This morning, or tonight, please turn with me to 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. As we read together and consider this chapter in connection with Lord's Day 52. When you have found 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, please turn in the back of the Psalter hymnal to page 63 and 64 where we find Lord's Day 52. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Hear now God's holy, inspired, and inerrant word. Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report, or letter supposed to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped so that he sets himself up in God's temple proclaiming himself to be God. Don't you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and destroy by the splendor of His coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers, loved by the Lord. Because from the beginning, God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our Gospel that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. There ends the reading of God's holy word. May He add His blessing to it. We read that in connection with the sixth, the final petition of the Lord's Prayer and along with the Catechism's consideration of that as well as the doxology and the Amen of Prayer. Page 63, Lord's Day 52. Three questions and answers for us that we give our testimony to. Question 127, what does the sixth request mean? And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil means, By ourselves, we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment. And our sworn enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh, never stop attacking us. And so, Lord, uphold us and make us strong with the strength of your Holy Spirit, so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory. What does your conclusion to this prayer mean? For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever means we have made all these requests of you because as our all-powerful King, you not only want to but are able to give us all that is good And because Your holy name, and not we ourselves, should receive all the praise forever. What does that little word, Amen, express? Amen means, this is sure to be. It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I really desire what I pray for. beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the fifth petition, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. We are reminded with that petition of our own unworthiness, complete and other unworthiness before God. That we are unworthy. We do not deserve the pity, the love, the mercy, the grace of God. And even as we are reminded of our unworthiness with that petition, we also then remember our own forgiveness. All that we have done or all that we have left undone against God, He forgives completely. We are completely unworthy because of our sin. And all of our sin, He forgives entirely. And God's forgiveness of you and me, beloved, is the motivation for us to also forgive those who sin against us. There is no greater comfort. There is no more amazing truth than the forgiveness of all of our sins in Christ Jesus. Because we are eternally hopeless without it. Yet now, with the sixth petition, in a sense, our Lord follows that fifth petition up with a call then to live as forgiven people. And that includes the confession of the sixth petition that on this side of glory, we are still prone to wander we are still easily led astray lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil because we are still prone to wander we are still easily led astray grateful for God's forgiveness the believer is taught to ask God that by His Holy Spirit He would strengthen He would help me to keep from increasing my debt of sin and therefore this last petition we might say is an expression of the believer's desire not to sin an expression of the believer's desire not to fall short of the glory of God and it is followed up by a doxology of confidence in God indeed a doxology for the entire prayer but it kind of fits in a wonderful way here as well with the sixth petition because really together this is an expression of our confidence, beloved, that God will bring us through many dangers, toils, and snares. He will bring us across the finish line in the race of faith. He will bring us to glory. And until that day, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches His redeemed people to pray this prayer for preservation. That God would help us, as Paul says in verse 15, to stand firm. It's a prayer for preservation, first of all, for now, for today, for this life. Now, we confess that wonderful truth, the perseverance of the saints, our confidence from God's own holy word that we will persevere, we will make it all the way to glory. And this petition then, in a sense, expresses a desire to persevere. And of course, we know that it is God, by the Holy Spirit, who preserves and equips His people to persevere. Oh, we may fall for a season. We may struggle with sin over and over again. We may even suffer the consequences of our sin. Yet this is a prayer, again, that God would strengthen and help us to keep from falling, even for a season, because we don't want to offend the God who has forgiven us. And therefore, this prayer for preservation is a prayer for now because of our continued need, because of our weakness. Answer 127 begins, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. It means by ourselves we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment. Or as the older version of the catechism says, we are too weak to stand on our own even for a moment. You see, beloved, we prove our weakness by our need to ask for forgiveness daily. We demonstrate our weakness by the sin that we struggle with each and every day. Jesus Himself points to our weakness in John 15, verse 5 when He says, apart from Me, you can do nothing. Peter and John also seem to allude to our weakness when they both say, resist the devil. If that were natural for you and me, we would not need that reminder. We would not need to be commanded to resist the devil. Paul in Romans 7 speaks of his own weakness which he struggled with. The good that I want to do, he says, I do not do. The evil that I do not want to do, that is what I do. And Paul as well seems to remind his hearers all the time through admonition of their weakness. You foolish Galatians, he says, who has bewitched you. And in Ephesians 4, he speaks of being infants tossed back and forth by waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. And then also to the Thessalonian believers. This second letter really, at least in part, it