The Hopeful and the Hopeless
Tom Shrader opens 2 Thessalonians 1 by noting Paul's gratitude for the Thessalonian church's growing faith and love even amid intensifying persecution. He walks through Paul's call for believers to reframe suffering as evidence of God's purposeful work rather than as victimhood, grounding endurance in trust rather than circumstance. The passage's sobering description of eternal destruction for those who neither know God nor obey the gospel leads Shrader to call all present to examine whether they have genuinely trusted Christ, and to live in a way that reflects that calling.
“You can never get enough of what you really don't need.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 2 Thessalonians
Recorded: 2000 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 42 min
Themes: suffering, hope, persecution, endurance, judgment, faith, eternal life, salvation, barely hanging on, facing persecution, questioning god, new believer, struggling with doubt, spiritually discouraged, examining your faith, going through hardship
Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12, 1 Thessalonians 3:12, 1 Thessalonians 1:2, Romans 5:1-10
Theological Themes: eschatology, end times, eternal destruction, divine wrath, justification, sanctification, gospel obedience, divine justice
Full Transcript
Introduction: Studying 2 Thessalonians
Let me remind you, we are studying the book of Acts. We are doing it in a slightly different fashion. As we reach a point in Paul's ministry where he writes back to a church, or writes a pastoral epistle, or writes to a church he hopes to visit, we stop to study that letter. We looked at 1 Thessalonians, and from now until my August break, we will look at 2 Thessalonians. The details are much the same. Paul is the author, the believers at Thessalonica are the recipients, and the date is 51 A.D. — within months, we think, of the writing of 1 Thessalonians.
Paul writes 1 Thessalonians to this church after sending Timothy on a reconnaissance mission. What is the church doing? How are they doing? He gets back the information, and it is generally good. They are involved in what Paul identifies as a work of faith, a labor of love, and a steadfastness of hope. There is some confusion, however, about end times. Some who had converted to Christ had died, and Paul is responding to the question: what about them? Did they miss the second coming? Paul's first letter deals with those general areas.
The second letter appears to clarify even further what was addressed in the first. There still seems to be some confusion on the part of the believers in Thessalonica. We also learn from the letter and from history that the persecution of this church has intensified. There is affliction, suffering, and persecution, and Paul writes to encourage them in the midst of it.
If you are here this morning and you are hurting, suffering, or perhaps persecuted, God has a message for you, and you are going to find it in this study. Let us not be naive — we know there are people in this room who did everything they could just to get here, who are barely hanging on. God will speak to you this morning through this study.
It may also be that your view of God has been more formed by the culture than by Scripture — that you have bought into the widespread view that God is a God of love, and that is about as far as it goes. Is God a God of love? You bet He is. But because He is a God of love, He also must hate. Because He loves righteousness, holiness, and purity, He hates sin and He hates evil, and He will deal with it. If your view of God is distorted because you see His love but overlook His wrath, you will get a deeper view of God this morning.
Grace and Peace: The Greeting of 2 Thessalonians 1
We will study the first twelve verses this morning. Second Thessalonians, chapter 1, verse 1: Paul and Silas and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are geographically in Thessalonica, but positionally they are in Christ. They have in their pocket a dual passport. It says Thessalonica, but their real home is with God and the Lord Jesus.
Because they are in Christ, Paul says to them: grace to you and peace. He names the source of that grace and peace — God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He repeats in verse 2 what he mentioned in verse 1: grace to you and peace to you. This is a common opening for Paul, and also a common closing. He frequently pairs these two ideas together, and always in this order — always grace and then peace — for it is the grace of God that produces the peace of God.
That ordering explains much of what, at least on the surface, should puzzle us as we look at the world. Marriage is a great example. There has never been a time when more books were available on the topic of marriage. You can go to Borders, Bookstar, or Barnes and Noble and find racks and racks of books on relationships and marriage. I was talking to a man last week who told me he was writing a book on marriage, and I said, "Wow, a brand new topic." He explained to me that his book is different from the others, and I am sure it is. But the point is this: information is everywhere — books, audio tapes, video tapes. You can turn on the television and hear that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. And yet we have a divorce rate as high as it has ever been.
