Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful
that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either
by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray
for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,
I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,
they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will
do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a
non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't
hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the
types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
We have the great privilege this morning that Steve will be opening the Word for us.
Thank you, George. Always good to have the privilege of being prepared to speak. And I trust that what
our reflections will encourage us and also by God's grace bring glory to Him only.
The focus of our reflections will be around the topic of the Day of the Lord, as I just read.
But this verse in 1 John 2 will help us enter into that theme. 1 John 2.28 says,
And now, dear children, continue in Jesus so that when He appears, we may be confident and unashamed
before Him at His coming. So I invite you to pray with me.
Father, we ask that by Your Spirit You would come and soften our hearts to hear Your Word,
to embrace the good news, to hold fast to it, that we may continue to hope and to pray
that others will come to know You and that we will together look forward to Your appearing,
to Jesus' appearing. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
How many of you watched King Charles' Christmas message?
Wow. Okay. A couple. Right? Well, you might want to go have a listen to that after you hear what I say.
After watching that brief message, I thought I'd glance through the comments that had come in,
both on this side of the pond as well as the other. And my eye picked up on these.
Absolutely beautiful. Very thoughtful. Full of compassion. A message the world needs to hear.
And even praise Jesus. Not a single negative comment, as far as I could tell in my scan.
Only top marks for a king who's now coming into his own.
Now, here in Canada, we honor the king. And if we're guided by the prayer book, we pray for him.
And so, I mean no dishonor whatsoever when I say that I'm troubled both by what he said and by what he didn't say.
And here I'm appealing to the collect that we prayed more than once, I think.
But starting with the first Sunday of Advent, which is a collect that we and the king are familiar with.
Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light.
Now, in the time of this mortal life, in which your son Jesus Christ to visit us in great humility,
that in the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal through him who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit,
now and forever. Amen.
Now, what King Charles spoke of was the humility part, leaving aside the majesty,
which meant, in effect, that the greatness of the humility was lost.
So we heard about the one who came to serve and who taught us to care for others.
We heard that all religions teach that creation is a manifestation of the divine
and that we're called to live a simple life and to care for the environment.
And we were reminded also that Jesus taught us to treat others as we would want to be treated
and that this universal truth can lead us out of the present conflict in the Middle East.
Now, the vague, lopsided Christmas message didn't just reduce the truth, giving us one part of it.
Instead, I would suggest it distorted the truth because it left us putting our hope in ourselves.
The king didn't bear witness to the king who's coming over all the earth, to reign over all the earth,
and who alone can bring peace and restore what's broken.
By looking within and not up, the message offers no cure
to what we can call the disease of presentism.
What do I mean?
Well, the disease of presentism trains us in the art of not waiting,
of not longing for what God has promised.
That's because we assume that in one way or another, perhaps we already have it,
or that it's ours to make, to create.
And I think this is a great disease of our time, and to the extent that we've caught it,
I believe we've given way to a pagan attitude.
So what's the response to the disease?
Well, of course, it's never wrong to serve others and to care for the environment,
and it's true as long as we've trusted in Jesus that we can have assurance
precisely in the now that we belong to him.
But this does not, for a second, remove the longing and the waiting
that's part of life in these shadowlands,
with a tip of the hat to C.S. Lewis,
knowing that what awaits us is far more glorious than we could ever imagine.
But this brings us to a question that if you were here at the 8, I didn't get into.
But 8 o'clock service, I kind of walk through this passage,
but here I want to do something a little different.
I want to ask, well, I want to address that big question,
where are we in history in relation to the great day of the Lord?
You might want to answer with another question.
Is that something we can know?
Is that something that we ought to try to know?
Well, at least we can say that Christians have tried to know where we are in history
and have come up with very different conclusions.
Some would say something like, well, we're in the last act.
The day of the Lord is happening very soon, quite likely in the next decade or so.
Look at the signs, wars, disasters, and famine.
The fact that we can wipe ourselves off the map.
Widespread lawlessness, selfishness, and a falling away within the church itself.
Others say, I disagree.
I think we're in the first act.
The day of the Lord can't happen until the world has experienced widespread peace and prosperity
on account of the great success of the gospel.
That's a Christian.
Many Christians hold that view.
