Unshakeable #3 - Future (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4) | Dr. Kurt Bjorklund

In this message from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund reveals three essential truths about Jesus' second coming that can transform your perspective on current world events and personal struggles. Discover how understanding the "day of the Lord" can give you unshakeable confidence and purposeful direction in an uncertain world.

Message Summary and Transcript - https://www.orchardhillchurch.com/blog-post/2025/8/18/unshakeable-3-future

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Transcript

Good morning. It's great to be together in and around Pittsburgh online. Let's pray together.

God, as we're gathered today, I ask, as we pray so often, that you would speak to each of us wherever we're coming from, whatever we're bringing to this moment. God, I ask that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, as you heard, we're in week three of a series we've called Unshakeable, and we're looking at the letter to the Thessalonian Church. So 2 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul wrote it. And today we come to chapter two, and it talks very succinctly about something called the day of the Lord.

Whether you've been around church or not around church, chances are you've heard a phrase or a variation of this phrase at some point in your life, and chances are you have one of two primary reactions to it. So some of us hear this phrase, and our reaction is a little bit like, "Whoa, that's scary." Apocalyptical kind of stuff. Like, there's something out there in the future ahead that is terrifying, because whatever the day of the Lord is, there has to be some sense of judgment and some reason to be afraid.

And others probably hear this, and we say, "That could be one of the great days," because the day of the Lord should mean that God is returning to fix the world and make everything right.

Well, in Second Thessalonians, chapter two, we get a direct statement about the Day of the Lord. And the statement that is made is really this: He says, "Listen, I don't want you to be, in essence, unsettled about it." And if you've been here, you know that Thessalonica, the city was unremarkable in many ways, but the struggle for the church was that they were enduring some persecution and they were unsettled about the future. They thought maybe the day of the Lord had already happened—missed it. And so they have this moment where they're saying, "Maybe we've missed the day of the Lord somehow."

And Paul says, "Listen, I don't want you to be unsettled about it." In other words, "I don't want you to have shaken faith. I want you to be unshakeable." And then he says, "I also don't want you to be deceived about it." And those are the two things that he basically says.

And so the very simple takeaway from these few verses is that we can live with unshakeable faith, because there is this day of the Lord that's coming. And what I'd like to do is simply show you three facts about it from this passage and then ask and answer some questions that these facts raise.

Three Facts About the Day of the Lord

Fact 1: Jesus is Coming Back

So the first fact is this, very simply: Jesus is coming back. Verse one: "Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." There it is. He says, "I want you to know this is happening."

And the idea has been this: Jesus came the first time, one time as a baby, lived on earth as a human being, and went to the cross in order to achieve salvation for humanity. He ascended into heaven where he is. But he's coming back to put the world to rights. That is the idea. So there's a coming, there's a second coming. And the second coming is something that you can say is certain.

Sometimes we sing the song around Orchard Hill: "I know how the story ends. I will be with him again." And there's this sense, if you believe the scriptures and you've come to a point of personal faith, that you can say, "I know how the story ends. Jesus is coming back and the world that we see will be made right."

Maybe a way to think about this is, have you ever had a movie that you were seeing and somebody told you how it ended before you actually saw the movie, and you had that moment of like, "Well, now all the suspense is gone"? Well, in a sense, what the scriptures do is they tell us how the movie ends. They tell us that there is a coming day of the Lord. And so you don't need to be unsettled. You don't need to be deceived about what's ahead. You can live with a degree of certainty.

Fact 2: Jesus Coming Brings Joy, Hope and Restoration to the Redeemed

But that really leads us to a second fact that's important. And this fact is that Jesus coming brings joy, hope and restoration. And I'm going to use a word that's maybe a little churchy here—to the redeemed. And I use that because in the verses that we see here, it doesn't actually paint this picture. But you have to know something about this concept of the day of the Lord.

Here's what it says: "Not to become easily unsettled. There's the idea of being unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us, whether by prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for the day will not come." And then he goes on and he talks about the rebellion that's coming.

But in order to understand this, we have to have some concept of this phrase, the day of the Lord. And this is a phrase that if you trace it in the Old Testament, has not just a picture of judgment, but of this restoration, this joy. And I use the word "redeemed," which is, as I said, a churchy word, but it means to be bought back. And so there's a sense in which many of us, all of us, live with a destination that is enslaved to the way things are, but are redeemed, bought back from it for this promise of the day of the Lord.