We have more technology available to us now than at any time in history — more intellectual firepower. They say that the total volume of human knowledge doubles approximately every seven years. In terms of lifestyle and measures of wealth, we have made in the last seven years the equivalent of what it took seventy-five years to accomplish before. And yet suicides are at an unparalleled high, and human difficulty is at an unparalleled high. The answer is not intellectual. The answer is not money. The answer is not stuff.
De Tocqueville, when he looked at America nearly two hundred years ago, wrote about what he called the monotony of materialism — a great phrase. What we think will bring us peace will never accomplish that. You have within you certain desires, needs, and longings that cannot be met through people, places, and things alone.
The God-Shaped Vacuum
We have a need for one another. You have a need to be touched. You have a need to communicate that can be met with people, places, and things. But you also have in you a crucial longing, a need that can never be met through any person, any place, any achievement, or anything. It's what Pascal called the God-shaped vacuum. It's a longing, a desire for union with the Creator God of the universe that can only be met through the grace of God. It's through His grace that He extends to us salvation, and once our salvation is secure, for the very first time in our life, we can have peace.
That's the lie of the world. The lie of the world is, just one more deal and I'll be happy. This person's wrong, but if I have a different mate, I'll be happy. Get rid of this, get this new carpet, get this new driver. Once I have that, I'll be happy. As long as you're looking for that ultimate meeting of that need in a person or a place or a thing, you'll be miserable.
Here's what I said in a PL study a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know if it's right, but I think it is: you can never get enough of what you really don't need. You can never get enough of stuff because you don't really need it. It's just stuff, just more things. I needed to wear a tie yesterday for a wedding, and as I went to the closet to get it, I saw a lot of things that made it very clear there is more there than we need. I threw away essentially anything I hadn't worn in 18 months just a year ago, and looking in that closet now, I have to ask myself, what am I going to do with another shirt? There's something about accumulation where we just think more will make us happy, and what God says is that more of the stuff you really don't need will never make you happy.
Paul's Thanksgiving for the Thessalonians
After that introduction, Paul writes: "We ought always give thanks to God for you, brethren, as it is only fitting." The New King James says we are bound. One translation says it is our duty to give thanks. One paraphrase writes that we have an obligation to thank God for you. Why? Because, as he says, your faith is greatly enlarged and the love of each of you toward one another grows even greater.
Paul says we are thanking God because of your faith and your love, which is really an answer to prayer. Listen to what Paul prayed in his first letter. First Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 12: "May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another." And in chapter 1, verse 2, he says, "We thank God always, we're praying, and as we pray, here's what we remember, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith, your labor of love, your steadfastness of hope." He said we ought to thank God because He answers our prayer. How did He answer it? Your faith today is larger than it was. As we look at you, your love for one another grows.
In fact, verse 4 says, therefore, because this is true, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God. He said we are bragging about you everywhere we go. I find myself in a position like this through the week. People who don't go to East Valley Bible Church will ask me about someone from our congregation, and I'll say, we were just talking about them the other day, and they are growing so much, they are doing so well. There is something encouraging about hearing how well someone is doing. Paul says he is bragging about the Thessalonians to the other churches.
Learning from the Giants of the Faith
I love to read biographies about the great men and women of the faith because there is an encouragement in them. When I look at D. L. Moody, or Charles Spurgeon, or Martin Lloyd-Jones, I see three men who never went to seminary — three men who had never been formally trained — and I look at what God did in their lives. I am realistic enough to know I am not Spurgeon or Martin Lloyd-Jones or D. L. Moody. These are giants. And yet there is some similarity, and maybe I have just convinced myself of that.
When I was in high school, our junior year, I went to a small Catholic high school. Our crosstown school was a large public school, and they simply beat us — they pounded us in everything, but especially in football. Not baseball; we held our own with them in baseball. But not football. Some of you who are sports fans may remember Roger Craig, who played for the 49ers. Roger Craig and his brother Theotis and his brother
The Giant in the Locker Room
I remember we were about the second or third game of the year, and we were going to play them at their place. We were in the locker room getting ready to go out, and our coach was trying to make the point that they were just like us. He used the phrase that every guy in here has heard a coach speak: "Don't be intimidated by them. They put on their pants one leg at a time just like you." I said, yeah, but their legs are like this. We were going to get killed out there that night. I was the second-team quarterback, and all I cared about every play was watching one guy and saying, "Get up, get up. This is not a good night for you to get hurt."
