This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're looking at chapter 1
of 2 Thessalonians this week, day 4, verses 8 to 10. The verses that we're going
to look at today focus on God's punishment of sin, and they bring some
questions.

Let's just deal with some of them right off the bat, before we even read these
verses. As we talk about, read about God's punishment of sin, there is something
in many of us that thinks, "Why wouldn't God, who's a God of love, just in the
end, let people get away with it? Find some way to work it out so they can get
away with it without having to face punishment.

Find a way to ignore it so that we'd all be okay in the end. " Why? Well,
because God lives in the real world, and sometimes we don't.

And in the real world, choices have eternal consequences. That's what God tells
us. Now, I may not like that.

Sometimes I don't like that. But that's the real world. It's just as silly to
say, "I don't like it that gravity makes me fall," as it is to say, "I don't
like it that there's eternal consequences for my actions.

" God made us as eternal beings. He made us to last forever. And so our choices
have eternal consequences.

That's the real world. And in the real world, disobeying God is the worst of
sins. Because it leads to all other sins.

That is the sin that leads to all other sins. The truth is, we don't see how bad
our sin really is. None of us do.

I don't. You don't. If we did, we wouldn't have any questions about this
punishment of sin.

Now, we do see how bad some sins are, rape or child prostitution or murder, but
we don't connect that, not emotionally, not at the deepest level, with the
source of all sins. Ignoring God, our pride, that is the worst of sins. Because
it has destroyed God's creation, hurt all of God's creation.

So with that in mind, let me read for you verses 8 to 10 of 2 Thessalonians
chapter 1. "He," God, "will punish those who do not know God and who do not obey
the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction
and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on
the day that he comes, on the day that he comes to be glorified in his holy
people and to be marveled at among those who have believed.

This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you. " These verses
speak with great clarity. God will punish, they say, God will punish those who
don't know him, those who don't obey the gospel.

Both of those mean the same thing. To not obey the good news of the gospel is to
not know him. To not obey the good news is to reject God's offer to rescue you.

That is the good news. And obedience to it is accepting the gift. God will
punish those who don't know him, those who don't obey the gospel.

They will be punished, God says with clarity here, with everlasting destruction,
shut out from his presence. I don't like reading that. You probably don't like
hearing that, but that is God's truth.

He is honest with us. He tells us the truth. When will this happen?

This will happen on the day that Jesus comes, on the day he comes to be
glorified in his people, to be marveled at by his people. As we walk through
this section today, we're doing some different kinds of Bible study this week.
And today, I'd like to do what's called a topical study.

In a topical study, you look in different places in the Bible about a subject.
This phrase, God will punish. You look at it one place here in the Bible and you
think, wow, how important an idea is this in the Bible?

Is it anywhere else in the Bible? Does it get described or explained any better
for me? Because it's a difficult truth for me to understand, some of us think.

Some subjects bring up so many questions. We want to know what the rest of the
Bible has to say about that subject. And this is one of those subjects.

And that's where a topical study comes in. So I'd like to study together for the
next few minutes the topic of God and punish. Now, how do you do this?

You do it by taking a concordance. That's where all the words are listed
according to what verse you can find them in. You can get one online or you can
get a program like Word Search, two different ways to do that.

That's one of my favorite programs, Word Search. I use it a lot in study. Or you
can go online and look at one of the concordances and just type in God and
punish.

And you find all the times when the word God and punish are used in the same
verse. I did that this week and it amazed me. It amazed me that 332 verses
contained the word God in some form of the word punishment in the same verse.

This is no small subject in the Bible. God talks about it again and again and
again. So what do we learn?

As you walk through a topical study, you read the verses and you ask yourself,
"What do I learn about punishment? " That's what I asked myself. And here's what
I learned in this study this week.

What do I learn about God's punishment in a topical study? Number one, I learned
that it's God's to punish and not man's. In the book of Genesis 50 verse 19,
Joseph told them, "Don't be afraid of me.

Am I God to judge and punish you? It is God's job to punish. It's not my job.

When I try to do the punishing instead of God, I'm going to get it wrong. And
when I try to rationalize the punishment of God in my mind as if it's my job,
I'm going to get it wrong. " This is so important, the fact that it's God's to
punish, that Romans 13 tells us that when the government punishes crime, they do
so as a representative of God, that God's given them the authority to do that.

But really, they're exacting God's punishment upon the crime because it is God's
to punish and not man's. Another thing I learned about punishment as I walked
through these verses this week is God's punishment is not vindictive. It is
protective.

It's not vindictive. It's protective. Psalm 105 verse 14 says, "God did not let
anyone mistreat our people.

Instead He protected us by punishing rulers, evil rulers. " And Proverbs 17 5
says, "He will punish those who rejoice at others' misfortunes. " It is hard for
us to keep our emotions out of the equation when we think about God's
punishment.

