2 Thess 2 (Tribulation Study), How Would You Treat God’s House?

Class Outline:

Thursday August 10, 2023

 

Characteristics of the Tribulation (not a comprehensive list):

 

• Known as Daniel’s seventieth week.
• A 7-year period of the wrath of God upon the earth.
• Its reason is to prepare Israel for her Messiah.
• Its reason is also to reveal God’s wrath upon sin.
• During this time there is the pinnacle of mankind’s rebellion against God.
• The rebellion is both political and religious.
• During this time Satan’s man of sin is revealed.
• If the Tribulation lasted for a longer period, no one would survive it.
• The Tribulation ends with the second coming of the Lord.

 

DAN 9:24 reveals that God had ordained 70 weeks (490 years) to Israel from the time of the order to rebuild Jerusalem until the fulfillment of the covenants. (These are weeks of years)

 

DAN 9:24

“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.”

 

These weeks are broken up into three divisions: 7, 62, and 1. 7 (49 years) to rebuild Jerusalem. Another 62 (434 years) until the coming of Messiah the Prince. This happened to the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem on the colt.

 

Gabriel tells Daniel that after the 7+62 years Messiah would be cut off and have nothing.

 

DAN 9:26

“Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.”

 

There is no interim between the 7 weeks and the 62 weeks, but after the 62 weeks signs are given. Messiah will be cut off and then the city and the temple will be destroyed. The Lord Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world and about 40 years later the city of Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed.

 

Then another sign is given that will start the 70^th week. This is the start of the Tribulation period.

 

DAN 9:27

"And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate."

 

The reference to the sacrifice and grain offering, and the reference to the fact that the seventy weeks are decreed for “your people and your holy city” (vs. 24), means that this is the people of Israel. This sign has not occurred.

 

There is an interregnum between week 69 and 70.

Interregnum - a period when normal government is suspended between successive reigns.

 

Jesus’ final lamentation over the house of the Lord:

MAT 23:37-39

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.  38 "Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!  39 "For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, 'BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'"

 

The God of history is the eternal and incarnate Son, whose hand is always present in the affairs of men. His purpose is to gather sinners to Himself - into His presence (beneath His wings).

 

The tragedy of history is found in the words, “You were unwilling.”

 

The Messiah is cut off (DAN 9:26). The prophecy that He will have nothing might be a reference to His experience on the cross, being judged for the sins of the world and being separated from His Father.

 

This city which should have been a blessing to all nations is now designated as one who habitually kills the prophets and stones the messengers of God. She climaxes this long history of iniquity with the murder of her own King, Messiah.

 

God ever wanted good for her (I wanted to gather your children).

 

God wanted to cover her with His wings - likely a reference to the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant. Sinners meet God there and find rest.

 

Wings are an image used in the OT of Yahweh’s care:

PSA 91:1-4

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress,

My God, in whom I trust!"

3 For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper

And from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with His pinions,

And under His wings you may seek refuge;

His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

 

They were unwilling - freedom and responsibility of mankind.

 

“Your house is left to you desolate.” (He departs from the Temple just afterwards, not to return). This exit has to be the most epic in history.

 

It is significant that He no longer calls the Temple His house, but “your house.”

 

It is not just the Temple, but the city and the nation. Israel will be judged and scattered, but that is not the final word.

 

House of the Lord in Chronicles: An example of our treatment of holiness.

 

This is a reference from history in which God revealed that Israel and her kings (leaders) had to treat Him and His house as holy or they would suffer terribly.

 

Chronicles was written for the exiles returning from captivity.

 

In Chronicles God stresses His commitment to David’s house.

 

David is honored. Nothing is written of his great sin with Uriah and Bathsheba.

 

What is most emphasized about David in Chronicles is his plan to build a temple for God. This motif is the house of the Lord. The Lord turns the tables and promises to build for David an everlasting house - David’s dynasty. The eternal King from David’s dynasty is Jesus, Son of David. And He came into the house of the Lord at week 69 (Daniel).

 

In David’s dynasty there were good kings and bad ones and terrible ones. Good or bad depended on their response in faith to God’s holy law and His holy temple.

 

2CH 7:16

“For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.”

 

The house is the place of God’s name, His eyes and heart. It is the place of His presence. (Right now His name, eyes, and heart are in you - do you see the application?)

 

How did they treat the holiness of the Lord? How did they treat His temple?

 

Jeroboam I (not of David’s dynasty) - after the civil war and split, built a different temple at Bethel and instituted his own priesthood (not Levites).

 

None of the kings of Israel were good. Not one (10 dynasties or houses, 20 kings).

 

Of the kings of Judah (one dynasty, 20 kings), a few were good, some started out good and turned bad, and some outright spit on it.

 

2CH 28:22-24

Now in the time of his distress this same King Ahaz became yet more unfaithful to the Lord. 23 For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus which had defeated him, and said, "Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me." But they became the downfall of him and all Israel. 24 Moreover, when Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, he cut the utensils of the house of God in pieces; and he closed the doors of the house of the Lord and made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem.

 

Manasseh was the chief:

 

2CH 33:1-9

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. 2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel. 3 For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; he also erected altars for the Baals and made Asherim, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. 4 He built altars in the house of the Lord of which the Lord had said, "My name shall be in Jerusalem forever." 5 For he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. 6 He made his sons pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom; and he practiced witchcraft, used divination, practiced sorcery and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.  7 Then he put the carved image of the idol which he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever; 8 and I will not again remove the foot of Israel from the land which I have appointed for your fathers, if only they will observe to do all that I have commanded them according to all the law, the statutes and the ordinances given through Moses." 9 Thus Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel.

 

During the day of the Lord, the Abomination of Desolation will set his image in the temple of God and call himself God. This is the apex of hatred for the Lord and His holiness.

 

When the people and the king obeyed God, the temple was a place of great joy and blessing.

 

In our age, we are the temple of the Lord, the house of the Lord (1CO 6:19-20).

 

While we wait for the return of the Lord, do we see how important it is to treat the Lord and His temple (your material and immaterial self) as holy?