Amen. Well, this morning we're in for what I trust is going to be a very enjoyable time in our study of God's Word. Today, as we give our attention to the study of Scripture, we're going to approach this morning's message a little bit different than normal. I'm going to cause Chuck to go into convulsions here momentarily. Today I'm going to start with an exposition of the text and then we're going to do an introduction. So I'm gonna mess up his notes and Dan's doing his on the computer so he'll be able to move it, but I'm gonna mess up Chuck and his note-taking here. And I'm really gonna introduce then today's message and next week's message as well because of the nature of the text. And so this is either gonna be a lot of fun or really confusing and I'll just do a do-over next week. But anyways, if you'll take your Bibles together with me and look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, we're going to look at verses 1 through 5 this morning. I'll even dabble into 6 a little bit. And then I'm going to step back, I'm going to scroll the camera back and take a look at all of Scripture so that next week we can jump into the details that Paul addresses. And I think you'll understand what I'm talking about here in a minute when we get into it. Couple of quick notes before we get into 2 Thessalonians 2. I remind you what most of you know very well, Paul is writing to the Thessalonians to encourage them. They're a young church, they're about a year, year and a half old. Paul planted that church. He was there at most a couple of months and then was driven out due to persecution. In fact, as he headed down the coast to Berea, the Jews and others that were upset with him preaching there in Thessalonica even pursued him and sent him off into the sea, took a ship around. headed to Athens and then ultimately in Corinth. And so when he writes 2 Thessalonians, the church has been in existence for about a year and Paul spent maybe three months with them at maximum. They're a young church then, and yet in 1 Thessalonians, Paul commends them for being a model church. A model church not just because they are bearing up under the persecution, but they're also practicing the one another's and very faithful in preaching the gospel to those around them. He says that in 1st Thessalonians 1, he echoes it again about three months later when he writes 2nd Thessalonians saying in 2nd Thessalonians 1 verses 3 and 4, we ought always to give thanks to God for you brethren as his only fitting. Why? Because your faith is greatly enlarged and the love of each of you toward one another grows ever greater. You really are being everything that God would expect you to be as a Christians, even with as little as you know and as new as you are to the Christian faith. And this is the reason, verse 4, that we speak proudly of you among the churches of God because of your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. See, it's not just that you're a model church because you're practicing the one and others, you love Christ and you love each other and you're seeking to live a progressively more and more sanctified life. It's because even in the midst of that, you're faithful in preaching the gospel and you continue to preach the gospel even though it's costing you. Even though you're being assaulted and persecuted, afflicted, and people saying all manner of evil against you for the sake of Christ, you really are worthy to be commended. So be encouraged. And that's what Paul covers in the rest of 2 Thessalonians 1. When we get to 2 Thessalonians 2 and 3, Paul is now going to go beyond that word of initial encouragement, and he's going to give them some instructions in chapter 2 to correct a false doctrine that has become present there in that church. And then in chapter 3, he's going to begin to address practical issues, particularly related to, well, an exercise of church discipline and things of that nature. As we look at chapter 2 now, just those opening verses, what you're going to see as we just start our study here, you'll notice that the Apostle Paul addresses a doctrinal problem that is going on in the church. And in our text, he's going to teach them with three quick exhortations about God's unchanging plan for redemptive history. God's plan for redemptive history is unchanging. It's everlasting. It's decreed in the Old Testament, and it is continuing to be progressively fulfilled, even through the New Testament, all the way to the consummation of redemptive history. And Paul's going to give three quick exhortations to the saints in Thessalonica here, and he's going to tell them, number one, don't be disturbed. Number two, don't be deceived. And number three, don't be daft. Now daft might seem a little harsh, but I had to make the D's so that Chuck appreciated it. Okay, so we have the three D's here. And it's a very quick exhortation. It says, don't be disturbed by the teaching that you're getting that's contrary to what you received from us originally. And don't be deceived by it. What we taught you to begin with is exactly what's going to happen. And don't be daft. Remember what we taught you from the beginning, because it's still true. Now, I'll walk you through this in 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 1 to 5 quickly. Paul says, Now we request you, brethren, And you'll notice even the gentle nature with which Paul gives this exhortation. Says we request you brethren with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed don't be disturbed there's point one. Either by a spirit or a message or a letter is as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. So this is the doctrinal problem that Paul is addressing in the church. Now, this is a major doctrinal subject, which is why we're going to do an introduction on that subject here in a minute. But Paul, to start with, addresses that subject specifically because there is an errant unbiblical understanding that is running through the church at this point. And Paul says, don't be disturbed by people that are saying to you what we taught you is not the way it's going to be, or that somehow things have changed. We request you, brethren, with regard to what? What doctrine? With regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus and our what? Gathering together with Him. So what is the subject? Jesus coming back and the rapture, our gathering together with Him. Now, if you're familiar with 1 Thessalonians, you know that the Apostle Paul just wrote to them a few months ago about this very subject. If you take your Bible and turn back to 1 Thessalonians 4, in 1 Thessalonians 4, Three or four months, at most six months earlier, Paul addressed a subject that was of great concern to the saints there in Thessalonica, which maybe seemed silly to