When I look at someone like Spurgeon, I am not presumptuous enough to think I am just like him. I know he is a giant. But at the same time, I do know this: the same Spirit that indwells him is the same Spirit that indwells me, and there is encouragement there. That is why testimonies are so powerful. They speak of the glory of God and the proclamation of the gospel, but they also say that God uses ordinary people just like us.
Boasting in Perseverance
Paul says to this church, "Therefore, we are bragging on you guys all the time. We are always telling people what you are doing." He speaks of their perseverance and their faith in the midst of all their persecution and affliction — right in the midst of it. They did not try to avoid it. They did not try to dodge it. Their faith and their perseverance were clear.
They had been patient. They had endured — not just survived, but thrived in the midst of it. One author writes this: "Patience means to take hold of a problem and master it, to face a problem victoriously, to take on our difficulties, our disappointments, and our discouragement, and rather than simply live through them, we come out victorious." We have a power to live because He lives in us.
So Paul writes to this church and says it is our duty to thank God for them. He thanks God because He has worked greatly in them — their faith has enlarged, their love has enlarged. He is bragging to everybody about their perseverance in the midst of all these afflictions.
Suffering as a Plain Indication
Then Paul speaks about the affliction and suffering directly. He says this suffering is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment, so that they may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which they are indeed suffering. It is not that the suffering made them worthy of salvation. It is not that they were saved by their suffering. Rather, he says this suffering and affliction proves their salvation — to them and to others.
Five Things to Remember When You Are Suffering
Maybe you are here this morning and you are really hurting. Let me give you five things to remember when you are suffering.
**First, do not be surprised by it.** Remember the context. We always go back to context — those of you who just finished Project Timothy learning how to study and how to teach know this well. Paul is writing to a new church. These are believers who have not been in the kingdom of God very long, and yet they are suffering. You could be here as a brand-new Christian and need to understand you are not immune from suffering. In fact, it is the opposite. You will probably suffer more as a Christian, because you have all the afflictions of life plus persecution. Do not be surprised by that.
**Second, have the right attitude towards suffering.** What is the right attitude? Get your eyes off yourself and your circumstances. It is a natural thing to be overwhelmed by your situation. In fact, even people who care about you will keep pushing you back into your circumstances. Here is what happens: somebody knows you are having a hard time, whatever that difficulty might be — a persecution, whatever it is — and when they see you, the first thing they say is, "How are you doing? How are things going?" Pretty soon, every person you talk to asks how you are doing, and after the fifth time that day, you have answered it so many times that you are absorbed and overwhelmed by the circumstances all over again.
Now, if you are suffering, if there is hardship, you do need others you can share with — to be sure — but a handful. When they ask how you are doing, you tell them. But when the twenty-third person that day says, "How are you doing?" here is what you say: "Have you been praying for me? I will tell you, I have got some tough stuff — you probably know about it. Keep praying for me. Hey, by the way, how are you doing?" And all of a sudden, you are not absorbed. This is why I can get into a cycle where I am overwhelmed by the circumstances around me and see no way out — because all I am looking at is me and how it affects me.
What is the right attitude? As the suffering comes, be focused not on yourself, not on the circumstances, but focused on Him. That is not denial. Paul does not say to them, "Pretend it is not real." No — it is real. But he says you can count on God in the midst of this. God works for your good in your life. In fact, look at what he says in this passage: he says this suffering is an indication of God's righteous judgment at work.
Suffering Has Purpose
Can you imagine how bad it would be to live in this world believing that everything happened by chance? It is easy to see why people are filled with despair. Those who think that this is all just evolution and it all happened by accident — see how hopeless that is?
First of all, there is no such thing as chance. When we flip a coin, we say there is a 50-50 chance of heads or tails. That is true when we flip indiscriminately. But if I can control the velocity of the flip, the weight of the coin, the pressure of the air, and the place at which I catch that coin, I can flip heads every time. It is not chance. Jonathan Edwards says this, trying to prove the point that chance does not exist: chance is something a rock dreams about when it sleeps. It does not exist.