What's behind that view is the idea that when Jesus speaks of the end of the age in Matthew 24,
he was speaking only of events in the immediate future.
In other words, the lawlessness and tribulation,
great tribulation and lawlessness that are now behind us.
Others might say, I came up with this, and I don't know, maybe some would say,
well, we're in the intermission.
Somewhere in the middle.
Well, it might feel like the end of history as we know it,
but Christians of the past have felt the same way.
Martin Luther and many of the reformers thought they were living in the very last act.
But likely it'll be in another millennium or two.
Well, as I've said, the answers matter.
Why?
Well, because in one way or another, they impact the way we live our lives.
In the now.
How so?
Well, first act Christians can say,
well, in spite of present troubles, we're learning to take the long view of history,
to be hopeful about human flourishing precisely through the gospel,
and to help put things in place so that our children's children's children can be part of that great flourishing.
Well, last act Christians can say, since Jesus is coming soon,
thinking about the kind of world we're bringing children into,
or caring for the world around us, is really pointless.
And intermission Christians, if they exist, might say,
well, look, I'm not too concerned one way or the other.
I've got plenty of other things to think about.
So I think we need to turn to God's word and see what we can learn this morning.
I think it might be helpful to start by backing up to the first letter that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,
and think about the nature of the event itself.
The first thing to say about the day of the Lord is that it will be public and cataclysmic.
I choose those words guided by Scripture.
Well, we see there in the first letter to the Thessalonians,
you can follow with me if you flip back to 1 Thessalonians 4, starting at verse 13.
Bibles are up here and available if you don't have one of your own,
and you're welcome to take one.
If you read fine print or bring your glasses as I ought to.
But I'll read 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 to 18.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep,
that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,
that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,
will not precede those who have fallen asleep,
for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command,
with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God,
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
Therefore, encourage one another with these words.
Well, what's Paul doing here?
He's taking us right back to that Easter morning and telling us this.
At a point in history that's coming,
that original event, the resurrection, will be applied,
literally applied to those living and dead
who have been in this life included in Jesus' death.
It will be applied to those who have been in this life included in his death.
Well, you might be wondering, since some will be alive when he returns,
as the text says, in what sense are they going to be resurrected to?
Well, I think the answer comes in the nature of the event itself,
and that's what I'm talking about, some of the cataclysmic part.
The point is, the day of the Lord means the end of history as we know it,
and therefore to our existence as we've known it up to that point.
So cataclysmic because it will be an event like on the order of creation itself,
when God spoke the universe into being.
And I've said it's public because it's not going to happen somehow behind history
or somehow above it, but in human history for every eye to see.
So it will be an earth-shaking event when God issues a new command.
Arise, and the dead in Christ will come out of their graves.
Now, when I was hanging around some Pentecostal friends,
and I was still a Baptist, my Pentecostal friends,
well, the dead in Christ, that must mean the Baptists, right?
But joking aside, Paul wants to make it clear that that fact,
that these believers have been dead, doesn't mean they'll miss out,
be left out when the whole church, since Adam,
is raised up bodily and made fit for the new creation,
transfigured, transformed.
That's the moment when all those in Christ will be caught up together in the clouds
to meet Jesus, to go out together, to welcome him as he comes,
to take his rightful place as King and Lord of all creation,
to welcome him as King and Lord.
Well, in a nutshell, that's the nature of the glorious appearing of Jesus
that we long for, his gracious gathering of the saints.
And I'm sure you know this basic biblical teaching
has been challenged in a couple of ways.
In one case, the event is denied altogether.
Many people throughout history have said,
nothing of the sort is going to happen.
For the Sadducees, the idea of future rewards in a life to come
were just simply out of the question.
I'll leave aside the joke about the Sadducees.
If you like, you can ask me later.
Which grand ideas, though, were the Sadducees drawing from?
As early as the 6th century BC,
Aeschylus had said that once a man dies, that's it.
That's my paraphrase statement.
And about 50 years before Jesus was born,
the Latin poet Catullus had written,
when once our brief light sets,
there is one perpetual light through which we must sleep.
How does Jesus handle the Sadducees' challenge?
Well, you might recall from Matthew 22 or Luke 20,
how the Sadducees had set up that question.
