The Good News of the Vengeance of God - November 30th, 2025

Today's passage is gonna be eight verses. And we're gonna be in the book of Nahum, but I encourage you to keep your Bible open to Nahum chapter one and to follow along with your eyes because there is quite a bit of uh punch packed in into in this passage. But if we can all rise, I'm gonna read one verse for us, and it's the last one, verse 15 of Nahum chapter 1. This is the reading of God's word, and it reads Behold on the mountains the feet of him who proclaims good news, who announces peace. Celebrate your feasts, O Judah, pay your vows, for never again will the vile one pass through you. He is cut off completely. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this morning for just giving us a reason to gather, to learn, to celebrate, and to wait eagerly for the day of your return.

I pray that you would excite our hearts as we hear of how this all unfolds, how it all ends, and give us strength to chew on and to persevere this broken world until you return. So I pray that you would grant us ears to hear, minds that are sharp and engaged, as there is a lot of Old Testament history that we're going to be covering, help us to be sober, alert, and awake as we hear your truth proclaimed. Guide and guard and protect and shield this time for your name's sake. Pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, go ahead and be seated. So I am a Dodger fan. I didn't make mention of this after the World Series, because it's not appropriate to bring too much sports into the church. But today it is, alright.

You'll see why. I have been a Dodger fan since 1986, and I was elated in 1988 when they won the World Series that year. And Dodger fans who watched them win in 1988 suffered through over three decades of frustration, heartbreak, and despair. And we had what we called the Dodger Blues. The this year, the Dodgers won their second World Series in as many years to go back to back. And this year's World Series was special. Even though they had won it all last year, this year's season was filled with so many more emotions and more downs than ups. And it looked like the Dodgers would not win. They did not have a regular season that was good, and they struggled through most of it. They did not look good.

But somehow they persevered into the World Series. And then even in the World Series, we were hanging on by a hope, by a thread, because the Dodgers should have lost that series many times over. But when game seven ended, the Dodgers had somehow won. They had won barely, somewhat miraculously, but they had won. And this year's championship was even more glorious and fulfilling because of the heartache that they had suffered along the way. But as many of you know, the ending was epic and the ending was amazing. The words, and the Dodgers win, were followed by millions erupting in joyful celebration, uniting every fan all over the world in exaltation and celebration. And those same words, and the Dodgers win, were also followed by a deflated silence, uniting every Blue Jay fan and Dodger hater in unbelief, in disgust, and even rage.

Because again, the Dodgers could have lost the series in multiple ways.

I was very happy. But to those on the other side, and I do have a friend in Toronto, those words were words of dread, regret, and despair. In the end, it's just baseball. Baseball is just a game. There's nothing of eternal worth and value in a World Series victory. Amen. It's vanity of vanities. So for the great majority of the eight billion people on the planet, the words, and the Dodgers win, would be met with absolute and deserved apathy. Because it does not have any significant impact on their lives. The Dodgers winning two years in a row is objectively of little consequence. So for even some of you in the room who are LA locals, and the Dodgers win, did not affect your life much at all.

Nod your heads if it didn't affect you at all. Okay. If anything, it was an inconvenience, right? So you have celebration, you have agony, and then you have apathy. Different reactions to the news of a victory of a baseball team. Celebration, agony, and then apathy. So the message of the cross in this life is similarly met with celebration, agony, because I don't want to live that way.

And often in the first world is met with apathy. So the words, Assyria is finished, and they're parallel words to Satan is defeated, on the other hand, has great eternal value. Those words truly do comprise of the greatest of news. That is, if you're on the right side.

Those words have ramifications that are eternal. There can only be either celebration or agony. Those words cannot be met with apathy for long. If a person is apathetic to those words, he is likely a spiritual corpse. And the greatest of fools, because those are words of eternal and permanent consequence. For Christians, there will be one day the happiest endings to the story of mankind. Amen.

It will be amazing. And the apostle John was given a glimpse of this end. And I'm going to take a look at the glimpse together. It's like watching a highlight after it's been done. Okay, that's what John gets to see. So here is the final out to end the series. Revelation 20, verses 10 to 12. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And then I saw a great white throne, and him who sits upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And then I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne.

The books were open, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from the things which are written in the books according to their deeds. Unlike the ending to a world series, again, this is eternal insignificance. This will be a scene of either perfect elation and celebration, or it will be a scene of torment, terror, and what the Bible calls a great weeping and gnashing of teeth. There is no next year for this. Right? This is a moment of permanence. This will be the fork in the road, as it says in verse 10. What does it say in verse 10? It's a forever and ever. One will either enter perfect joy and celebration, and the other into a perfect judgment of wrath, of which even Satan and the demons are terrified.