We did not just happen. That is the whole point. There is a purpose behind all of this. You may be in the midst of suffering right now, and oftentimes in the midst of suffering we cannot simply say, "There is the point." But we know this — there is a point. And one day, if He is gracious, God will let us see what it is. At its simplest, you are suffering for your own good.
Thriving, Not Just Surviving
Paul's final point here is that you do not just survive suffering — you can do more than that. Frequently I will ask someone how they are doing, and they will say, "Pretty good, considering the circumstances." This passage does away with that kind of thinking entirely. When you understand that you should expect these difficulties, when you approach them with the right attitude and recognize them as evidence of God's working — always purposeful — you can thrive in the midst of them. All of a sudden, you are not a victim anymore. All of a sudden, you see purpose.
Let me be clear: we do not diminish the hurt. Paul is not writing to say, "I know some of you are in jail, but you are not really in jail." Sue Wright, Larry's wife, was in the hospital one time, and a woman came to visit her — a new age type. She said to Sue, "I know what you think, but you are not really here." Sue said, "Well, how come you are here?" This is not some philosophical mumbo-jumbo. This is reality.
When I was in school we used to sit around asking, "What is reality?" Suffering is reality. It exists. There are people in this room right now who are in the midst of suffering — physically, emotionally, financially. We do not minimize that for a second. What we do say is that you are not a victim. Paul says it is actually an indication that God is working in your life. As you suffer, it demonstrates that you are worthy of this call, and as others look upon you, they see the reality of the risen Christ in your life.
God's Just Repayment
Now Paul turns, almost as a parenthetical insert, to those who are afflicting the Thessalonian believers — those outside the Christian church. He says in verse 6, "For after all, it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you." This is very similar to what we looked at last week in chapter 5: do not repay evil with evil, for vengeance is Mine, says the Lord.
He says in verse 7 that He will give relief to those who are afflicted — and to us as well — "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels and His flaming fire." There is a natural tendency when someone strikes you to strike back. There is a natural tendency to want to get even, to try to take matters into your own hands. Paul says: do not do that. God will handle it. Rest. Do not get in the bondage of revenge. He will take care of it, and this judgment will be revealed when He comes with a flaming fire — which speaks of judgment.
God Is Both Love and Judge
Verse 8 says He will deal out retribution. It will be fair. It will be full. It will be punishment. Let me say it plainly: if your God is just a God of love, you have edited God. God is much more than a God of love. Is He a God of love? Yes. But He is also a God of judgment. Say it again — because He is a God of love, He must be a God of hate. Because He loves holiness and righteousness and purity, He must hate sin. And He will come and He will judge it.
Who will He judge? Two groups of people: those who do not know God, and those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What About Those Who Never Heard?
Consider the first group — those who do not know God. There are people in this world right now who will never hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. What about them? When you are sharing the gospel with someone, is that not frequently what they want to talk about? What about those who never heard? We always have to say, "Let's talk about them in a moment — but what about you?" Still, it is a legitimate question: what is the future of those who have never heard?
I believe this passage teaches that those who have never heard will spend eternity in hell. Now, stay with me — some of you do not like that. You are thinking it is not fair, that God cannot send someone to hell for rejecting a Christ they never heard of. How can a holy, righteous, fair God send somebody to hell for not coming in repentance and faith toward someone they never heard of? That is a fair point. The problem is this: that is not why He sends them to hell. He sends them to hell as a judgment of their sin.
You and I are born lost. We are not born saved. I assume you believe this with every fiber of your being. If you do not, ask yourself — why would we ever send a missionary? If people who have never heard the gospel are therefore safe in heaven, why would we go and jeopardize their salvation by telling them?
The Two Groups Who Face Retribution
Does it make any sense that the worst thing we could do is send a missionary to someone who is truly saved in their ignorance? If what we really care about is their soul, and they don't know Christ and therefore have heaven, then for goodness's sake, don't send a missionary and ruin it. But they are lost. God sends them to hell because He judges their sin, not their rejection of Christ.
We say this all the time, and everybody agrees — now let's apply it. Every sin must be judged and paid for, either by Christ at the cross, so that when He said "It is finished," He meant that at that moment He paid the price for the sin of every man, woman, student, boy, and girl who would ever come to Him in relationship through Jesus Christ — or it is paid by the sinner themselves. There is no third option.