They said something like,
well, take a woman who was widowed seven times by seven brothers.
They said,
in the resurrection, to whom will she be married?
Now, under the circumstances,
they might just have wanted his thoughts or clarification about Moses' rule.
The rule that stipulated that if a man died,
having fathered no children,
his brother was to marry the widow
and to give him offspring that way.
But here the question just served as an excuse to make fun of the idea of resurrection.
So what does Jesus do?
Knowing their skepticism,
he takes them right to the authority they themselves have named,
Moses.
And there he asks them effectively,
how can you dismiss the resurrection when Moses himself,
that God is,
and not just was,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
The living God is even now their life.
And so Jesus can say,
on another occasion to his disciples,
because I live,
you too shall live.
John 14, 19.
And there's a second point that Jesus picks up on,
and it relates directly to their concern about offspring.
He actually mentions it first.
For Sadducees,
the idea that our life endures in a certain sense through our children
would have been a strong idea.
But Jesus takes up the question of offspring
in order to point them to the kind of life that really endures.
What do I mean?
Well, he explains that in the life to come,
there is no marriage.
Well, because the question of offspring has been addressed
by the gift of adoption,
by God's adoption of his children,
as children of the resurrection.
That's in Luke 20, 36.
So Jesus is here telling them, evidently,
this passion you have to find personal significance
through your offspring.
Well, only God can satisfy it
by making you a child
who will never die.
But let's move on.
From it's not going to happen,
we come to the other challenge,
to the biblical teaching about resurrection.
And that's, it's already happened.
And this claim brings us back, of course,
to the question of where we are
in relation to the great day.
We haven't left the world of grand ideas,
because in 2 Timothy 2,
we read about a couple of teachers
named Hymenaeus and Philetus
who were pushing a doctrine
they probably thought was quite exciting
and ingenious.
The day of the Lord has already come.
We can say that if their idea was to have any weight,
they would have to persuade people
not only that resurrection was something in the mind,
that it didn't apply to physical things.
They would also have to convince them
that the judgment and the new creation
were collapsed into the now.
Since these other ideas have a certain attraction,
he no doubt had quite a decent following.
And we know what this teaching looks like today.
It comes in this form.
The resurrection, it's now, not future.
And you can live in it
by pursuing perhaps a higher consciousness.
Of course, the Hymenaeus and Philetus's of our day
will be quick to promote a new program
or new experience
or maybe new retreat or method
that will just flood your soul with peace and joy
as well as a sense of oneness with all that is.
And we shouldn't be too quick to say,
look how silly of those Thessalonians
to believe such a thing.
The fact is the teaching came with authority.
Apparently.
So turn back with me now, finally,
here on page 10 of my notes
to 2 Thessalonians 2.
That's why Paul has to warn them in verse 2.
Not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed
either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter
seeming to be from us
to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
These teachers were claiming to speak
or to write in the name of the apostles.
And not only that,
their words were persuasive
as they claimed special knowledge
or insight or even a revelation.
And no doubt,
their lifestyles appeared to be godly,
even full of peace and serenity.
So what does Paul say?
Well, with the authority he enjoys as an apostle,
he says nothing doing.
Something else has to happen
before Jesus appears.
The man of lawlessness has to come on the scene.
And what's all that about?
Well, if you look with me at verse 7,
the context is the mystery of lawlessness,
which Paul says is already at work.
And he thinks,
as he thinks of figures who have set themselves up in the temple,
declaring themselves to be God,
he no doubt had in mind men like the emperor Gaius,
who ordered that a statue of himself be erected in the temple
in Jerusalem in A.D. 40.
In our own times,
I'm thinking of at least two men
who think of themselves as the Christ.
There's a man,
because of my interest in Russia,
there's a man named Vissarion
out in outer Siberia somewhere,
who gives himself the title
The Word of God.
And there's a man,
because we spent time in the Philippines,
Stella and I,
a man in a place called Davao City,
who claims to be the appointed son of God.
His name is Apolo Kiboloi.
He decided that because
Jesus ascended
not to the Father,
but as the Father,
well, the Father needed a new son,
and he happened to pick Pastor Kiboloi
very conveniently.