us, but they were afraid that believers who died would miss out on the rapture. Well, now that sounds silly, doesn't it? Well, remember, the Apostle Paul got to spend at most three months teaching them. So he would have told them about the rapture. And later on, so a believer dies. And now they're afraid that that believer is going to miss out on all the glories to come in the rapture in the kingdom and all that stuff. Well, Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 4, starting in verse 13, notice his instruction on the rapture is of a corrective nature. He's seeking to correct a misunderstanding here. He does the same thing in 2 Thessalonians 2. We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep. That's the normal way the apostle Paul refers to a believer who dies. We don't want you to be uninformed. We don't want you to be ignorant. We don't want you to not know about what happens brethren to those who are asleep. Why? So that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. I don't want your reaction to the death of a believer to be the reaction of like an unbeliever. Because if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, fundamental Christian tenet, right? Fundamental basic truth of the gospel. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, why is the resurrection so essential to understanding the gospel? Because if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then we won't either. God has not fulfilled his promises. Christ's death was not satisfactory to pay for our sins. If he's still dead, his death proves that he had sin. But if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. If you're a Christian, if you have died with faith in Jesus Christ, your death doesn't mean you're going to miss out on anything when He comes back. You'll be coming back with Him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord. In other words, this isn't just me saying this, this is straight from who? From God. This is by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede, we will not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. Why? Because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds To meet the Lord in the air and so we shall always be with the Lord now that's the That's the primary passage on the rapture. By the way, the word rapture comes from the Latin rapturo. Yes, it will be on the quiz, Kyle. The Latin term rapturo means to be snatched away suddenly, to be caught up. Well, why do we say rapture? Why not use harpazo, which is the Greek word? Because the Bible originally was translated into Latin and used in the Roman church historically, and so that terminology continued to make its way even into scholarship through the Middle Ages and through the Reformation period, and so that's why we use that Latin term. Just like there are many Latin terms in the medical profession and the legal profession, so too Latin terms have made their way into theological studies. Rapture is just a fancy way to refer to being snatched away or caught away. Suddenly, and that's exactly what Paul is telling us here. And it's not Paul's idea. This we say to you by the word of the Lord, by instruction from God himself, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. When the Lord comes, the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, the voice of an archangel, the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. I still get a tickle out of this. Every time I see this passage, I think of J. Vernon McGee. Somebody says, well, why do they get to go first? And J. Verna McGee said, because they have six feet further to go. I just, I don't know why it still tickles me to this day. But in any case, they rise first and then we who are alive get caught up together with them and we all together meet the Lord in the air and he takes us home. Now, if you're familiar with Daniel's 70th week, which we will begin to introduce today and start next week's message with, you understand that that's the tribulation period. This is what kicks off the tribulation. This is what begins to unfold God's plans for the consummation of redemptive history. It leads into the kingdom and ultimately into the new creation. And what Paul is saying here in 1 Thessalonians 4 is, I don't want you to be ignorant of this truth. And I don't want you to grieve at the death of a believer like those who have no hope grieve as though, oh, poor them, they're gonna miss out. So this is a basic misunderstanding that they had about the rapture and the nature of the rapture. So Paul is comforting them. Notice verse 18, therefore comfort one another with these words. When a believer dies for them, absence with the body, as Paul says, the Corinthians is present with whom? with the Lord, and then when Christ comes back, those who are alive get immediately translated into glory, and those who are dead are risen together with Christ, and then we all go to glory, and we wait to come back with Him in Revelation 19. Now, you go back to 2 Thessalonians 2. We request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together with him. Notice he is again talking about the subject of Christ's return and the rapture. And in this context, he says, we request with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him that you not be quickly shaken from your composer, from your mind, from your thinking, from your understanding, or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. And guess what they're afraid of now? In first Thessalonians, they were afraid that believers who died missed out on everything. Now what are they afraid of? That they missed it and we're in the day of the Lord. Well, where did they get this idea? Well, we're not exactly told. But we're given three sources that Paul addresses, and I can't imagine he comes up with all three of these if at least one of them wasn't the case, okay? He says, we request you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed, either by a spirit or by a message, that is a word, a statement, a teaching, an instruction. Or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come well guess what that means That means that either somebody has come to the church from the outside and said I have a message from God from a spirit or I have a message from the Apostles whether the Apostles in Jerusalem or the Apostle Paul or I have a letter That's written by Paul to deliver here and in that letter or that summarizing that message or giving you this prophetic word. I'm telling you that the day of the Lord is here. We're in the tribulation. It is the time of wrath. Why would somebody believe that because of the persecution there under? Isn't that what's just been addressed in Chapter 1? God's going to hold him accountable for it. God's going to judge him. Be