“For God did not appoint us to
wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”-1 Thessalonians
5:9
With the sounding of the trumpets
we begin a season of feasts that include the Day of Atonement. It is a time of
divine judgment upon the world, at which time the wrath of God will be meted
out on all the ungodly; but what about you and I? How do we as believers factor
into the equation.
According to 1 Thessalonians 5, we
learn from the Apostle Paul that God did not appoint us to suffer wrath. That
does not mean that as believers our lives will be free from trials and
troubles. We will certainly suffer the wrath of men and Satan, but according to
this passage we will not suffer the wrath of God.
In Revelation 3:10, John writes: “Because
you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of
trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the
earth.”
John makes two very important
observations in this passage. First, there is an hour of trial that is going to
come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth and secondly,
those who persevere will be kept from it. This idea of keeping people from
judgment is in keeping with God’s character. We see it displayed when God
protected Noah and his family in the Ark, keeping them from the judgment of the
flood and we see it again at Sodom & Gomorrah when God brought Lot and his
family out before raining down judgment on those wicked cities..
In fact, Jesus, Himself, after
describing the signs of of the times and the end of the age declared: “Watch
therefore, and pray, always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these
things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”-Luke 21:36
According to Revelation 6:17, the
great day of God’s wrath is coming. However, some time prior to the judgments
of God being revealed, the Body of Christ is taken out of the way. I believe
that it is this event that will trigger the period we know as the Tribulation;
the beginning of which is marked by the signing of a seven year covenant with Israel that is
brokered by a man we know simply as the Anti-Christ (Son of Perdition).
“Now, brethren, concerning the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you,
not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by
letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive
you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes
first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and
exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he
sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not
remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you
know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the
mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so
until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed,
whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the
brightness of His coming.-2 Thessalonians 2:1-8
When will all this take place? We
do not know!
“But of that day and hour no
one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the
Father.-Mark 13:32
That is why it is so important
that we live each day in expectation of the Lord’s coming!
Pastor Scott Burr
Dayspring Community Church
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