What's interesting is the torment of a group is good news to one, where it's horrible for the other. The vengeance on one group, the defeat of one group, is good news to the other. And that's what we're going to be thinking about today. Before we get into the meat of today's sermon, I want to read Nahum 115 again for you. Behold, on the mountains, the feet of him who proclaims good news, who announces peace. Celebrate your feasts, O Judah, pay your vows, for never again will the vile one pass through you. He is cut off completely. So this is a call for a party, a celebration, right? The prophecy that's contained in verses 8 to 15, which we'll be looking at today, and the prophecy of Nahum on the whole is described as good news.

It is actually one of great comfort. That's what Nahum's name means, comfort, right? But the theme of the first chapter is of great vengeance and even annihilation. Vengeance and annihilation. And that's supposed to be good news. And that again is a call for celebration. The vengeance of God is good news and a call for celebration. And we're gonna be thinking about the juxtaposition. And the outline of today's sermon is as follows. First, we're gonna see through the eight verses that the vengeance of God will be thorough. Second, we will also see through these eight verses that the vengeance of God will be one of triumph. It will be triumphant. And then we will see that the vengeance of God will be a truth that is to be proclaimed.

His vengeance will be proclaimed as a testimony for the people of God first, and then one to all the nations. So the vengeance of God will be first thorough and then triumphant, and then it will be a testimony. And we're gonna be looking at this good news, the gospel of the vengeance of God, right? That's a funny title. The gospel of the vengeance of God. Not popular in our day, but that's what the scriptures say, right? So first, the vengeance of God will be thorough. It's a little difficult to neatly break up the points into separate verses, because the argument that's given in the text, it's not linear. Okay. Chapter one is written very poetically. So the reasoning is actually a little bit artistic and circular.

But in this passage, you're gonna see that the vengeance of God will be very thorough. So I'm gonna start by reading the whole thing for us. It reads in verse 8, with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete destruction of its place and will pursue his enemies into darkness. Whatever you devise against Yahweh, he will make a complete destruction of it. Distress will not rise up twice, like tangled thorns, and like those who are drunken with their drink, they are consumed as stubble, fully dried up. From you has gone forth, one who devised evil against Yahweh, a vile counselor. Thus says Yahweh, though they are at full strength, and likewise many, even so they will be cut off and pass away.

Though I have afflicted you, Israel, I will afflict you no longer. So now I will break his yoke bar from upon you, I will break your bands apart. And Yahweh has commanded concerning you, Nineveh. There will be no longer be seed from your name from the house of your gods. I will cut off graven image and molten image, I will prepare your grave, for you are contemptible. The whole on the mountains, the feet of him who proclaimed good news who announces peace. Celebrate your feasts, O Judah, pay your vows, for never again will the vile one pass through you. He is cut off completely. So this is a prophecy addressing the wicked Assyrian Empire, and they were especially her capital city, Nineveh. So the vengeance of God will be thorough, the destruction of the nation of Assyria will be complete.

And you're gonna notice an absoluteness in the language here. Alright. An overflowing flood will come make a complete destruction of Nineveh, verse 8. The Assyrians will be plunged into an eternal and permanent darkness. So it will be a once and for all. The distress that they cause on the people of God will not rise up a second time, verse 9. It cannot be repeated, and it will not be repeated. The Ninevehes will be consumed like dried stubble, like desert weeds fully dried up, verse 10. They will be cut off and they will pass away. So literally they're gonna be obliterated, and something in the past tense, verse 12. The Assyrians would not just have no physical seed, they will not even have seed from their reputation, from their name.

Verse 14. Did you guys know who Abraham Lincoln is? Anyone ever meet him? Clearly not. Okay, but you know about him, right? So there are currently no living descendants of Abraham Lincoln. You may have known that. Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith was the final living descendant of Abraham Lincoln, and he passed away in 1985 with no children. So the line is gone. Okay? And that's unfortunate. Though President Lincoln's line is no more, the famous name of Abraham Lincoln lives on. His legacy still lives on. He is still celebrated. No one will celebrate the Assyrians in any way, shape, or form. Their renown will be wiped out. Their name will have no seed. And all of this would be good news to the people of Judah, because never again will the Assyrians pass through them or anybody else.

