2 Thessalonians 1-3 - God’s Righteous Judgment

Greetings of Grace and Thanksgiving

2Th 1:3-4 LSB - [3] We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is [only] fitting, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of each one of you all toward one another increases [all the more], [4] so that we ourselves boast about you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure.

Brothers. Your faith is not one person's faith. Your perseverance and faith are those of brothers in the church of the Thessalonians.

God’s Righteous Judgment

2Th 1:5 LSB - [5] [This is] a plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering.

"Your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions" is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment because through these "you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God".

2Th 1:6-8 LSB - [6] Since it is right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, [7] and [to give] rest to you who are afflicted and to us as well at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, [8] executing vengeance on those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

God will give rest to those who are afflicted.

2Th 1:11-12 LSB - [11] To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill all [your] good pleasure for goodness and the work of faith with power, [12] so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and [the] Lord Jesus Christ.

I have a calling. I have good pleasure for goodness and the work of faith. However it is our God who count me worthy of my calling and fulfil all my good pleasure for goodness and the work of faith with power. God enables me to have the name of our Lord Jesus be glorified in me.

The Man of Lawlessness

2Th 2:1-2 LSB - [1] Now we ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, [2] that you not be quickly shaken in your mind or be alarmed whether by a spirit or a word or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

Thessalonian brothers expected that the Lord was coming soon.

A Prophetic Distortion of the Second Coming

Don't Lost Your Head about the Second Coming

2Th 2:3-5 LSB - [3] Let no one in any way deceive you, for [it has not come] unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, [4] who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the sanctuary of God, exhibiting himself as being God. [5] Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?

2Th 2:13-14 LSB - [13] But we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. [14] It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Disobedient Brothers

2Th 3:6 LSB - [6] Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who walks in an unruly manner and not according to the tradition which they received from us.

Job 40-42 - Job Repents in Dust and Ashes

Job Places His Hand over His Mouth

Job 40:1-2 LSB - [1] Then Yahweh answered Job and said, [2] "Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it."

Job 40:3-4 LSB - [3] Then Job answered Yahweh and said, [4] "Behold, I am insignificant; what can I respond to You? I place my hand over my mouth.

We must all be caused to see our “lightness” next to God. “Surely, if any man had a right to say I am not vile, it was Job; for, according to the testimony of God himself, he was ‘a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil.’ Yet we find even this eminent saint when by his nearness to God he had received light enough to discover his own condition, exclaiming, ‘Behold I am vile.’” (Spurgeon)

“Job said, ‘Behold, I am vile.’ That word ‘behold’ implies that he was astonished. The discovery was unexpected. There are special times with the Lord’s people, when they learn by experience that they are vile.” (Spurgeon)

Yahweh Will Ask Job

Job 40:8 LSB - [8] "Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?

Behold the Behemoth

Job 40:15 LSB - [15] "Behold now, Behemoth, which I made along with you; It eats grass like an ox.

Job 40:19 LSB - [19] "It is the first of the ways of God; Let its Maker bring near its sword.

Can You Draw Out Leviathan?

Job 41:1 LSB - [1] "Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook? Or press down its tongue with a cord?

Job 41:10-11 LSB - [10] "No one is so fierce that he dares to arouse it; Who then is he that can stand before Me? [11] "Who has given to Me that I should repay [him]? [Whatever] is under the whole heaven is Mine.

Job 41:28-29 LSB - [28] "The arrow cannot make it flee; Slingstones are turned into stubble for it. [29] "Clubs are regarded as stubble; It laughs at the rattling of the javelin.

Job Repents in Dust and Ashes

Job 42:3 LSB - [3] 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too marvelous for me, which I did not know.

“Job felt that what he had spoken concerning the Lord was in the main true; and the Lord himself said to Job’s three friends, ‘Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath’; but under a sense of the divine presence Job felt that even when he had spoken aright, he had spoken beyond his own proper knowledge, uttering speech whose depths of meaning he could not himself fathom.” (Spurgeon)

Job 42:4-6 LSB - [4] 'Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You make me know.' [5] "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; [6] Therefore I reject [myself], And I repent in dust and ashes."

What did Job have to repent of? In his sermon, Job Among the Ashes, Charles Spurgeon suggested several things:

• Job repented of the terrible curse he had pronounced upon the day of his birth.
• Job repented of his desire to die.
• Job repented of his complaints against and challenges to God.
• Job repented of his despair.
• Job repented that his statements had been a “darkening of wisdom by words without knowledge”; that he spoke beyond his knowledge and ability to know.

Yahweh’s Anger Towards Job’s Friends

Job 42:7 LSB - [7] Now it happened after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, that Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My anger burns against you and against your two friends because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.

Yahweh Restores Job’s Fortunes

Job 42:17 LSB - [17] Then Job died, an old man and full of days.

“We are not all like Job, but we all have Job’s God. Though we have neither risen to Job’s wealth, nor will, probably, ever sink to Job’s poverty, yet there is the same God above us if we be high, and the same God with his everlasting arms beneath us if we be brought low; and what the Lord did for Job he will do for us, not precisely in the same form, but in the same spirit, and with like design.” (Spurgeon)

Job 37-39 - Yahweh Answers Job

Elihu Speaks of God’s Voice

Job 37:7 LSB - [7] "He seals the hand of every man, That all men may know His work.

i. “When the Lord seals up a man’s hand, he is unable to perform his labor. The Lord has an object in this, namely, ‘that, all men may know his work.’ When they cannot do their own work, they are intended to observe the works of God.” (Spurgeon)

 

Yahweh Answers Job

Job 38:1 LSB - [1] Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,

Job 38:4 LSB - [4] "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell [Me], if you know understanding,

Job 38:36 LSB - [36] "Who has given wisdom in the innermost being Or given understanding to the mind?

Yahweh Answers Job, “Have You?”

Job 38:12-13 LSB - [12] "Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, [And] caused the dawn to know its place, [13] That it might seize the ends of the earth, And the wicked be shaken out of it?

Job 38:16-17 LSB - [16] "Have you entered into the springs of the sea Or walked in the recesses of the deep? [17] "Have the gates of death been revealed to you, Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

Job 38:22 LSB - [22] "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

Yahweh Answers Job, “Where Were You?”

Job 38:24 LSB - [24] "Where is the way that the light is divided, [Or] the east wind scattered on the earth?

Job 38:31 LSB - [31] "Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the cords of Orion?

Job 39:1 LSB - [1] "Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you keep watch over the calving of the deer?

Job 39:17 LSB - [17] Because God has made her forget wisdom, And has not given her a share of understanding.

Job 39:26-27 LSB - [26] "Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, Stretching his wings toward the south? [27] "Is it at your command that the eagle goes on high And raises his nest high?