encouraged. So what Paul is addressing now in chapter 2 is again a correction of a misunderstanding with regard to the second coming and the rapture. He says don't be disturbed even if somebody sends you a letter and signs our name to it. You get into the question, well, did they really get a letter? And who wrote this letter and where did it come from and all that stuff? Well, none of that is preserved. And it's not even a guarantee that it did come. It might be that he throws this last one in just to make sure that even if somebody forges a letter and says it's from me, don't believe it, because what I taught you to begin with is the truth. So we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are gathering together to him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure, from your mind, or be disturbed either by a spirit, somebody stands up and gives a prophetic word, or a message, somebody says, I heard that Paul was teaching this, or the apostles are saying that, or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come, that it's here, that we miss the rapture, or that the rapture is after the wrath, Don't be disturbed. And notice, he says, don't be deceived either. Verse 3, let no one in any way deceive you. lead you astray, mislead you, lie to you, convince you in a way contrary to the truth. Why? Because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. Notice how many specific details Paul lines out here. now this is why I said I'm going to do the introduction last and why we're going to come back here and walk through all of these fulfillments and compare them back to Daniel and to Matthew but for now notice the Apostle Paul is giving them a list of things that they should know and that they already know because he's taught them that listen you can't be in the day of the Lord because if you are in the day of the Lord okay Then you would have already had the apostasy you would already have the man of lawlessness revealed You'd already had who is by the way the son of destruction Who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship? Who takes his seat in the temple of God? Where it's about where by the way is the temple of God and in Jerusalem, displaying himself as being God, claiming to be God. By the way, when we walk through Daniel nine, you'll see these are exactly the statements about the son of destruction and what he's going to do. The Antichrist is exactly what he's going to do and where he's going to do it. And it'll be right in the middle of the 70th seven, right in the middle of the tribulation. Guys, you cannot be in the day of the Lord because none of this stuff is happening. That's what Paul's point is. And don't be disturbed. Don't be deceived. And don't be daft. Verse 5, do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? How many of you are as parents? Have said something like this to your kids? You may even said don't be daft. We've already covered this right moms. Okay, look, this is what the apostle, now he's not saying don't be daft, he's saying don't forget. But that doesn't start with a D, so I couldn't use it. But in verse five he says, do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? Don't you remember that from the very beginning, now that goes back about a year, maybe a year and three months or so, tops. Don't you remember that when I was with you, when I first led you to Christ, and I was walking through the Old Testament and sharing with you God's grand plan for redemptive history, don't you remember when I laid out what God is doing? Don't remember I told you from the beginning this is the way it's all gonna go? Don't you remember? Listen, folks, things haven't changed. Do not interpret Scripture on the basis of your personal experience. Do not interpret scripture on the basis of what you think is going to happen based upon the way you see yourself now. You can count on God being faithful to his word and redemptive history following his plan from beginning to end. It is unchanging and everlasting and every promise that God gave with regard to the initial coming of our Lord and Savior. Were fulfilled literally, were they not? Virgin conception. Emmanuel, literally God with us. A descendant of Joseph, and yet he goes around the curse of Jeconiah. Somehow God amazingly worked it out so that every promise related to the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was fulfilled exactly in keeping with what he promised in the Old Testament. Now, do you really think? That he's rolling the dice from this point forward to the consummation. No, everything he said about the way he's going to bring everything to consummation is just as sure and just as certain as everything that has happened so far. Every promise of God is a yes and an amen in Christ and will be fulfilled just as God has promised. Do you not remember that while I was still with you? That goes all the way back to those first two or three months that he was there in Thessalonica. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And by the way, as he starts going through the exposition of the instruction itself to demonstrate or prove his point, he says, and you know what restrains him now so that in his time he will be revealed, referring to the son of destruction. You know what is keeping him from showing up. And I'll just go ahead and give you a hint. Guess who it is that is keeping the son of destruction from showing up? Who is restraining evil? Who is going to be taken out of the way so that evil can run its course? The Holy Spirit. And how will the Holy Spirit be taken away at the rapture? Because he resides within us. Remember, in John 14, there is a radical change that takes place in the ministry of the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament to the New Testament. In John 14, Jesus says to his disciples, with reference to the Holy Spirit, he says he is with you, but he will be in you. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit. You know the Holy Spirit came in a special way upon prophets and upon Saul and upon David, right? Well, we have the Holy Spirit in us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a seal guaranteeing our inheritance. You mean he wasn't in the Old Testament saints? Not like he is in us. Why? Because the once for all offering for our sins had not been made yet. When the rapture takes place, guess what God takes out of this world suddenly and instantly? The church, the great restraining force, and the Holy Spirit within us. Does that mean the Spirit won't be involved in the tribulation? No, He will be. You can read about that in Revelation 6-19. But in Revelation 4, you get the vision in heaven when it all starts to unfold. And by the way, if you're really interested in this, we went through all of this on Sunday nights, I don't know, 12, 14 years ago, something like that. You can listen to all of those if you want. I remember starting that, maybe as a word of encouragement to you here, I remember starting to go through that series and thinking I was just going to preach through the seven letters. My intention was to preach through the seven letters to the seven churches because they're really relevant. to all churches throughout the church age. And then I started to study and got ready to preach the first one, and I realized, oh my goodness, to really set up the seven letters, you need to do chapter one. So I started going through chapter one. By the time I got to the end of chapter two and started in chapter three, I realized, you know what? Revelation isn't that hard. If you just do your work and take it literally and work through the issues one by one, we can go through this. And I just preached through the whole thing. It was a great study. I loved it. I learned so much, I became really convinced that God's Word is able to be understood. All of it. And getting into this passage in these last few weeks, I think I might preach Daniel next, or maybe not necessarily absolutely next, but it's now on the list. In any case, what the Apostle Paul is saying here is, Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? God's plan for redemptive history is unchanging. What he said is what he's going to do. It was true in the sending of the Messiah the first time. It'll be true when the Messiah comes back the second time. And it'll be true when he brings the entirety of creation to a point of consummation. Because all of redemptive history is his story. I really like that view of history. History, you know, when you look at it from a human perspective, as human beings, you know what we learn from history? That we never learn from history. Because we keep repeating the same errors. But from a redemptive historical, from a biblical perspective, you know what we learn from history? We learn it really is His story. And that's what I want to share with you this morning. The introduction to 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2. Really is God's plan for redemptive history. And I know that most of you have been around when we've done this from a salvific perspective. In other words, when we're talking about looking specifically in God's plan to send Christ. To be our Savior and our Redeemer and deliverer. But I want you to know, and this is really in the context of 2 Thessalonians, that God sending Christ to be our Savior wasn't just about our salvation. Okay? Redemptive history, our salvation is part of redemptive history, and God's kindness to us is certainly worthy of our undivided attention and our praise and appreciation. But salvation is way bigger than you or me. Salvation is way bigger than all of us or even all the saints throughout all redemptive history. You want to know what salvation history is really all about? It's all about God. It's all about God. He is the centerpiece, the hero of redemptive history. It's all about him. And the reason that he is working out redemptive history the way it is that he is, is because it demonstrates unequivocally that he is God and there is no other. That he is faithful, that he is true, that he is righteous, that he is just, that he is merciful, that he is kind. That he is true to his word. And that he is sovereign. That he alone deserves to be worshiped. I invite you to take your Bibles and we're gonna look at a lot of passages. None of these will probably, well, most of these will probably not be new to the majority of you. But in Genesis chapter one, we have primeval history. This is Genesis one to 11. The very, very beginnings of history. We see in chapter one, verse one, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The description of creation week is given to us through the rest of Genesis chapter 1. Six times in this chapter, God evaluates the state of His creation at that point and He says it is good. It is good. It is good. When we get to the end of Genesis chapter 1, we see this statement. God saw all that He had made and behold, it was very good. It was tov me'od is what it says in the Hebrew. Very good. Good exceedingly, meaning it's flawless. It's perfect. He had made and behold, take note of this. It was told me owed exceedingly good, flawless, perfect. Whatever happens in Genesis chapter three, whatever happens with the degradation of humanity and creation, it has nothing to do with any shortcoming of God in the nature of the creation itself. The creation itself is perfect. And yes, the Bible says that he created everything out of nothing in six literal days. You say, well, that's not what I hear at school. That's not what my college professors, that's not what the world says. Not what all these scientific experts say. Well, that's what the one who did it says. Now, you can either believe in evolution or you can believe in the Bible. You can either believe in millions of years and and things steamrolled out of a little bang or a big bang or whatever into what we have now, or you can believe what God says, but you cannot have it both ways. And that is what I want to stress in an absolute sense. You say, well, I know there's Christians who say that they believe in evolution and they believe in the Bible. They just put gaps in there or or this, that or the other thing. Well, that's not what it says. And if God cannot communicate truthfully to you what he does in creation, then on what basis do you think that his word was reliable to you in telling you how to live? and how to get saved and when he promises that you have a literal eternity and glory and a new creation, how can you be sure that's true? How can you be sure that what he really means is that you'll just die and at some point, some version of you will evolve? Okay, you cannot have both. You either have the Bible or you have human reasoning. Incidentally, as a footnote here, or maybe as a main point, I'm not sure yet, in Genesis chapter 2, You'll notice that we go back and we look at the events of day six. And verse seven of Genesis chapter two is very clear. We're told when you go back to verse four, it says this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heaven. He says in verse seven, it says in verse seven, the Lord God formed man out of what? Dust from the ground. That is not evolution. That is a literal, physical creation of the first man, Adam, out of dirt. We were made out of dirt. Verse 22. Actually, we'll do 21 and 22. Later on that same day, we're told, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. And he took and he God took one of the man's ribs literally took a chunk out of his side is what it says in Hebrew and he closed up the flesh at that place. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman that rib that chunk of flesh which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. You know how a woman evolved. God took a chunk out of a man and personally fashioned a woman in God's own image. Man was made out of dirt. Woman was made out of a chunk out of the man. There is no death here. There is no evolution here. There is no development here. There is a direct, divine, creative act. That's what the Bible says. That's either true or it's not. If it's not true, if you can't rely on God to get Genesis 1 and 2 right, on what basis do you believe the rest of it? And if you believe the rest of it, why don't you believe Genesis 1 and 2? Has God suddenly become inept, incapable of telling you truthfully what happened? By the way, why didn't God just make a woman out of another pile of dirt? because we are created from the same substance. We are both bearers of God's image, both male and female alike, created with gender distinctiveness and role distinctiveness, ontologically equal, economically subordinate. That's a fancy way to say we're equal in who we are. were equal in our persons and yet created uniquely by God to serve different functions within the context of what? Marriage, which by the way also God defined what marriage is. Now today in California and other places, there's an insistence that marriage ought to be recognized as Adam and Steve as opposed to Adam and Eve. Well, you can do that if you want, but it's immorality. It's unrighteous. It's as much of a violation of God's standard as two women together, or as adultery, or as immorality. It is contrary to divine design and therefore it is an offense to God because it is contrary to the way He created man and woman to be in a one flesh relationship. This is what God ordained and God established. You want to know why today these moral fibers, these basic moral foundational beliefs and principles in our society and in many societies around the world are being assaulted? Because it's an issue of sovereignty. Does God really have a right to tell me what I can or cannot do, whether what I'm doing is right or wrong? Who gets to decide what's right or wrong? You're telling me it's because the Bible says this. I'm telling you it's because God said it in his word. Now, what is the basis for your definition of morality? If it's not scripture, then it is you. And if it's not you, then it's some other human philosophy or reasoning that you have adopted. You come to Genesis chapter three. You have the introduction of an individual that takes the rest of scripture, basically, to inform us as to who this is, and it's the wicked one himself. You'll notice that man does not rebel against God without an external influence. This is key. Genesis chapter 3 in verse 1, the serpent was crafty more so than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. Notice there is nothing inherently wrong with the serpent as a beast of the field. The serpent itself just happened to be out of all the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made, which Genesis 1 told us, all of them were perfect when created. The serpent was the one that inherently was created to be the most crafty. The word, by the way, crafty, literally is just the word for shrewd. How many of us like it when our wives are shrewd when they go shopping for groceries? Yeah. Yeah. Can I get an amen? Yeah. It's good to be shrewd. You get the most bang for your buck that way, right? You don't overspend. You're not wasteful. Sometimes it's more shrewd to stop clipping coupons and pay a little bit extra here because gas is about $85 a drop nowadays. Right? So your shrewdness works out in all of those different elements. Okay. The literal serpent was the most shrewd of all the living creatures which God had made. It takes later revelation to tell us, really, that there's involvement by an entity beyond just this physical creature. But like the rest of Scripture tells us, the serpent of old, who is called the devil and Satan, who led mankind in rebellion here in the garden, is the archenemy of man. He is the one who opposes God. He is the one who in the kingdom period will be locked away, as we saw last week when we went through Revelation 20, he will be locked away for a thousand years so that he cannot deceive the nations. Why would we even have that literal thousand year period? Why is there the need for a 1,000-year earthly kingdom when Christ could just come back and make everything perfect? Why a 1,000-year period of peace on the earth to allow Satan to get released one more time and stir up a rebellion that is instantly wiped out and then the great white throne judgment? Why even have that 1,000-year period there? Is it just to fulfill all the promises God made in the Old Testament? Well, God made a bunch of promises in the Old Testament that have to be fulfilled then, but why have that thousand year period of Christ ruling and reigning on the throne with Satan taken out of the way? You know what it shows? You wanna know why God's doing that? Because it demonstrates once and for all that you cannot say the devil made me do it. It is not all on his shoulders. Now he is the instigator. He is the father of lies. He is the one behind the fall. But the woman and Adam, our greatest grandparents, they willfully disobeyed God, led astray by Satan. Do you know when Satan is taken out of the way for a thousand years and Christ rules and reigns flawlessly for a thousand years? At the end, Satan is released for a short time and he has no problem getting a great mass of humanity to follow him and try to throw out Christ. One last shot at rebellion. Why allow that to happen? To prove once and for all that God is bigger than Satan. And there isn't even a fight. There is no fight in Revelation 19. There is no real fight in Revelation 20. There's just the word of God who said, let there be light, speaks and his enemies are struck down, speaks and Satan in his ultimate rebellion is shut down and cast in the lake of fire. Rebellion against God is futility and foolish and eternally condemned. Well, in Genesis 3, the wicked one deceives the woman and through her leads the man in rebellion against God. And before they are expelled from the Garden of Eden, There's a declaration that God makes. If you walk through the account here, I'm not gonna go through the details, but when God shows up, He addresses not the woman who sinned first, but He addresses the man first. Why? Because the man's the head. And when He says, have you eaten from the fruit of the tree? I commanded you not to eat. He says, yes, Lord, I'm so sorry, please forgive me. No, He says, the woman you gave me, she gave me from the tree. He blames God and the woman instead of assuming responsibility. She essentially does the same thing. And you'll notice. In verse 13, when he comes to addressing the serpent, the Lord God said, excuse me, verse 14, the Lord God said to the serpent, he doesn't ask the serpent what he's done. He simply condemns him because you have done this. Cursed are you more than all cattle, more than every beast of the field on the on your belly. You will go and dust. You will eat all the days of your life. What's that imply? There's a certain level of accountability to that serpent, the physical beast of the field that allowed itself to be used by the wicked one. There is a certain level of accountability and its means of locomotion apparently changed. Some say, does this mean snakes used to have wings or that they used to have legs? Possibly. I think it is pretty clear that the means of locomotion for serpents at this point changed. Now God begins to address the power behind the serpent, the wicked one himself. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. Both words bruise are the same Hebrew word and they literally mean to crush or to smash or to hit in such a way as to cave in. Think about this for a minute. If I crush your heel, what happens? You're in great pain, it's going to take a long time to recover, and in the meantime you're going to walk with a limp, right? And if I crush your head, what's that mean? You're done. You are going to bruise him on the heel. You're going to inflict great pain and harm upon him, but in the end he's going to what? Win, and it'll be over. Notice that this is a declaration that God makes not to the man, not to the woman, but to the serpent. A lot of people refer to this, a lot of commentators and theologians refer to this as the Proto-Evangelion, the first gospel. Because right here, God promises that there will be a seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent, who will ultimately defeat the wicked one who started this whole thing, right? The rest of Scripture unfolds how this seed of the woman will come. The first time to deliver us and the second time to judge. We can get into the questions, and I know we've done this in the past, how can you have a seed of a woman? When you talk about intimate relations, you talk about conception, the man provides the seed, right? So how do you have the seed of the woman? Well, what do you have to have? A miraculous conception. This is where the beginning of even Isaiah 7 comes from, the promise as it continues to unfold throughout the Old Testament. This is where you have Isaiah's promise, the virgin shall conceive. By the way, what's the significance of a virgin? Why did Mary have to be a virgin? You ever think about that? I mean, she was, right? And there was the promise in Isaiah 7, the virgin will conceive, but why a virgin? It doesn't really have to be a virgin to be a miraculous conception to get around the Adamic curse. Why a virgin? So that it is absolutely undeniable that God did it. If you read through Matthew 1, you will see that Joseph doesn't even have relations with Mary until after Jesus is born. She is a virgin and he keeps her a virgin until after she has Jesus. Now, then they have other kids. But up until that point, she's a virgin. Why was that so important? So that there could be no accusation that it was not God who did it. That's why it's a virgin. In the same way that God provided the son of promise, both John the Baptist to his parents and Isaac to his parents, After they were past the age of childbearing so it's no longer physically possible. It has to have been done by whom? God You want to know why God is working the way he is? To give clear testimony to the fact that he himself is the one that's doing it Well, where did this wicked one come from and and what led him to rebel etc and Well, there's two passages in the Old Testament that you could go to, to see where this rebellion started. And these are both prophetic texts that go beyond the immediate context that's being addressed. One is in Isaiah 14, the other's in Ezekiel 28. And for the sake of time, let's just look at Ezekiel 28. We're in the middle of God having a word that He gives to Ezekiel. In this case, in Ezekiel 28, about God's judgment on Tyre because of their wickedness. And when you pick up in verse 11, he goes beyond the king of Tyre, the earthly king, and begins to address the one behind that earthly king, and that is Satan himself. How do you know that? Well, let's look at the details of this lament. Ezekiel 28 verse 11 again the word the Lord came to me saying son of man take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say thus says the Lord God you had the seal a perfection you're full of wisdom and perfect in beauty you were in Eden the Garden of God 0 where you were where in Eden the Garden of God this goes this goes back to pre fall times right Every precious stone was your covering. The ruby and topaz and the diamond, the barrel, the onyx, the jasper, the lapis lazuli, the turquoise, the emerald, and the gold, the worksmanship of your settings and sockets was in you on the day that you were created. They were prepared. You were created. You were stationed in the Garden of Eden. And you are a glorious, beautiful, shiny creation. What was his role? You were the anointed cherub who covers And I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God. This is the anointed cherub, the chief of the angels placed there to defend the very throne of God on the earth. You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. And you were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created. You were created perfectly. until unrighteousness was found where? In you. Well, where did unrighteousness come from? By the abundance of your trade, you were internally filled with violence and you sinned. Therefore, I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground, I put you before kings that they may see you. By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade, you profaned your sanctuaries. Therefore, I have brought fire from the midst of you, and it has consumed you, and I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the eyes of all who see you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you. You have become terrified, and you will cease to be forever. Now there's a point there where God begins to talk again about how God is going to judge the wicked one in entire. But most of it in the middle there, you see, has to be referring to the wicked one and to his fall. And what was the catalyst? Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. You saw how glorious you were in comparison to all the other angels. And I suspect he saw how glorious he was in comparison to mankind that God created in his own image. And God placed man on the earth to rule over God's creation. And God placed Lucifer, the son of the morning, there in the garden of Eden to guard the residence of God on the mountain of God there in the Eden where God dwelled with man. And it seems to me the best way to connect these dots is that the wicked one looks around and he goes, look how awesome I am. I'm even the chief of the angels. And this is who God puts in charge of his creation. And my job is just to stand here and guard the holiness of God. I'm the most exalted of all the spirit beings. And he creates them to rule. I suspect something along those lines. You can look at Isaiah 14. I guess we'll go there. Isaiah 14. Isaiah similarly goes beyond the immediate context of the judgment that he's talking about here. Isaiah 14, we just pick up in verse 12. How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, literally, star of the morning, sun of the dawn. You have been cut down to the earth. You have weakened the nations. Indeed, you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend to the heights of the clouds, and I will make myself like the Most High. What is the chief sin? It's pride, right? What is it that led the wicked one to rebel against God? He saw how glorious and wonderful he was as a created being in comparison to others and thought that meant he should be in charge of everything. You know, it's really fascinating to me when the one who really is worthy to be worshiped by all and is above all He stepped off of his throne and took upon himself the limitations of humanity and became a servant to meet our needs. The one who deserves to be worshipped made himself a servant so that we could be saved. Isn't that totally the opposite of the way Satan thinks? Isn't that exactly the opposite of the way that we think in our sinful, fallen nature? Tell me something. When you look at other people, is it not natural just to compare yourself to them? and to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think? You know who you're being like when you do that? The wicked one. Isn't it really Christian, though, to consider other people as more important than yourself? And even when you're treated as a servant, to just continue to be a servant? You know who you're being like when you behave like that? You're being like Christ. You want to know what the outworking of redemptive history looks like and why it's working in the direction that it is? Because that is the message that God is presenting from cover to cover in the Bible. There's only one who's worthy to be worshipped and that's God. And God doesn't exalt himself. God deserves to be exalted because of His greatness and His glory and His splendor and His righteousness and His mercy. He deserves to be worshipped in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in trials and in triumphs. That's the message that He teaches Job, isn't it? That's the message that He shows us in Christ, isn't it? The one who deserves to be worshipped steps off His throne. in order that we can have a place with Him. You walk through the rest of primeval history in Genesis 1 to 11, you see that God brings upon the world a flood, a global flood, a universal flood. Again, by the way, if that's not universal, that it doesn't cover all the tops of the highest mountains, then you can stop believing your Bible because it claims to be a global flood. There's no way around it. OK, if you don't want to believe that, then you might as well check out of the whole Bible, because if God's word isn't reliable from cover to cover, then it isn't reliable because it claims to be the word of truth. There's a universal flood because of the universal wickedness. There's the need for the universal flood because of the angelic transgression that forces God, according to Jude and 2 Peter, to incarcerate those angels who violated their station in such an extreme way. 2 Peter and Jude both talk about that. Revelation talks about when those demons are released. In the meantime, God delivers Noah and two of every kind on the ark. And when they step off the ark, guess what happened to the world? The world that Noah and his family and all those living creatures step out into is a completely different world than the one they left behind when they got on the ark. It's a completely different world. The Garden of Eden is gone. The Tree of Life is gone. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, gone. It is very possible that, you know, when you look at, have you ever looked at a map stretched out of the globe, stretched out flat? Doesn't it look like puzzle pieces? And maybe it was puzzle pieces. It's very possible there was a Pangea to begin with, one continent. It's very possible that down under was connected, that America was connected. It's very possible. It talks about the upheaval of the land and the splitting and the whole bit. That's very possible. Where'd the Grand Canyon come from? Oh, it's a little bit of water and a whole lot of time. Actually, it's a whole lot of water in a very little time. Well, what about ice ages and stuff like that? Well, guess what happens when you pop a canopy, flood the globe? Guess what happens to both poles? They get cold. And yes, you have glaciers, et cetera. There was no winter prior to the fall. There was no rain like we have it. And yet God preserves man. Why? Because He made a promise in Genesis chapter 3. You know, God in Genesis chapter 3 could have just called an end and created all brand new. You want to know why He didn't? Because He's demonstrating that He, He can save His people. He can accomplish His purposes even if evil runs its course. One more passage and then we'll stop our introduction this morning. Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11. Noah's off the ark. All of his family members are beginning to fill the earth, except they're not going all over the earth. They're all staying together, despite what God commanded. Genesis 11.1. By the way, some people are wondering, well, where did all these languages come from? I'll tell you where. Genesis 11. Isn't it interesting how the Bible has answers to all the questions? And answers that make sense? Where did all the languages come from? Well, Genesis 11-1, the whole earth used the same language and the same words, and it all came about as they journeyed east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and they settled there. And they said to one another, come, let's make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they used brick for stone and they used tar for mortar. And they said, come, let's build for ourselves a city and a tower in that city whose top will reach into heaven. And let us make for ourselves a name, a reputation. Otherwise we'll be scattered abroad over the whole face of the earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men have built. And