Without spending a lot of time trying to trace some of the Old Testament images, let me just give you a couple of them. This is Isaiah, chapter 2, verse 4: "He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples and they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

Now this is a picture about that day. And what does it say? Nations won't even have to have weapons anymore because there will be peace. There won't be nation against nation. You won't at that day hear about a war in a foreign land. You won't see a nation besieging another nation with kids starving. It is a time in which the things that are so troublesome to us today are made right.

And then in the book of Ezekiel, we also see a picture of this. This is Ezekiel, chapter 34. I'm going to read verses 26 and 27: "I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season, and there will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield crops, and the people will be secure in the land. They will know that I am God when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who've enslaved them."

And here it's a picture of prosperity and well-being that says this is when the day comes, when Jesus comes to reign. This will be the picture.

But it isn't just the Old Testament that gives us this picture. We also get it in the book of Revelation. And I know that sometimes when it comes to the book of Revelation, many people again inside, outside the church see this and they say this is a hard book to understand. There's a lot of images and it feels like there's a lot of judgment and a lot of bowls of wrath and blood and all these things. And so how do we read this? But right in the middle of the book of Revelation, here again, you get this picture.

This is Revelation, chapter 11, verse 15: "The seventh angel sounded his trumpet." So there were seven bowls, seven trumpets, these judgments, so to speak. So the day of the Lord did have judgment, but it also then has this joy, this restoration. And then here's what it says: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever."

Anybody recognize that? Handel's Messiah. Right. And what is the picture again? That there's coming a day that God will say, "The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of the Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever," and all things will be made right.

And I love this musically. If you ever listen to Handel's Messiah, by the way, it doesn't end with the Hallelujah chorus. I mean, that's the most famous. There's another one after that, "He is Worthy," which also comes from Revelation. But if you ever listen to it, the music gets real small when it says, "The kingdom of our world," and then it builds to the crescendo when it says, "will be the kingdom of the Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever."

And if we miss this idea of the day of the Lord, what happens is we become incredibly pessimistic because we say there's just judgment and things like that ahead instead of saying the point, the culmination, is God coming to restore and build the kingdom.

Fact 3: Jesus' Coming Will Be Preceded by Apostasy and the Man of Lawlessness

But there is a third fact that we see here, and this is caught up in verses three and four. Again, it says—well, I'll read my point first. This Jesus coming will be preceded by apostasy and the man of lawlessness. In the NIV, it says rebellion. It means turning away from God.

Here's again what we read: "Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for the day will not come"—speaking about the day of the Lord, this great day—"until the rebellion occurs and a man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that's called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple and proclaims himself to be God."

Now, the man of lawlessness here is by most accounts what many have called the Antichrist. Maybe you've heard this phrase, and there's a lot of speculation about what The Antichrist is, who The Antichrist is, what that looks like. But I do want to just show you something that is similarly said about the antichrist. This is First John, chapter 2, verse 18: "Dear children, this is the last hour. And as you've heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now, many Antichrists have come. This is how we know that it's the last hour."

So First John tells us that the Antichrist is coming, but then he says, "But there are many Antichrists that have already come." So how do you understand that? Well, what I think he's saying is that over the course of history, there is a consistent presence of those who set themselves up against God.

Do you notice the titles here for the man of lawlessness? In verse three and four, it says, "The rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed." So a title for this Antichrist is "a man of lawlessness." It is "the man doomed to destruction." That's the second title here. Then in verse four, "He will oppose and exalt himself over everything that's called God or is worshiped." So he's against everything that's God. And then it says that he will proclaim himself to be God.

And so the picture again here is that there is an Antichrist who is a coming figure. But he says, "But there's been many throughout history who have opposed everything that's God, set themselves up to be worshiped and to be against everything that thrives in this world."

By the way, we're going to release a podcast this week on our Prospectus platform, Orchard Hill Plus, that delves into more questions about the Antichrist so that I don't go too far down a rabbit trail here. So if you're interested, check that out this week. There's way more that could be said about this.

But here's what I want you to kind of hear and get from this: what this teaches very clearly is that Jesus is coming. It is a time of joy and restoration, but there is a time of apostasy and an unleashing of this idea of an Antichrist kind of yet to come before this all happens. At least that's the facts that I'm kind of laying out here.

Now, when it says "Antichrist, many Antichrists have come," certainly you could look back and you could say, "Well, was Adolf Hitler an Antichrist?" Well, in some ways. I mean, he did certain things that had opposition. But even if he was, he was a small "a" Antichrist and many could read this and say, antichrist isn't just a person, it's anything. It's a system that sets itself up against the very things that would be worshiped with the God of heaven. And certainly there have been figures over time, but there could also be those over a longer period of time.