So He will come and deal out retribution to two groups. Number one, those who don't know Christ. Number two, those who do not obey the gospel. In a sense, the second group is more guilty than the first, for they have had the opportunity to hear the gospel.
In November and December of 1979, I went to a friend I worked with and said, "Where do I find life?" We started to talk about it, and he said, "Jesus Christ." And I rejected that gospel. That is the group Paul is talking about — people who have heard the gospel and said, not now, some other time. I was in that group. You may be in that group.
A couple of weeks ago I was with a very successful businessman, and we were talking about the gospel, about coming to Christ. He said, "Tom, look around. I don't need anything." I said, "Yes, you do. You need a Savior, because you cannot buy your way out, earn your way out, or work your way out of the situation you are in. You are lost." He comes to deal out retribution to those who don't know and to those who don't obey.
The Penalty of Eternal Destruction
What will they receive? These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction. What is that eternal destruction? Part of it is that they are away from the presence of the Lord and from His glory and from His power. There is a destruction at the end of life for those who do not know God and have never come to Him in repentance and faith.
There used to be a show called *This Is Your Life*, where we looked back through everything that had happened. We are not going to do that. We are going to show you your future. Eternal — that means forever. Irreversible — no way out. Perpetual — continuing without an end. Eternal destruction. Eternal separation from God.
Let me read to you the words of a couple of men who speak to this. When I became a Christian I heard of hellfire-and-brimstone preachers — these men might fall into that category. Thomas Hooker writes this: "He conceived this much. If all the diseases in the world did seize on one man, if all the torment that the tyrants of the world could devise were cast against him, if all the creatures in heaven and earth did conspire the destruction of this man, if all the devils in hell did labor to inflict punishment on him, you might think this man to be in a miserable condition. And yet all of this is but a beam of God's indignation. If the beams of God's indignation were so hot, what is the full sum of His wrath when it shall seize upon the soul of a sinful creature in full measure?"
Charles Spurgeon writes this: "There is a real fire in hell as truly as you have a real body, a fire exactly like that which we have on this earth, except this — it will not consume you, though it will torture you. You've seen asbestos flaying amid red-hot coals, but not consumed. So your body will be prepared by God in such a way that it will burn forever without being consumed. With your nerves laid raw by searing flame, yet never desensitized for all its raging fury, and the smoke searing your lungs, choking your breath, you will cry out for the mercy of death, but it shall never, never, no, never come."
In what is considered the classic in American preaching, Jonathan Edwards spoke the words recorded in his message *Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God*. In that message he talks not just about hell, but about how we as sinners hang so vulnerable over it. Those who were present gave testimony that some could feel the flames of hell in their pews. To demonstrate how tenuous the circumstance of a lost person is, Edwards wrote this: "Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The wrath of God burns against them."
No Hope — An Eternity Without It
Every week, without exception, I feel inadequate for what I do here. But I feel especially inadequate when I try to describe the idea and torment of hell. I don't know what the words are. Here is this condition of torment — perpetual, unending, irreversible, horror and pain beyond anything you can imagine. That is your destiny. Why would you not come?
Here is the deepest part of this: there is no hope. It is banishment from the presence of God, and what ultimately makes this an even greater torment is that there is no hope. You have heard it said that we can live three or four days without water, forty or fifty days without food, but not one day without hope. These people will spend not one day but an eternity without hope.
Who will be in that group? Those who don't know God and those who don't obey Him.
Where Do You Find Hope?
Where do you find hope? Here is what Paul writes in Romans chapter five, from the New Living Translation: "Therefore, since we've been made right in God's sight through faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ..."
Two Groups in the Room
Because of our faith, God has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing His glory. Listen to how this applies to this lesson. We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know they are good for us. They help us learn to endure. And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation, and this expectation will not disappoint us. For we know how dearly God loves us because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love.
When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Verse 10: "For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by His life."
There are two groups of people in this room right now. Those who understood the instruction of communion and took communion, and those who did not. Said another way: those who believe that Jesus Christ is who He said He was — and I do not mean mere mental assent, but those who trust Him and Him alone for their salvation — and those who do not. It is interesting, because on the outside, as we look at one another, it is very hard, sometimes, to see the distinction.