the Lord said, Behold, they're one people, they all have the same languages, and this is what they begin to do. And now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. So let's go down and confuse their language so they won't understand one another's speech. And indeed, the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. That's why its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. This is what broke the people groups into separate cultures and nations. Want to know why people tend to look similar depending on what part of the world they're from? Because when you're part of one family And all of you speak one language, and the rest of the extended family speaks a different language, and all of you stick together then, because you all understand each other, and everybody else is babbling. Well, I have no idea what any of those people are saying. Kath, you know what? You understand me still? Well, let's get the kids and let's head over to Japan, or let's head over to Australia, or let's head to Africa, or the Americas, or wherever. You want to know why there is a universal, around the world, a universal belief in some kind of a flood? With animals and all that, in most of these ancient cultures, including the Aztecs? You want to know why? Because they all come from those who were descended from Noah, who were on the ark. They all have that common historical experience. that same cultural familiarity, and then when the cultures are broken up by languages, by the way, did you know that pretty much all languages work the same way? You have pretty much the same parts of speech, did you know that? I got a couple of you in here that are learning Greek, your first new language. After you've learned four, five, six, seven, like I have, all of a sudden, the light goes on. It's probably faster for most of you. For me, it took, I think, six languages before all of a sudden I went, Oh, it's just an adverb. And it's gonna have that. And that's how you identify an adverb in this language is, oh, I get it now. Oh, I get it now. And they started coming faster because languages pretty much work the same. They're just different. How do you mark it as past tense in English? E-D at the end. How do you mark it as past tense in Greek? Well, you have an ending that tells you the subject and you put an E on the front. Oh, how cool. Oh, it's just, but. All the languages were confused. Why? What does this have to do with 2 Thessalonians? You want to know why God confused the languages? To force people apart. to force people so that we're separate nations, separate cultures, separate languages, separate peoples that fight each other instead of all just getting together, setting aside all of our differences, coming up with our own definition of morality, establishing our own name, our own culture, our own morals, our own standards, and worshiping ourselves. Throwing God out and doing what we want. What happened in Genesis 6? The world threw God out and did what they wanted, so he wiped them out. Do you know, in the world in which we live right now, do you realize that we have more access to a global audience in cat videos? in kid recitals, and in how-tos, and why-tos, and what-tos, and where-fors. You know you can watch it in any language. Do you know that you can get into a chat room with people? I teach a class, and if it's an online class, I sometimes, I taught a class on Wednesday with somebody in Ukraine in my class. And he apologized that if the bombs go off, I'm going to lose my internet. I said, you don't have to apologize for that. Get under the desk. I'll email you something, right? Listen, this is crossing 11 time zones, guys in my class, OK? You wanna know why we're closer to a one world government, a one world people, united because the language barrier's coming down, the cultural distinctives, the ideologies are starting to mesh. You wanna know why all that's happening? Because we're getting closer to the consummation. God confused the languages so that it couldn't happen right away. because he has a plan for the whole of redemptive history. When you walk through the covenants that God made, progressively he outlines more and more of what he's going to do and how he's going to do it. He made a promise to David that one of his descendants would be the Messiah, that he would rule and reign from the throne. David writes in Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool. It's coming. The kingdom's coming. Christ is coming again. In the meantime, there are two primary phases of redemptive history that are yet future. One is the tribulation, and one is the kingdom. And then we get to the consummation. It is the tribulation that the apostle Paul is talking about in 2 Thessalonians 2. And he's going to go through a series of details that we'll look at next week that demonstrate, guys, you're not in the tribulation because none of these things have happened and he's going to be referencing 1 Daniel 9 and 2 what Jesus taught in Matthew 24 and 25 so if you want to do a little reading in preparation for next week you can read those three chapters because that's where we're going father thank you so much for this day Thank you for your absolute sovereignty and your perfect righteousness. Thank you for your perfect love which is shown to us in Christ. Thank you that you didn't call a halt to everything in Genesis 3 when our greatest grandparents rebelled against you. Thank you that you chose us in Christ even before the very foundation of the world, the scripture tells us. It's amazing to consider that you knew me. 7,000 years before I existed, or actually outside of eternity, before Genesis 1. It's just, it's amazing that you have worked out the whole of redemptive history from before the start of it. But that's you. That's yet again an indication that you deserve to be worshiped and praised. There can be no question Based upon your word and the way you have so faithfully fulfilled it through all the generations up to now, there can be no question that you will continue to fulfill it and be able to fulfill it all the way to the consummation. So Lord, may we be filled with thanksgiving, humility, and praise. Thanksgiving that is expressed to you, humility that is demonstrated in our worship of you and our love for each other and praise because you really deserve to be acknowledged in our hearts and our lives and by our lips as we exalt you, praise you, give thanks to you and point others to you. Lord, we are your people. Fill our hearts with appreciation of the greatness of our salvation. and our minds with an understanding of what's coming. And may our wills be dedicated to being obedient to you and pointing others to you until you return for us or call us home. In Christ's name and for his glory, I pray, amen.