And if you've been around for any time, you've probably heard me talk about this. But one of the ways that I understand the way Scripture speaks about prophecy is this: whenever it looks to the future, it kind of has this perspective. And there will be—this "F" stands for fulfillment—many little "f"s, fulfillments along the way before the ultimate fulfillment. So using First John 2:18, where it says there will be many antichrists, there are many antichrists along the way, but then there will be an ultimate Antichrist at some point.

Questions These Facts Raise

Now that leads to some questions. And I would guess some of you are saying, "Okay, what does this have to do with me today?" Hang in there for a few minutes.

Question 1: Is Christ's Coming Future, or Is It Something That's Already Happened?

So the first question that comes up is, is Christ's coming future, or is it something that's already happened? And you might say, "Well, you just said that it's future, isn't it future?" Well, that certainly is the most natural way to read this text. But there are many who would say that a lot of the things that needed to be fulfilled for Christ to happen happened in AD 70 when Jerusalem was sacked. Therefore, they would hold what's called a preterist view, saying, because it's already happened, we're already past it in terms of how we're living.

When we think about this now, there are others who would say, "No, it's completely future and everything." I would say there's a future element. There has been a past element. Wayne Grudem, in his Systematic Theology book, which is an excellent book on an overview of theology, says when he talks about these end times things, he says it's possible but not likely that all of the signs have been fulfilled for Christ to come back. And what he does is he goes into Matthew 24 and some of the other places that have these signs and says it's possible that the Gospel's been preached to the entire world or that these things have happened, but it's not likely. And so it could still be future, but there's a possibility that everything is already in place.

It's not a perfect explanation, but it's not bad for the tension between these views. And this has spawned three classic views. And so I want to just give you some background which is just helpful for understanding a passage like this.

So historically there have been three big schools of thought when it comes to the end times or Jesus coming back. Has it happened? Is it happening? Will it happen?

The first is amillennialism. And the idea of amillennialism—the millennium is the idea of a thousand year reign of Christ comes from Revelation chapter 20-21 where it says, "And he will reign for a thousand years." Millennium, thousand years. Amillennium means there is no millennium. And so they say that's just figurative. And what happens is we are in the church age. And the church age describes, and the prophecy describes these ideas of evil and good at war with one another. So the rebellion is always happening at the same time that the kingdom is always advancing. And then Jesus will come back at some point. So this is Jesus and the eternal state starts. There is no millennium.

Okay, now again, hang with me if you're like, "I have never thought about this and I don't care," okay, hang with me.

Then there's what's called postmillennialism. And postmillennialism is what you'd expect—that Jesus comes back after the millennium. And so what these people would say is there's a church age, then there's a millennium, then Jesus comes back, and then we go into the eternal state. And so what they would say is we are kind of living in here somewhere and we may not even know exactly when we enter the millennium. It may be a thousand years, it may be a lot longer because it may be figurative. And so we are helping to bring about the kingdom of God which is here—this millennium when he reigns. And we're helping to achieve all that is ahead. And then someday Jesus will come back and we'll enter the eternal state.

And then there's what's called premillennialism. Okay, so premillennialism, this holds that basically we are in the church age, and then there is a time of trouble or tribulation, and then Christ comes back and there's a millennium and then an eternal state in the future. But Christ comes back and physically reigns during the millennium on earth.

Now you again may say, "Okay, that's a lot of information in a short amount of time, a lot of explanation." I would hold to this view, the premillennial, because I believe it's the best explanation for all of the scriptures.

Now those who would critique this view would say, "Well, this is pessimistic because you're always seeing a tribulation, you're always seeing the coming apostasy and things get worse and worse." And I would say in defense that it isn't pessimistic, because the statements about the kingdom of God in terms of the parables, like of the yeast still advances and a time of rebellion does not mean that we have to be pessimistic, because there's a time of restoration, and I think it gives the best explanation.

Now, certainly there are differences even in this view in terms of what's been called pre-tribulational premillennialism, post-tribulation and all of that. I'm not going to go into that today. What I want you to simply get is that when you come to think about Christ coming, all of these would say Christ coming is in the future. And all of them would say there is a time in the eternal state when the joy and the hope and the restoration of all things happens. What the big debate is, is really about the timing of it and the role of mission here today.

Question 2: Is Christ's Coming Brought About by the Church or Is It Not?