is a letter of admonition. Admonition because the people, the believers that had been deceived in their weakness, they had been deceived and therefore they became anxious and uptight and shaken like a ship that's lost out, being tossed about in the waves, they were shaken and uptight about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, in our weakness, beloved, left to ourselves, we are utterly vulnerable. We are completely helpless. We are always in danger of defeat. And therefore, we are taught to look always to the Lord for His preserving grace, especially because of our sworn enemies. The Catechism says, our sworn enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh never stop attacking us. And Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2, gives a vivid picture of that ongoing attack, especially as it is going to intensify before the return of Jesus. You see, the context, of course, is 1 Thessalonians, Paul's first letter which he wrote to them. And in that letter, you may remember that Paul had written about Christ's second coming. And he seems to point there to the sudden character of that coming. His coming to judge the living and the dead. And in connection with that, he has also written there about the necessity of believers to be prepared for that day when Jesus Christ returns. And then along with that, he also writes that there is no need to worry about the believers who have died that they're going to miss out because apparently that's what was going on as Paul talked about the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The believers of that day began to worry, become concerned about their believing loved ones who had already died. What's going to happen to them? And Paul says you don't have to worry about that because they are going to rise. Everything in its order as well. Christ will have it all worked out. And together, believers who are still alive, it is coming. and those who have died but will be raised will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. But apparently, Paul's allusion, we might say, to the sudden character of Christ's coming, which means unknown, as Jesus said, He would come as a thief in the night. Nobody knows the day or the hour. That sudden character was misinterpreted by some and taught to mean immediate. It's going to happen right now or about now, any day now, it's going to happen. And they began to worry about that. They began to live into that worry and to think that it had already come and maybe they missed it. And 2 Thessalonians then addresses those who had become unsettled and alarmed that the day of the Lord, that His return for judgment at the time was any time now. And Paul, in essence, he kind of says, well, don't believe what the leaders may say. Don't believe what the tabloids at print. Don't believe what the newspaper headlines might state. Believe the Word of the Lord. The time is not here. As Paul confirms here what Jesus Himself taught in Matthew chapter 24, that before He returns, there is going to be a rise of evil and wickedness as has never been seen before. There is going to be a rejection, a mass rejection of God and there is going to be a tribulation of believers terrible temptation and trouble so on the one hand Paul's message was somewhat to be comforting to these believers because they hadn't missed out they hadn't missed it but on the other hand it was meant to be somewhat of a warning for you and I as well a reason for Paul's call to stand firm because there will be a rebellion. There will be a major movement of apostasy against the very God who had demonstrated His immense love through the infinite sacrifice of His only begotten Son for sinners. Now it's hard to know if Paul is talking about a major movement throughout the world or some suggest from the Jews or it's even believed that Paul is talking about many in the visible church. many in the visible church who will have heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ but forsake it, reject the true faith in Jesus Christ. And that movement will be led by the man of lawlessness. Now, of course, there are many theories about who this might have been or who this is or who it will be. I believe that it's the very same one that John speaks of as the Antichrist. You see, beloved, we live in the last days. Those last days began when Jesus ascended into heaven and those days will end when He returns again on the clouds of glory. No matter how many years those last days may be, it is a time when Satan is prowling around seeking to be as destructive as he can. It is a time of anti-Christian power manifested throughout the ages. And we know that when we read the history books, that anti-Christian power that has risen up and then fallen back. Risen up and fallen back. And the same is true a time of many wicked leaders, again, who have risen up and then been conquered. And they have all been called or referred to as anti-Christ. So and so was an anti-Christ, some will say. All of them forerunners of the one ultimate man of lawlessness that Paul speaks of who will come from Satan. Satan desires to imitate the second person of the Holy Trinity, yet we know that he knows he cannot become incarnate. And this man of lawlessness will be the visible manifestation of the evil of Satan. As Paul says, beginning in verse 9, the coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan, displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. He will be one over whom Satan has complete control. One who will perform Satan's will completely. He will be the complete antithesis, the complete opposite of Jesus Christ. The very opposite of Jesus in this man's works, as we just read, in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders, His works of evil, His works of destruction, when Christ were true works of love and mercy. He will be the complete opposite of Jesus Christ in His Word. His intention to completely deceive while Christ's Word is truth. He will be one who exercises complete rebellion against God's law. One who is utterly lost. He will be the adversary of God and of His law and of His people. As Paul points to it, he will declare himself to be God. He will place himself in authority over all, even believers, and demand worship. But the believers will not recognize him as God. they will then suffer a very great tribulation. Yet notice, too, the assurance that Paul gives that yet this man will be destroyed. It will not be a long period of time, it seems. As he will be destroyed quickly and easily by the Lord Jesus Christ by, as verse 8 says, the breath