So they would once and for all be completely cut off. The end of the book of Nahum actually says that the whole world will clap their hands at the destruction of Nineveh. So one of the things that is communicated clearly through this section of Nahem's prophecy is that the vengeance of the all-powerful God will come in such a way that the destruction will be completely thorough, irreversible, and utterly ruinous.

Just as much as firewood after it's burned, it could never become a tree again. Nahum 11. Assyria will not come back in power. So the vengeance of God on the Assyrian Empire will be that thorough. In Genesis chapter 9, the Lord made a covenant with the earth that he would never again wipe out mankind with a flood, right?

So but the destruction by flood was a precursor to the destruction by fire in mankind's history. Make sense? So for Nineveh too, a flood would come, and then a destruction by fire would come, is what is prophesied. Nahum 1 8 with an overflowing flood. Nahum 2 6, the rivers are opened, and the palace is literally the word is swept away. Okay, melted away. Um that's what it is poetically, but it just swept away. The Lord first sent Nineveh into chaos with a flood. History suggests that the Babylonians who had surrounded the walls of Nineveh had not been successful in their siege of Nineveh for a while, until the water level of the rivers rose up, and somehow it flooded the city, broke open the gates.

So the God of the universe ordained both the flood to break Nineveh's walls, and then a numerous and fearsome army to annihilate Nineveh's people. So later in chapter 3, we're gonna see that the Lord will devour the Ninevites as he would devour by fire and by like a by sword, the way a locust swarm strips a bear, uh strips bear a land. And that's Nahum chapter 3, verses 15 to 17. So historians say that the decimation of Nineveh by both water and fire was so thorough that the ruins of the capital city were not found until 1847. Remember, what year was Assyria destroyed? Do you guys remember this from Dhoti survey? 612, right? So that's almost 2,500 years. In 612, Assyria was shelved by Babylon, and their ruins were not discovered again until 1847.

They were buried very deeply, very deeply under the sediment of which is today Masul Iraq. The ruins were buried deeply in the ground. In those ruins, the royal library of Ashurban, where we get so much information about the Assyrian Empire, was discovered and dug up from layers and layers and layers of dirt and debris. So God delivered on this promise to wipe out Assyria. Nahum 114. Yahweh has commanded concerning you, there will no longer be seed from your name from the house of your gods. I will cut off graven image and molten image. I will prepare your grave. You are contemptible. So we have the record of the Assyrian Empire, so we can learn much and glean much, but for well over two millennia, their fame had all been forgotten.

So keep this in mind, okay? God always delivers on his word. Repeat after me. God always delivers on his word.

Always. So it's thorough. Second, the vengeance of God will be triumphant. I'm gonna reread just three verses of this section, and I'm gonna have us look at verses eight, nine, and twelve. Verse eight, but with an overflowing flood, he will make a complete destruction of its place.

Verse nine. Whatever you devise against Yahweh, he will make a complete destruction of it. Distress will not rise up twice. Thus says Yahweh, verse 12, though they are at full strength, and likewise many, even so they will be cut off and pass away. Israel, though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no longer. So in verse eight, we see that God will prevail over the enemies of his people. Assyria had plotted and devised strategies to fight against Yahweh himself by oppressing his people. Verse 11 calls the rulers of Assyria, you are vile counselors, but their strategies will not work. They will be defeated. And verse 12 describes the army as at full strength and many. So they were numerous.

It doesn't matter that they are as numerous as the locusts.

Armies all over the world can band together against God, but as it says in Psalm chapter 2, the God of heaven, how does he respond? He laughs with a snort. Right? In Revelation 9 16, an army of 200 million are gathered to wage war against the Lord. How many? 200 million. You can't count that with the eye. So John says he heard the number of it. God told him there are 200 million there. Revelation 9 16. Doesn't matter. God will fight for his people, and he will be triumphant. God's enemies will never triumph against his will, and that's the source of all Christian comfort and joy. God's side will always and ultimately win. Amen. This is a guarantee.

So no matter how bleak our world looks, because evil is at full strength, evildoers are many, triumph is certain. This is not wishful thinking. This is what we call belief on what is concrete. Because God has always proven himself faithful to his word. So Psalm 30 says, I will exalt you, O Yahweh, for you have lifted me up. You have not let my enemies be glad over me.