And that really leads to a second question, and that is, is Christ's coming brought about by the church or is it not? And the reason this question seems to be important is there are some people who would say here the mission of the church is to bring about the millennium. Here the church is about always expanding the kingdom. And then their critique of premillennialism would be to say that these individuals would hold to just a degenerating worldview, like the world's just getting worse and worse and worse, and all we need to do is be raptured up, taken up, escape kind of from what this world is.

But as I just said, there's so many scriptures that talk about the mission of the church and the inevitability of the kingdom of God that I don't think holding this view precludes saying that. And the way I would answer this ultimate question about is the Church responsible is with an analogy.

And here's my analogy. I'm pretty sure that even in my current advanced state of years, that I could beat anybody who's sitting here today in two-on-two basketball, as long as I got Jokic, Giannis or LeBron as my teammate. Okay, now, you may say no, you're still way not good enough. That's up to debate. But my point is this. I'm not the one who would really help us win, right? I mean, I'm on a team. But like, I think LeBron, even at 40 years old, could probably beat any two people in this room. I'm pretty sure Giannis could. I'm pretty sure Jokic could. No, maybe not. If you're like a deadeye shooter and you can spread the floor on them and they can't cover you both. But that's where I come in. I at least can stand there and do that.

So my point is this: am I essential to it? Yes, but no, all at the same time. And Jesus is coming back. He's going to do his work, and you matter. You get to participate. If you're part of the local church. That is a beautiful thing, but it isn't dependent on you. It's something that God is doing. It's inevitable.

Question 3: Is the World Improving or Degenerating?

One other question, and that is, is the world improving or degenerating? And again, this is at least between these two views. Postmillennialists would say it's improving. We're bringing about the kingdom of God here and now. And many premillennialists, or at least a critique, would be the world degenerating and getting worse and worse.

And so I ask you, is the world getting better or worse? And the answer to that actually really depends on where you stand and what you're looking at. And what I mean is you can find statistics that say hunger is decreasing in the world, crime overall is decreasing, that there are opportunities for education and economic well-being that are unparalleled in the history of humanity that would say our world is getting better.

And yet many people would look and say, "But have you seen what's happening with..." And then they fill in the blank with whatever else is going on and say, "There are many things that are getting worse and worse in our world."

In First Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 24, we see this about again when the kingdom comes, it says, "Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power." And all that means is that there's a struggle all the way till the end, but one day God will bring about the end point.

What This Means for How We Live

Now, I said to hang on. If you were like, "Okay, what does this have to do with how I need to think about my life?" Well, if Jesus is coming back and there's a day of the Lord, here's what you don't want to do, and that is live as if there is no day of the Lord and say, "I'm just going to live my life and take my chances." Because one day, even if you die now, and the day of the Lord is well in the future, there is a day of the Lord when God will settle all accounts and it will matter what you've done.

And what can happen sometimes, especially when you start getting into a discussion like this and you start saying, "Well, some scholars say this, and some say this, and some say this. How am I to know? And what difference does it make?" What you can do is you can gloss over and you can get to a point where you just say, "I'm just going to live, and kind of let it all work itself out." Okay? And that's not all bad with this, because there have been scholars who've disagreed, but it's a little bit like this.

We just entered hurricane season, and although in Pittsburgh we have very little to be concerned about with hurricanes, unless there's a huge rainstorm with the leftover remnants that make its way up the coast. If you live right on a coast, hurricanes would be a big part of how you experienced August, September and October. But I can imagine if you lived on a coast and there were lots of hurricane warnings over time and many near misses, that you could get to a point where you said, "Oh, there's a hurricane warning again." And you just say, "Well, you know, they've never hit us. It's not that big a deal." And you just get very complacent about the idea that there is a hurricane warning.

And here's what scripture says about the day of the Lord, or the idea that Jesus is coming. I'm going to read just a little bit more. This is Mark, chapter 13. I'm going to start at verse 32, but the key verses are 36, 37. It says, "But about the day and the hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, be alert. You do not know when that time will come. It's like a man going away. He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task. And he tells the one at the door to keep watch. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back, whether in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. Verse 36. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone. Watch."

So what does Jesus say about this? He says, "I want you to be alert. I want you to watch. I want you to live with a state of readiness. I don't want you to get so complacent either, because you've heard the warnings. There's been lots of the little 'a' Antichrists a long time. Or you've seen different things happen in your life where people got all excited about it and said, 'This is it,' and it wasn't it. And you say, 'Therefore, I don't have to watch.'" What he's saying is live in perpetual state of readiness. Be alert about this.

