going on here, but the point is this. The serpent poured forth water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman. and the earth opened up its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon had poured forth in his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea." And there's a lot of imagery going on there. And I don't have time to lay out the full case, but the gist of it is this. Up until the crucifixion of Christ, Satan's primary mission was to stop that from happening. That was his prime directive, to stop the child from being born, right? This is generally what's seen as going on spiritually in the Exodus, when Pharaoh has all of the male Israelite children killed. This is generally what's seen as going on. A lot of people think this is what's going on when Saul is trying to kill David, who would be in Jesus' royal line. A lot of people also think this is what's behind Herod having all of the male children killed in the early chapters of the Gospels. Satan is at work trying to prevent Jesus from getting to the cross. This was the whole point of the temptations of the wilderness. And now after the crucifixion and resurrections happened, he can't prevent that from happening. All that's left to do is to go after you and me, that is the church, to seek to destroy the church. Satan hates the church. And that's what he has spent the last 2000 years trying to destroy. I can't prove this, but I do believe that you hear about people like Muhammad or Joseph Smith having these encounters with angelic beings and getting a new revelation for what the word of God really is. And it winds up being like total heresy and waging war on the church. I think those men actually did have supernatural encounters. I think those heresies are springing forth from him. Now, what I can say for sure, though, is while I can't prove any of that, that's just a theory. Because he is not omniscient, because he is not omnipresent, you are very unlikely to ever encounter him. I don't mean to be harsh, but I don't think anyone in this room, myself included, is likely to rise to a Spiritual level of significance that Satan's going to direct his specific onslaught on you, right? There are some people through church history that have. Martin Luther claims to have had these encounters. I tend to believe him. But that's few and far between. Our biggest enemies will be the flesh and his other legions. That's a lot of information on the devil, mostly because it very rarely comes up, and I want you to at least know those things. Now, we're going to blitz through this last section. Before I do, though, Against my better judgment, questions? Yes? So you said that Satan is not omniscient, but does he like, to what degree does he have a higher level of knowledge than we do of like the future? Sure. Great question. So he does not know with certainty the future. He is wiser than us in the sense, though, that he's been around since the beginning of creation and has accumulated a great deal of knowledge. And he very well, I'm sure, knows what the church believes about the future. And I think maybe in the back of it, this is pure speculation, but would know what we think and is probably right. I got Cansino, and then I'll come to you guys. We say that he knows God's plan, so he's always trying to foil it. He knows the scripture, right? He's able to quote the scripture to use in temptations against Jesus in the wilderness. He quotes Psalm 90. He knows the prophecies. He just is in hostile rebellion against them. It's taught in Isaiah 14 that he fell because of his pride, and so that's, again, that's where I tend to fall. He is deluded and deceived by his pride into, while he knows the doctrine, not believing it. Does that make sense? Okay, Josiah and then Ford. No, he's in time. Yes. He has a beginning. God alone is outside of time. So every creature would be in time. Does that? I'm sorry, yeah, we can talk later. Fork? This is like a multi-part question that would take me a long time to explain, but how does Satan interact with people through living with us, through attempting us? Does that make sense? Yeah, so I think nine out of ten is I think the overwhelming majority of humans that are facing temptation that's outside of their flesh is demonic, but it's not Satan directly. Does that make sense? Sorry, I think I communicated as well. It's kind of a hard question to ask. Sure. I'm just asking, how could Satan and his demons dwelling in a spiritual dimension affect humanity in a material dimension without directly invading our conscience, which he can't do? I can't answer that. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not, we would have to talk about that question more in depth to make sure I understand the question, but yeah. By the way, I also think the majority of temptations that we face are from our own sinful desires. I think, I think the demonic temptations, while real, are the exception rather than the rule. But go ahead. Like with Job? Yeah. Because he's like tempting Job, but he's not in sin. So he's working circumstances against Job. He's not going into his mind and creating sin, but he's affecting the situations of Job's life to push him to curse God and die, as it were. So building on that, so Satan asks the Lord if he could do a bunch of bad things to Joe. One of those was creating a whirlwind to knock down a building on top of his children. So did Satan have the power to create that whirlwind? Does he have power over creation? I want to say In the same sense that you and I also have power to affect and change things in the created order he to a higher degree Because he's an angelic spiritual being but not to the same degree that God does Okay, let's move on and then I'll entertain more questions after class why does all of this matter I Why is it that the Apostle Paul is willing to repeatedly, he says again and again, butt heads with Satan to try and get to these Christians? It's a very, very simple answer. It's because he loves them. That is how much he loves them. He's willing to endure and continue to do battle again and again and again to get to them. Because in the same way, and you guys will find this out as you get older, that your parents, would do anything to make sure that you are physically provided for, that you have food and clothing and a place to lay your head at night. Your parents would literally do anything for that. Paul, as their spiritual father, has that same level of nurturing care for their own spiritual well-being and their own spiritual good. And I don't want to make this too dramatic, but it's an illustration that popped in my head while I was working on this this afternoon. It might be helpful for you guys. Um, I don't know about where y'all were last night, but where I was, that storm was awful. Did anybody see like, it was, I had never seen hail that big in my life. Okay. And our power was out for like six or seven hours. And so we've got no power and hungry kids. When the storm had passed and was no longer going on, I placed a mobile order to Chick-fil-A. The guy tried to come out, found one closed road because there was a tree down, turned around and went back and canceled my order. Fair enough. I wasn't, in his view, we were just as customers, not worth it. I respect that. That's fine. It normally takes me 15 minutes to get home from church. It took me an hour and 10 minutes last night because of the storm. I had to go three or four different ways running into closed roads, flooded roads, all kinds of stuff. But I kept going even in the middle of the storm. Why? Because that's my family and I need to be with them and waiting it out or finding it or going tomorrow or whatever wasn't an option because I love them in a way that that Chick-fil-A worker rightfully does not. So I'm not trying to throw him under the bus. I'm saying there's a, I'm saying, I'm saying there's a, there's a difference in affection that makes the difference in the, in the being willing to do it. And Paul, as their faithful minister cares about them and calls them. The language that he uses here is amazing. He says, what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus Christ that is coming. He says, it's you guys. It's, it's, it's you. You are my spiritual children and I care for you. You are what I hope to present before the Lord at the last day. You are our glory and our joy. That's language that you would think if you didn't know the rest of the verse, he was talking about the Lord Jesus, but he's saying, no, it, I'm hoping to present you guys pure and blameless to the Lord. That's how much I care about you. That's how important your spiritual wellbeing is to me, and that's why I'm willing to go through all of this. Let's pray. God in heaven, we give thanks to you for the truth of your word. We give thanks to you for the model it provides for us and how we are to care for and love one another, both in spirit and in truth, both in soul and in the physical world as well. And we thank you, Lord, You have promised that while the gates of hell will rail against your church, they will not prevail, but Christ will protect us. Lord, I pray that you would do that for us this evening and in the days to come. In Christ's name we pray, amen.