of His mouth, the very splendor of His coming, the very glory of Christ, beloved, will be too much for the wicked to handle. It will strike terror in them. As the Bible says, the wicked will cry out for the mountains and the hills to cover them. Because they cannot stand the beauty and the glory of Christ. Indeed, this will be the worst it will get. It will be terrible. It is not here yet. It will be the worst that it will get. But until then, it is an evil time. As Peter says, Satan is prowling around, seeking whom he may devour. And Paul makes it clear that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the prince of darkness. Until that day that man of lawlessness is being restrained, being held back by God through God's means, yet in preparation for that His unleashing, we might say Satan is still busy. He is busy through his three sworn enemies. Himself, the devil, in Ephesians 4, we read about the flaming arrows of the devil. He continually shoots those arrows of temptation at you and me trying to cause us to doubt. Trying to cause us to question the Word of God, especially when we face times of difficulty and hardship. He would have us to believe that God is not a God of love. God wouldn't let you go through that if He was a God of love. Young people, He would do whatever He can to get you to doubt all that you have been taught by your parents in the Christian church, in the Christian school. To doubt the truth of the Word of God. And the other enemy, the world, the world that hates Christ also hates those who profess Him and believe in Him. They would like nothing better than to shut us up, even to get rid of us. That we would not stand in their way. of their desired wickedness. And even that third sworn enemy, which we may have a little more difficulty with, our own flesh. But Paul calls believers often to put to death the deeds of the flesh. Beloved, all of this, not only the terrible time when the man of lawlessness will come and when that great rebellion is going to take place, not only for that day, but even for our day. That is why we are taught to pray lead us not into temptation, O Lord, but deliver us from evil. Now, of course, we remember that temptation is meant for destruction. And God, as James says, does not tempt us. Satan does. Yet we pray this. We pray that God who leads our lives, who directs our lives, who is every day planned out, we pray that God who leads our lives according to His divine wisdom and sovereign grace that He would keep us from coming face to face with temptation that we might give in to. Keep us from that. And instead, we pray that He would lead us away from the temptation of the devil and the world and our own flesh. Instead, help us to recognize. Help us to see and to recognize temptation. And to run away from it. Help us to keep from willfully putting ourselves in temptation's way, putting ourselves willfully in situations where we would compromise the truth of Jesus Christ and how God calls us to live before Him. You see, beloved, we can only stand, of course, if God preserves us. And in a sense, why should He? If we intentionally place ourselves in temptation's way. When Peter says resist the devil, he says we are to be sober-minded, clear-headed, to understand what's going on. The Christian life is not case or ah, whatever will be, will be. I'm saved anyway. I don't have to worry about anything. That's not what it's like at all. But also it's a prayer that if we should fall because of our sin, that He would rescue us from evil, deliver us from that evil, and restore us to Himself. We pray this humbly, beloved, because of our continued need, but also we pray this according to God's covenant promises. the covenant promises of His grace His promises of grace which are ours already from the beginning Paul says in verse 13 but we ought always to thank God for you brothers loved by the Lord because from the beginning God chose you not those who are perishing because they won't believe God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief into the truth. God chose to save and to sanctify His people and He has accomplished it in Christ Jesus. As verse 14 says, He called you to this through our Gospel. It's an accomplished fact. Paul is talking to those who believe, who love the truth. He called you to this through our Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And notice, the covenant promises of God's grace come not only with a promise to be saved, but along with that comes a promise, a guarantee of glory. And therefore, this prayer for preservation is for both now, today, but also forever, for eternity. In Christ Jesus, beloved, ours is confidence in God. Question 128 asks again, what does your conclusion to this prayer mean? For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever means. We have made all these requests of you because as our all-powerful King, you not only want to, but are able to give us all that is good. And because your holy name, and not we ourselves, should receive all the praise forever. Our confidence is in our sovereign God. His is the kingdom. His is the power. His is the glory. His is the kingdom, not Satan's. Satan, in his temptation of our Lord, tried to claim at least the kingdoms of this earth. But all that is visible and all that is invisible, it all belongs to God. Everything is in the hand of God, even the man of lawlessness. He cannot come out and attack as long as God is restraining him. His is the kingdom. And His is the power, not the world. The world claims power for itself. It is survival of the fittest that matters, the world says. But all things submit to God's power. There is no power for anything or anyone apart from the power of God. And His is the glory, not man's, not flesh, which says man is the measure of all things. Because man likes to take all kinds of glory to himself. Look what I have done. Look what I have accomplished. But it all belongs to God. And God's glory will be seen in all of its truth one day. Beloved, this gives the believer confidence in our sovereign God that God, by the Holy Spirit, will, as answer 127 says again, that He will uphold us and make us strong with the strength of your Holy Spirit so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory. That's our confidence in our God for Jesus' sake. That we will stand firm in the spiritual battle because He loved us, as Paul says in v. 16. And God's love is only meaningful because He is sovereign. And not His enemies, not Satan, not the man of lawlessness, not those who are perishing. Our confidence is in God through