Now, you could rightly say, "Well, my goal is just to live ready. It doesn't really matter then all the things that happen." But again, think through kind of the hurricane analogy. If you lived on a coast, you would probably get a little aloof to some of the like, "Boy, there's a storm brewing." Until it got really close. And then all of a sudden you said, "I need to..." But what watching means doesn't mean that you're constantly tuned to every weather thing and always paying attention. But it means you know what your escape route is. You know what your preparedness level is. You have things in preparation for the day when the hurricane actually hits.

So spiritually, what that means is that to live with a sense of readiness or alertness, watching that, you've come to a point where you are among the redeemed. You say, "I have come to understand that I'm sinful and I need a savior. Therefore I believe in Jesus because I know there's coming a day when things will not always be as they've always been. And so I've trusted Jesus as my Savior."

It means that you live saying, "I'm going to make the most of every opportunity because there will come a day when things will not be as they've always been."

But there's another just exhortation in this. And I'm just going to simply say that this is really to be careful. And the reason I say this is because the exhortation in Second Thessalonians is, "Don't be deceived." And when you talk about the Antichrist, one of the ways that the Antichrist is portrayed, and again, could be many over time, could be all kinds of things, not just people. But the way that this is portrayed is as one who sets himself up against everything that is right and everything that's to be worshiped of God and wants to be worshiped.

So you could say that the Antichrist, the spirit of Antichrist, is anything that you want to worship and make ultimate in your life. And that by doing that, you step away from being watchful and ready for the return of Jesus Christ. And I think what that's ultimately pointing to is it makes your life somewhat shaky. You're not unshakeable because you're worshiping something that isn't ultimate. You're saying, "This is ultimate." But when the day comes, the hurricane hits, that can be destroyed in an instant.

You know the old analogy of if you were on a beach, you wouldn't spend all of your time building a sandcastle. I mean, you'd build one for a while, but the next time the tide comes in, it washes it away. And that's what some of us do.

And probably a good analogy for the return of Jesus would be a little bit like this. You go back to World War II, when the troops invaded Europe—D-Day—to make their assault on Nazi Germany. There was an inevitability of victory. Now, everyone didn't know that at the time. We know it in history, but they were now marching toward victory. And it was in many ways assured. And yet the people in every community had to decide, "Which side am I on? Am I on the side that will ultimately win but doesn't always look like it's winning today, or am I on the side of what's in power today and looks like it's winning, but ultimately will lose?"

And in many ways, that's the choice that all of us live with every day. And the deception of the Antichrist is to say, "Live for things that are counter to the kingdom of God in this age and time." To get so caught up into the debates about which view is superior to the other view in terms of understanding, that you don't live with a state of preparedness and readiness, but instead you live with a sense of saying, "I think I figured it out, and now I can kind of make my way."

And what Paul writes is, he says, "Look, I don't want you to be unsettled. I don't want you to be deceived, but I want you to live with confidence as you make your way through this world that the day of the Lord is coming, that Jesus is coming back, and that there is hope and joy and restoration for those who've been redeemed. And even if there's this apostasy and a man of lawlessness, as there's always been, know that you can be one who lives with a state of readiness and with a certainty about your alignment for what's good and right."

And you know what's hardest about this, for me, maybe for you, is so much of our world, our life, is about just what's right in front of us. And it's not that I'm like, "Ooh, Antichrist. I want to worship the Antichrist." But anything that sets itself up as being of ultimate importance, I can just say, "Yeah, that's what matters right now." Instead of saying, "It is ultimately the kingdom and alignment with the kingdom of God that matters, because that's what readiness looks like."

And so you want to live with an unshakeable faith or confidence in this world. Live with the certainty that the day of the Lord is coming and it is good for those who are redeemed. Be sure you're redeemed and you can have that confidence.

How do you be sure you're redeemed? "God, I know I'm a sinner, but Jesus came to make an amends, a purchase for those who've sinned. And those who believe can say, 'I'm part of his plan.'"

God, we thank you today that your word speaks to just all of the turbulence even in our current world. But it holds out hope that things are moving somewhere and end in a beautiful place for those who know you. So I pray today that you would help us to live with that confidence and that certainty. And God, for those of us who maybe have joined today who say, "I don't know if I can," I pray even in this moment there would be an openness, a willingness just to say, "God, I trust that I need Jesus and that Jesus has made a way for me to be put in a place where there is certainty for the future." And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for being here. Have a great week.

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