His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning. You guys have read this psalm before, right? Joy comes in the morning. So the vengeance of God will be triumphant, and that's good news. Shouts of joy will be raised for all of God's people. There will be a victory parade and a celebration for God's people. But in Nahum's prophecy, the victory over Assyria is short-lived. It would be temporary. Because as soon as Assyria is done, who takes over? Babylon comes and takes over. And that's the theme of the book of Habakkuk. Okay. But the triumph over Assyria foreshadows the permanent victory that is to come. And we'll get to that in a bit. The vengeance of God on Assyria will be thorough.

The vengeance of God on Assyria will end in triumph. And thirdly, the vengeance of God will be a testimony. Verse 15 again, behold on the mountains the feet of him who proclaims good news, who announces peace. Celebrate your feasts, O Judah, pay your vows, for never again, never again will the vile one pass through you. He is completely cut off. So the destruction of Assyria was good news, and this is a testimony about God to all the nations. There's a great announcement of peace. First, this is a testimony of God's faithfulness to his promises.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is founded upon a God who stays true to his word. Right? The gospel is not contingent upon the lovability or the worth of man. Agree?

Early in the book of Genesis, God preaches the gospel to the world. He's going to crush the head of the serpent. Okay. So he chooses Israel. Israel is not great. I mean, so Israel was great. But they weren't great because of their great qualities. Israel was great because the God who had chosen them was great. Make sense. Abraham, their patriarch, also had been chosen, not because he had great qualities, but because God had simply chosen and what we call elected to magnify himself in and through Abraham. All Abraham did was to obey and believe. Does that make sense? So the gospel was proclaimed not only to all of Eve's descendants, but then proclaimed again to Abraham and then to Israel as a promise.

So the gospel proclaimed to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 is a hedge of protection around Abraham and around his seed. Okay, I want to read Genesis 12. I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you. Make your name great, and so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you. And the one who curses you like Assyria, I will curse. And in all in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Did God make Abraham a great nation? Yeah. Actually, two nations. Ishmael. Jacob. Isaac, sorry. They're still at war. There's a huge nation, right? Abraham became a great nation, just as God has said.

Israel became more numerous than the sand on the seashore, 1 Kings 4 20. Just as God has said.

Now in Nahum's prophecy, we find that Israel had been cursed and oppressed and reviled for over a hundred years by the Assyrians. God then in vengeance in keeping his eternal word was gonna make good his promise to Abraham by wiping out Israel's enemies. Make sense? The vengeance of God was a fulfillment of promise. So this was the gospel proclaimed to Abraham long before Israel had even become a mighty nation. And the gospel that had been given to Abraham was that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Galatians 3.8. God's people would forever be protected. So here's a very comforting thought. If you are God's people, that hedge of protection is on you.

Amen.

Amen. That's why in Romans 12 it says, leave room for God's wrath. If we look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, and we're going to be jumping into that for Bible study in February, God will execute vengeance on everyone and everything opposing or harming his people.

This is God's righteous judgment. So first, God's vengeance was to display that he was faithful to his promises. All of them.

Okay, keep that in mind because we're going to be looking at Israel especially next week. Today's Israel. Great because they have a great God, not great because they're a great people. Keep that in mind. Not a word of God's promises would he ever fail in keeping. God's promise of blessing also will be on every saint of God. If you are a child of God, his hedge of protection is and will permanently and eternally be upon your life and upon your soul. Hallelujah. Now this brings us to a very important but emotionally jarring question. Okay, so pay attention here. If God promises blessing and protection forever, why do his people go through seasons of suffering and great hardship? And that's the that's kind of the atheist's first line of defense, right?

If God is good, why? Right? The answer is very simple. I don't fully understand it, but I know it, and it's simple. Everything God the Father will bring upon his children will either be for his good or for good. Okay, let me repeat this. Everything that God brings upon his beloved child will either be for his good or for good. Okay? So God disciplines his children first to do away with ungodliness and to reinforce and train up in righteousness. You guys know this, right? A bad father leaves his kid in sin. God's not like that. He's not a derelict father. But discipline comes both in the form of correction, like a meme or a timeout, but also by means of training. I may discipline my child even harshly if he needs to be really corrected.

Or I may train up my child to experience a moment of discomfort and displeasure for the good of those around him. Right? Every parent does this. No kid likes it when he is told to share a toy or a snack. Right? Not fair, right? That's every kid. No kid likes it when he is encouraged to sacrifice, let's say, some of his own allowance to help a poor person. Either way, discipline is a sign of my special love for my child, Hebrews chapter 12. And no discipline seems pleasant, right? So God will orchestrate all things either for your good or for good, because of his love. So Israel, being under the oppression of Assyria was a testimony of God's holy character.