A Man Who Was in Church But Not a Christian
I did a wedding last night for a man and a woman who are more at the end of life than at the beginning or even the middle. The man is 65 years old. When the ceremony reached the point just prior to communion, he had asked if he could say something, and he did. This man, 65 years old, said this to those who were there: "I was in church for many years, but I was never a Christian. My heart was never converted. It was not until Good Friday at East Valley Bible Church that God saved me, that God drew me, that God chose me, that God saved me."
His destination is not the destination we just talked about. His destination is heaven.
The Danger of Familiarity Without Faith
If you do not know Christ as your Lord and Savior, this is particularly serious for some of you. I think especially of those who are students and college students — those who have had the privilege, like my girls, of being raised in a Christian home and Christian schools, who have learned all the language, who know all the words, who by age seven, eight, or nine knew the answer to every question and got an A in Bible from a teacher who could evaluate their memorization. My question is: what did the God who looked at their heart give them?
We meet many people who come to this church who have been in churches most of their lives. Some will say, "I didn't realize until I got here, where God began to speak to me, that I was not really a Christian." I do not care what the background is. The issue is this: do you know Christ as your Lord and Savior?
If you do not know Him, if you do not obey Him — by that I mean if you do not respond in repentance and faith — you will spend eternity in hell with no way out. It is irreversible.
As Close to Hell as You Will Ever Get
There is a group of people — and I would hope and pray it is the vast majority in this room — who know Jesus Christ. For you, this right now is as close to hell as you will ever get. You are secure.
Here is what Paul says as he closes out this chapter. When Christ comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, to be marveled at among all who have believed and who have heard this testimony, there will be glory given to Him because of the testimony — because of the way in which we live. Verse 11: "To this end we pray for you always, that our God may count you worthy of your calling and fulfill every desire of goodness and work of faith with power, in order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Here is what he is saying to you and to me. If we call Him Savior, there must be a distinctiveness about the way we live.
Is God Glorified in Your Life?
We close with questions. Is God glorified in your life — in the way that you work, in the way that you live, in your family, in your home, in your relationship with your spouse? Is He glorified in the way you speak, in what you teach, in how you dress? This is serious business.
One of the things that troubles me most is when I see someone who tries to deal with this deadly serious topic in a frivolous way — either a teacher who skims over it, or someone who dismisses it without much thought. It is easy to do. You are sitting here at 18, 19, 20 years old, and hell is the furthest thing from your mind. That is why Paul comes back to the question: how do you live? Do you walk in a manner worthy of your calling?
In the simplest terms: do you act like a Christian? If you are here today and you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, is it evident to everyone around you? It should be. There should be a distinctiveness about you — when you go to work, when you go off to college, when you go back to school, when you go to the neighborhood, when you go to work out, whatever it is you do. Those around you should see something different. And if they do not, understand that you are seriously deficient in your walk.
A Plea to Those Who Do Not Know Christ
For those of you who are here and do not know Christ, we plead with you. We beg you to come in repentance and faith. What does that mean? It means acknowledging that God sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross to save sinners. It means acknowledging that you are a sinner — that is not difficult to admit — and that your sin has separated you from God. There is no way humanly to cover that chasm or bridge it. You cannot. That is why Christ came and died. As Paul says—
An Invitation to Believe
Believe Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, and we will be saved. Saved from what we looked at this morning: eternal destruction. Do you believe? Are you planning your life and death accordingly?
Maybe you are here today and a friend invited you. Maybe you are here with a group of kids, or with a group of adults, and you have been embarrassed to this point to even ask about it. Maybe today you understand the stakes. They are so high.
Ask your friend: what does it mean to know Christ? If you are here today and you do not know Him, and you do not obey the gospel, you refuse to repent — I hope you understand that at the end of your life is not annihilation. There was a song popular a few years ago, Billy Joel: "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, because the sinners are lots more fun." There is no fun there. Does the term "eternal destruction" sound like fun to you? That is the stakes.
Now we pray that God applies that to your heart.
Closing Prayer
Father, please do that. Take this word and teach us this truth. Help us understand what it means. For the people who are here today for the very first time, God, give them the courage to speak to the one who invited them, or to come to the church and talk to somebody about what it means to be a Christian. God, please do that work in our lives. We pray it to You in Jesus' name, amen.