As if He felt like we feel when He punishes. God does not have our emotions,
obviously. His punishment is not some emotional reaction, it is a protection of
the weak.

It is also a protection of His own holiness. If God's holiness were not
protected, God wouldn't be God. And the whole thing would descend into
nothingness.

That's how important it is to protect who God is. But it's also a protection of
the weak. Those who say sentences like, "I can't believe a loving God would
punish people with everlasting destruction.

" They don't understand the character of God and they don't understand the
horror of sin. God's punishment is not vindictive. It is protective.

It protects those who do what is right. Number three, third thing I learned, was
reminded of about punishment this week is God's punishment is not prejudiced. It
is always fair.

Verse 21, 12, "God is always fair. He knows what the wicked do and He will
punish them. " And then over in Acts 10, verses 34 and 35, Peter began to speak,
"I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men
from every nation who fear Him and do what is right.

" A fourth thing, fourth out of five things I learned about punishment this
week. God's punishment is not a threat. It is a warning.

Listen to Romans 2, verses 5 and 6, "But no, you won't listen. So you are
storing up terrible punishment for yourself because of your stubbornness and
refusing to turn from your sin. For there's going to come a day of judgment when
God, the just judge of all the world, will judge all people according to what
they've done.

" Jesus said this in Matthew 25, 46, "Then they will go away to eternal
punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. " God's not threatening us with
punishment. He is warning us that that's where we're headed.

And He's offering to rescue us in His Son, Jesus Christ. That's the fifth thing
to remind yourself about judgment. When it comes to judgment, it is God's to
punish, not man's.

God's judgment is not vindictive, it is protective. It is not prejudiced, it is
fair. It is not threat, it is warning.

And number five, it is not from anger, but from love. Listen to these two
verses, from Proverbs and Romans. Proverbs 3, 11, "Young man, don't resent it
when God chastens you and corrects you, for His punishment is proof of His love.

" And Romans 3, verse 25 says this, "For God sent Jesus to take the punishment
for our sins, to take the punishment, and to satisfy God's anger against us. We
were made right with God when we believe that Jesus Christ shed His blood,
sacrificing His life for us. " Now when we read words like punishment and anger,
we attach our emotions to those words and we think those are angry words, but
God's anger is different than our anger.

God's punishment is different than our punishment. It is righteous, it is not
wrong. So as I read about God's punishment, it is not from anger, it is from
love.

As a believer in Christ, Proverbs 3, 11 speaks specifically to believers. Also
in chapter 12 speaks to believers and reminds us that when God disciplines us,
it's a matter of His love, like a father would discipline a child. And you may
feel that that's punishment, but actually it's discipline.

And when it comes to the punishment that's going to come because of my sins at
the end of time, God, because of His love for us, sent Jesus to take that
punishment so I would not have to face it. God is honest with us about the fact
that we face punishment in the end because He wants us to understand that Jesus
has taken our punishment so we won't have to face it. As I read about God's
punishment, as I read about everlasting destruction for those who don't know
Him, I may not like these truths.

You may not like these truths, but that does not make them any less true. The
Bible, the Bible is not written to make us feel good by telling us what we'd
like to hear. It's written to tell us the truth, the truth about ourselves, the
truth about life, the truth about this world.

And God does not want punishment to be the end of the story for any of us.
That's why He sent Jesus. He wants to make it right between us.

So verse 10, that's the verse that He wants to be the end of the story, on the
day. Punishment's going to happen for those who don't know Him on the day when
He comes to be glorified. That's the end of the story He wants.

Glorified in His holy people and to be marveled at among those who have
believed. That includes you because you believed our testimony about you. Christ
translates one of those phrases, "It will be a breathtaking wonder to all who
believe.

" God does not want, desire, have for you a future of punishment if only you'll
believe. That's why He sent His Son to rescue you. It will be a breathtaking
wonder to all who believe.

That is the end of the story that God desires for every one of us. So as we
pray, if you've never said to Jesus Christ, "I believe, I want to look forward
to that breathtaking wonder. " Thank you God for the warning that my life's
headed in the wrong direction and it's not only headed in the wrong direction
for the few years I live on this planet, but it's also headed in the wrong
direction for all of eternity.

Thank you God for the warning and I hear it and I realize, partly because of
that warning, I need you. I need you in my life. I need you to set my life in
the right direction because I want to rejoice with those who know you.

And so right now, Jesus, I ask you to forgive the wrong things I've done. I ask
you to begin to lead and form and fashion my life. Help me to learn to live the
life that you made me to live.

You've already prayed a prayer like that a few weeks or months or maybe a lot of
years ago. Right now, thank Him. Thank Him that when you prayed that prayer,
whether it was seconds or years ago, He heard you.

Thank God for His salvation, His rescue, that Jesus took your punishment, your
eternal punishment and gave in its place eternal life. Thank you Jesus. In your
name, Amen.