Jesus Christ. While those who are perishing, Paul says in v. 10, They perished because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. Notice, those alone who the man of lawlessness will be able to deceive are only those who are perishing in their sin, not those chosen by God. Those who are perishing do not pray this prayer because they don't believe it. They embrace the lie. They think Jesus Christ is meaningless. But by the grace of God, those whom He has chosen, those whom He has brought to Himself in faith, those for whom Jesus died and for whom He will come again, not only have they heard the truth, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, they love the truth of Jesus Christ, the truth alone that saves. And beloved, for God's believers in the midst of a world of sin and temptation, they are to be comforted by the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 when he says, No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. God is faithful. Indeed, the Holy Spirit will cause us to stand in the spiritual battle. He clothes us with the armor of God, a complete suit of armor, impenetrable for the spiritual battle. Yet again, it does not mean that we are allowed to live carelessly. That's not the Christian life at all. Paul makes that clear over and over again. It is a life of care. It is a life of work. It is a life of desire to be in the Lord. but instead we pray that the Holy Spirit would keep our eyes open. Boys and girls, young people, each one of us, we face temptations each and every day. It is a prayer that the Holy Spirit would keep our eyes wide open that we might recognize temptation when we come face to face with it. That we might be aware of it. To recognize and fight temptation, For example, to lie to parents or to cheat on a test or to steal that item which nobody is going to miss. It's so easy. It's right there for the taking. You see, Satan is busy and active even, as the Bible says, disguising himself as an angel of light with the goal to dull our consciences because he knows that if he can get us to give in once, it gets easier the next time. And then, of course, he is quick at the appropriate time to turn around and say, God cannot forgive you because you are such a terrible sinner. You see, beloved, if we find ourselves saying, well, it's no big deal about something that we know is not right, it probably is a big deal. Instead, our prayer is that the Holy Spirit would sharpen our consciences. that He would make us aware and help us to stand firm, to live with Jesus at the threshold. He is right there. And that the Holy Spirit would make us ready for every temptation and especially to make us ready for the coming of the Lord, confident because we know that the man of lawlessness will be destroyed completely. We know that Satan and all of the enemies of Jesus Christ will be put under His feet forever. And this prayer for preservation, beloved, is not just a hopeful wish, not having any confidence whether or not it will come true, but Jesus taught us to pray it because our God is both willing and able to give us all that is good forever. This is our certainty in God. Question 129, the very last one of the Catechism. What does that little word Amen express? Amen means this is sure to be. It is more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I really desire what I pray for. I don't know about you, but every time I read that sentence, what an amazing sentence that the authors of the catechism put in that explanation. What a humbling sentence. That it is even more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I really desire what I pray for. My inadequate, my ineffective, my half-hearted prayer. And it is certain that God hears it. Really, I trust you see from all of this that our prayer is answered even before we pray it, isn't it? You see, we end our prayer by faith, not with a question mark. but with an exclamation mark. And our certainty is not in the sincerity or in the content of our prayer, but in God alone who hears and answers prayer. Again, it's true for the entire prayer that our Lord taught us, not just this petition. Yet, there is a special comfort here that He will preserve us until the day of Christ Jesus as Paul confesses again in verses 13 and 14. But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, Because from the beginning, God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our Gospel that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's all there. Salvation from beginning to end. That's why we can shout aloud, Amen! Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Let the Amen! Let the certainty sound from His people again. and until that day beloved ours is the confidence with David the psalmist in Psalm 138 though I walk in the midst of trouble you preserve my life you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes with your right hand you save me the Lord will fulfill his purpose for me your love oh Lord endures forever do not abandon the works of your hands. That's our comfort. We've come to the end of our consideration of the catechism this time through. It begins with comfort. What is your only comfort in life and in death that I am not my own but belong, body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ? Because of what Paul says exactly in 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14. It begins with comfort. And it goes all the way to the end with comfort. Because ours is the comfort in Christ Jesus for time and eternity. Amen. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we praise Your name for Your love and Your goodness, for Your willingness as our Father, Your ableness as Almighty God to give to us all that we stand in need of for body and soul for this life and the life to come. Indeed, Father, we thank You again for the forgiveness of all of our sins in Christ Jesus. And it is our desire, though that desire is sometimes weak and sometimes we don't look like it, yet it is our desire to live righteously in Christ Jesus. It is our desire to keep from sin. And Father, we pray for Your strength. We pray for the equipping of Your Holy Spirit more and more day by day that we might live thankful lives to You. Grateful for all that You have done for us in Christ Jesus. Well, Heavenly Father, what can we say? You have told us that we are Your people. You have promised us that this is not just temporary. You have assured us that it is forever and ever. and all we can say humbly is thank you Lord thank you, Amen let the Amen sound from his people again in Jesus name we pray Amen