Peter Barnes: 2 Thessalonians 1:5-8
(18 March 2018)
SERMON NOTES: SUFFERING NOW AND THEN (2 Thessalonians 1:5-8)
It is not about suffering now and then, i.e. intermittently, but suffering in this life and the life to come.
1. Being steadfast in persecution enhances faith.
– 1:5. Paul is looking back to verse 4, and says that suffering as a Christian is not an evidence of God’s displeasure. Rather, it is a case of being, as Calvin says, being ‘polished under God’s anvil’.
– Phil.1:28-29; Rom.8:17. John Eadie cites the lines:
The path of suffering, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
After Charles Simeon’s conversion, his brother John thought that Charles had lost ‘that valuable gift called common sense’.
– Dan.3:1, 15-18.
2. Jesus will judge His people’s persecutors and relieve His people.
– 1:6-7. The Second Coming of Jesus will be unlike the first coming – 2 Cor.8:9. In the Second Coming, He will usher in the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment – Matt.25:31-33. Chrysostom said: ‘It is not possible that a soul anxious about hell should readily sin.’
3. Christ as judge.
– 1:8. In 2009 Richard Dawkins helped to launch a campaign, on British buses. The signs on the back of buses stated: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’
The unbeliever does not know God – Gal.4:8-9. The unbeliever also does not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus – Acts 5:32; 17:30. We do not believe half a Christ – one who only saves, and does not command – 1 Thess.1:9-10.
Professor Stephen Hawking, on the possibility of an afterlife, said that is ‘a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.’ Not so!