Now, that sounds funny,
but he's led a lot of people astray
with that pure,
plain and straightforward distortion
of the scriptures.
But all the false Christs that come and go
evidently point to the Antichrist,
who will come on the wave
of the apostasia,
or rebellion,
verse 3,
which refers to a great,
massive falling away from God
and his ways.
And the Antichrist is the son of destruction,
meaning he is appointed for destruction,
the text explains,
because he's the one
who Jesus will kill
with the mere breath of his mouth
and bring to nothing
by his appearance,
by the appearance of his coming,
verse 8.
Now, for the son of destruction
to pass himself off
as the son of man,
he'll, of course,
have to present himself
as a messenger of light
and peace,
with great signs and wonders
that serve to camouflage
his rejection of God
and his word,
and so to deceive those
who, according to verse 10,
refuse to love the truth
and to be saved.
Now, we can't say much
about the timing
or the exact nature
of this great falling away
that will pave the way
for the Antichrist.
But if the man himself
is to take his seat
in God's temple
and proclaim himself
to be God,
there in verse 4,
then it's not hard to imagine
how one of the grand ideas
of our day
could actually herald that event.
Let me say that again.
It's not hard to imagine
how one of the grand ideas
of our own times
could herald that event.
And what's that grand idea?
Well, the grand idea
is that we are all the Christ
together.
And on that basis,
all of us could collectively
take our seat
in the great cosmic temple.
I'm speculating, of course,
but I'm trying to invite you
to think of how,
what it would mean
for all of us
to be together the Christ.
to take our place
in the great cosmic temple
and set ourselves up as God.
To celebrate that fact
liturgically,
because we all love ceremony,
we would let a man
stand out among us
as our representative
in this great cosmic
false Eucharist.
if our new high priest,
that man would also be
for us a prophet
who teaches us,
look here,
don't be misled
by mere words,
mere words attributed
to Jesus,
who represents only one stage
in the evolution
of the Christ.
Christ.
And he would present himself
as our king,
as the latest,
fullest incarnation
of the Christ
who promises peace
and prosperity
with all kinds of
amazing demonstrations
of his power.
Now,
I have to insist,
this is speculating
on the details
as we try to understand
the signs
of our own times
and what a great
falling away
might look like
in practice.
There's so much
we don't know.
Although we know
who's in control,
there is one,
according to verse 7,
who is restraining,
even now,
the man of lawlessness
until the time
that God has appointed.
This is consistent
with what Jesus said
to his disciples
about what must happen
before the end.
You'll have heard it
many times.
Matthew 24, 14
and this gospel
of the kingdom
will be preached
in the whole world
as a testimony
to all nations
and then the end
will come.
Well,
this, of course,
brings us back
to the question
of where we're situated
in relation
to the day of the Lord.
I would invite you
to get
perhaps a fuller view
of the great drama
of redemption
by widening the scope
and think of the first act
as the period
that began
when we left
the Garden of Eden
with the first Adam.
That moment we left
the Garden
with the first Adam.
This is a great drama
of God's redemption
and it began there
when we left.
And think of the last act
as the period
that began
with the coming
of the last Adam.
the logic is there
in Paul.
In that sense,
we've been in the last phase
of human history
ever since Jesus died
and rose again.
And that's why
the writer to the Hebrews
can begin his letter
with these words.
Long ago,
at many times
and in many ways,
first act,
God spoke to our fathers
by the prophets,
maybe even second act.
But in these last days,
he has spoken to us
by his son.
But whether Jesus
will come back
in our lifetime,
in the lifetime
of our grandchildren,
or in some distant century,
when our names,
all of us here,
are all but forgotten,
we really can't say.
I think we need
to consider
the possibility
that it could be
any of those.
what's important
is that we're ready
when he does come again.
Ready along with others
we've invited
to come along with us
to the banquet
that's being prepared already.
And that brings us,
as I bring things
to a conclusion,
to the practical implications
of Paul's teachings.
And I want to highlight
just three points there
in the verses that follow.
I'll just read verses 13
and 14 again.
And here I do have
the English Standard Version.
But we ought always
to give thanks to God
for you,
brothers beloved
by the Lord,
because God chose you
as the first fruits
to be saved
through sanctification
by the Spirit
and belief in the truth.
