2 Thessalonians Ch.2 Day 1 I’m excited to study God’s Word with you! Pray with me: “Lord, give us the mind of a “learner”, as we study your word today. Clear our thoughts now of our daily tasks, so we can hear You speak. Take our worries, ease our anxieties, and help us to focus on the voice of your sweet Holy Spirit, our teacher.” “We look to you for spiritual feeding. Oh how dry we are without your infilling of wisdom and hope. Feed our soul, Lord. Living in this ungodly, chaotic world makes my soul dry. There is heartache and pain around every corner, sometimes mine and sometimes others. Remind us of Your sure promises, lift us up and bring us hope only You can give and continue to be forever faithful to each one.” “You alone do we worship. We bow our hearts in praise and adoration for how You have cared for us up until this point. We live under the umbrella of your protection, favor and grace, something the non-believer doesn’t experience. That breaks our heart Lord. They need You desperately, just as we do. You show us special favor, which makes our hearts swell with gratitude as we sit here before You. Praise You Father, for your great devotion and care to each one of us. Help us to never take for granted all You have done to have relationship with us. Thank You for the cross, thank You for redemption and relationship with You. We are undeserving, You are ever giving. You are forever faithful and we want to follow You all the days of our lives.”. Teach us now, as we open your precious Word, Father. Amen Please read today’s text; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4. Paul was the founder and father of this newborn church in Thessalonica. And like a parent has to do sometimes, he needed to bring correction to some of their thinking. He wrote letters to the church instead of being there in person, because of severe persecution at the time.One man called Paul’s letters, “long distance parenting”. The believers in the church of Thessalonica had become confused. When Paul left, there was a leadership hole and other teachers stepped up to fill it.. The problem was, these teachers weren’t sound and they taught their opinions as truth, and false doctrine bred confusion in the church. Their untruth was that they were currently living in ​ 1 the tribulation, experiencing the wrath of God. The persecution of believers happening ​ at that time seem to feed into that false doctrine.Therein lies the main reason for Paul to write this letter. He wanted to clear up any confusion about the time they were living in and the future “Coming Day of the Lord Jesus Christ” or “the Second Coming”. Anyone watching the news today, can get the feeling that the wheels are coming off our society. America is not the America I knew just 20 short years ago. We are on a rocket heading towards the end of the age. Nations are imploding, families are falling apart at a record rate, our own country has it’s own internal wars on almost every front. Even those who don’t believe in scripture admit they have the feeling that something catastrophic is about to happen. We cannot continue as a nation financially, culturally, socially and spiritually the way we are now and not have some kind of historical implosion. So what is the hope for our future? God is still on His throne! He sees to it that His ultimate plan unfolds! He is not nervous or anxious at the state of the world. The bible speaks of His glorious plan for mankind, and we can watch with anticipation as one event as predicted rolls out after another. What events would need to take place before the rapture and before the second ​ ​ ​ ​ coming of Jesus Christ? Well, nothing needs to happen before the rapture. According to scripture, ​ ​ Christ can come at any moment! There is nothing that hasn’t happened, that needs to happen, for Christ to come and gather the church! That’s crazy good!!! Isn’t it? Now, many good men disagree on the order of the events that need to take place before the Second Coming of Jesus, but I will teach you what I believe, along with what most scholars believe, about the timeline of future events and what the church should be looking for. I believe we are living in the last days and Christ will soon call His people home. There will come from heaven a command from the voice of an archangel that shakes heaven and earth, coinciding with a long trumpet blow from the Father’s eternal trumpet that will make us quake within it’s power and simultaneously believers will rise towards heaven! (1 Thess. 4:16) I believe the transfer will be so quick, we will barely have enough time to acknowledge what the trumpet sound is, maybe holding our hands over our ears, shielding them from the power of the blast - and then in a twinkling of an eye we will be home! (1 Cor. 15:52) Let’s check our theology about the Last Days. We don’t want to leave any unanswered questions behind. 2 Question: "What is the rapture of the church?" Are you confident in your answer. Could you explain it to somebody else? Answer: The word rapture does not occur in the Bible. The term comes from a Latin ​ ​ ​ word meaning “a carrying off, a transport, or a snatching away.” The concept of the “carrying off” or the rapture of the church is clearly taught in Scripture. The rapture of the church is the event in which God “snatches away” all believers from the earth in order to make way for His righteous judgment to be poured out on the earth during the tribulation period. The rapture is described primarily in 1 Thessalonians ​ ​ 4:13–18 and 1 Corinthians 15:50–54. God will resurrect all believers who have died, ​ ​ ​ ​ give them glorified bodies, and take them from the earth, along with all living believers, who will also be given glorified bodies at that time. “For the Lord Himself will come down ​ from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). ​ ​ The rapture will involve an instantaneous transformation of our bodies to fit us for eternity. “We know that when he [Christ] appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see ​ him as he is” (1 John 3:2). The rapture is to be distinguished from the second coming. ​ ​ ​ At the rapture, the Lord comes “in the clouds” to meet us “in the air” (1 Thessalonians ​ 4:17). At the second coming, the Lord descends all the way to the earth to stand on the ​ Mount of Olives, resulting in a great earthquake followed by a defeat of God’s enemies (Zechariah 14:3–4). ​ ​ The doctrine of the rapture was not taught in the Old Testament, which is why Paul calls it a “mystery” now revealed: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, ​ but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 ​ Corinthians 15:51–52). ​ The rapture of the church is a glorious event we should all be longing for. We will finally be free from sin. We will be in God’s presence forever. There is far too much debate over the meaning and scope of the rapture. This is not God’s intent. Rather, the rapture should be a comforting doctrine full of hope; God wants us to “encourage each other with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). ​ ​ Let’s work through some passages so that we can weed out any confusion in our minds about timelines, titles of events, titles of people involved in these events, etc. My goal for myself and for those reading this lesson, is that we would have a solid 3 accounting of the events clear in our hearts and minds as God purposed from the beginning of history. 1. What were the believers in the Thessalonica church troubled by? 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2. _____________________________________________________________________ Some in that time were teaching that they were currently living in the tribulation. The church was being persecuted and believers were often martyred for their faith, so we can see how that lie might manifest itself during that difficult time, but they were not living in the tribulation at that time. How do we know that? a.What event comes first before the tribulation according to scripture? 2 Thessalonians 2:1 _____________________________________________________________________ Underline in your bible the words, “”Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together with Him.” (NKJ 2 thessalonians 2:1) That’s our exit gals!!!! This would be the return of Jesus and the gathering of the Saints. b.“Rapture” is not a word used in scripture. You will not find it anywhere in the bible, but ​ ​ the concept is taught in many places.