To this he called you
through our gospel
so that you may obtain
the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Well, the message here
is about confidence.
And in the light
of what Paul has just
taught us,
it's this.
God in his mercy
has protected us
against the great delusion
of the Antichrist.
God in his great mercy
has protected us
from the grand delusion
of the Antichrist.
But if we're inclined
to trust in our own strength
to think that we deserve
to be gathered together
by Jesus when he comes
or that by our own insights
and powers we can avoid
being deceived by Satan
and his instruments,
we have to remember
that our confidence
can only be in God.
He's the one
who spoke to our hearts
when the gospel
was proclaimed to us.
He's the one
who by his Spirit
made us aware
of our need for him
and enabled us
to embrace his truth
and promise.
This truth
is the truth
that set us free.
Free to trust
in Christ.
Free to remain in him.
Free to leave behind
a life of sin
and aimless wandering.
And so our confidence
is not in our obedience
but it's in his faithfulness.
Look there in verse 15
at the second practical lesson
that comes in the form
of a command.
So then brothers and sisters
stand firm
and hold to the traditions
that you were taught
by us
either by spoken word
or by our letter.
What's Paul urging
his readers
and you and me
to do here?
Well,
I love that song
written by Andrew Peterson
called
You'll Find Your Way.
One verse
goes like this.
Go back,
go back
to the ancient paths.
Lash your heart
to the ancient mast.
And hold on,
boy,
whatever you do
to the hope
that's taken a hold
of you.
Now,
this song,
I think,
speaks
very poignantly
of our desperate need
for a foundation
for something
that we don't
readily admit
in our day.
a foundation
as we
make our way
through life.
Our intuitions
are going to fail us.
We can't just live
in this eternal spontaneity
where we just
work it out,
work it all out
as we go along.
If God in Christ
has taken a hold
of us,
then we desperately
need that ancient
mast
of his word.
Well,
it's himself,
but it's the,
known to us
through his gospel
that Paul preached
wherever the spirit
took him
to preach it.
We're talking about
the good news
of our salvation
accomplished
through Jesus'
death
and resurrection.
And the promise
that awaits us,
says Paul,
is nothing less
than a share
in the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus gives us
a picture
of what it looks like
to stand firm.
He says this
in Luke 12,
be dressed,
ready for service.
Keep your lamps
burning
like servants
waiting for their
master
to return
from a wedding banquet
so that when he
comes
and knocks,
they can immediately
open the door
for him.
And there at the end,
there's a third lesson
about comfort.
In verses 16
and 17,
Paul ends
as he does,
as he often
incorporates
into his teaching
a prayer.
Sometimes his teachings
are a prayer,
a prolonged prayer,
aren't they?
But here he ends
with this prayer.
Now may our God,
now may our Lord
Jesus Christ himself
and God our Father
who loved us
and gave us
eternal comfort
and good hope
through grace
comfort your hearts
and establish them
in every good work
and word.
And I think here
Paul sums up
the comforting work
of the Holy Spirit
in the lives
of believers.
It's a double comfort.
And I say that
because in verses
13 and 14,
he had said
that God
by his Spirit
working in us
sets us apart
and makes us his own
as we embrace
the truth of the gospel.
And the comfort there
is the comfort
of hope
because we're given
the assurance
of the future glory
of the Son.
It's the comfort
of the living
triune God
whose life is ours
by the grace
of adoption
that those Sadducees
without knowing it
yearn for,
I suppose.
But notice
the other comfort,
the comfort
that enables us
to obey.
May God comfort
your hearts,
says Paul,
and establish them
in every good work
and word.
So in conclusion,
Christ
is the King
who will one day
come
enveloped
in a glory
that we
cannot yet imagine.
But even now
he's present to us
through the Holy Spirit,
the Comforter
as he promised.
And our comfort here
lies in this.
If the Spirit
is at work in us,
we don't just have
a part of Jesus
or an idea
about Jesus
or even
the truth
about Jesus.
That's because
we have Jesus
himself
and his life
and his power
strengthens us
for the work
he's called us
to do
until the day
he comes again.
So may
we
together
as brothers
and sisters
at Church of the Messiah,
may we
look into
2024
with hope,
with expectation,
longing for the day
of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.