He had warned his people of the consequences of their disobedience for many hundreds of years. He is a thrice holy God, even for his elect people, his children. Sin, disobedience, and rebellion would never be tolerated. God's holy character would not allow for this. Right? So for a season, God sovereignly placed his people under the discipline of Assyria, Isaiah 5, 10, 5. Woe to Assyria, and he calls them what? My memestic, the rod of my discipline, the staff in whose hands is my indignation. In Nahem 13, when it is declared that Yahweh would by no means leave the guilty unpunished, that included his rebellious people. The vengeance of God would be a testimony to all the nations that God was a faithful God who would always deliver on his word, and he is a God who hates sin.

So the vengeance of God would also be a testimony to God's people that no sin of theirs would be left unaddressed. He is not a derelict father. God the loving father would go as far as delivering his people into the hands of cruel oppressors to demonstrate his commitment to the well-being of the souls of his people. Make sense? So how is this all good news to the people of God? God's discipline for his children, for his people is always corrective. Repeat after me. God's discipline for his children is always corrective. It is never punitive. You didn't need to repeat that, but thank you, Joseph, for the participation. God's correction is never punitive for his children, it's always corrective.

Punitive means for the sake of just punishing. Okay? So for those whom God loves, he trains up and corrects in love. He does not cruelly punish for the purpose of their harm. God's discipline is evidence of his love. So if something is happening in your life that you cannot explain, that is not him playing games with your life. He is about to magnify himself in and through your life for a reason that at just at the moment is not fully known to you. Okay? The vengeance of God will be a testimony of his faithfulness to his promises, his faithfulness to his holy character, and it will be a testimony that God is faithful to his people. The salvation of God's chosen and elect people would never be dependent on their faithfulness to him.

Praise God for that. If you and I could lose salvation, we would.

The God salvation of God's chosen and elect people would always be founded upon the faithfulness and the love of God. And that is part of that gospel message that began in Genesis chapter 3, was confirmed in Genesis chapter 12, and continues on until God's people with Christ are triumphant in Revelation chapter 21, 22. Okay? So 2 Timothy 2 13.

So it's absolutely good news that our salvation is based on the faithfulness of God. That's why a person who has been saved will not and cannot lose his salvation. God loves his people.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Right? Romans chapter 8. If he who gave his only begotten son on your behalf, what more is there for him to give to prove this truth? So the vengeance of God will be thorough. The vengeance of God will be triumphant. The vengeance of God will be a testimony that you and I are to proclaim. In context, the message of Nahum was a promise of good for the nation of Israel, that God will never forsake his people, Israel. So of course, this is good news for the for Abraham's ethnic descendants. But this is also good news for you and me, who have put our faith in Christ. And I'm gonna show you why biblically you can trust that.

All of this is representative of God's vengeance on Satan himself. The prophet Isaiah prophesied something very similar concerning the vile one of Syria. Do you guys remember from Old Testament survey? We ajammon. Jonah, Nahum, Micah, Isaiah, Amos, all contemporaneous. So Nahum and Isaiah were written around the same time concerning the same things. In the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, the people were in mourning because of their oppression under Assyria and ultimately because of their sin. The last 27 chapters of Isaiah talk about hope is coming in the person of the Messiah in the person of the suffering servant. Assyria will be defeated, but Satan himself will be defeated. That's what Isaiah's prophecy is about.

Okay? God will take vengeance not only the against the soldiers, but he will take vengeance against sin by defeating it on the cross. God will avenge through the sending of his beloved son, the Messiah of Christ.

So notice Isaiah 52, verses 7 to uh verse 7, it reads similarly to Nahum 115. What I've read for you already about four times. It reads, How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who proclaims good news, who announces peace and proclaims good news of good things, who announces salvation and says to Zion, your God reigns. This is quoted in Romans chapter 10, when it says, how then can they hear? Unless there's a preacher. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring preach good news, right? Isaiah 52 is about the exalted servant of God who would be sent to suffer. So for the Jew at the time, this made no sense. Right? Because Jews were all about it's fame, power, armies, wealth, but a suffering Messiah?

So they're still waiting for their Messiah. God would take vengeance upon all sin, is the point of Isaiah, by pouring out his wrath upon his own son. And you guys are all familiar with Isaiah 53. Every Easter we read this. He was despised and forsaken in men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore. Our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him, stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. He was pierced through for our transgression. He was crushed for our iniquities, just chastening for our peace fell upon him. By his wounds we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray.

Each of us has turned to his own way. But Yahweh has taken vengeance by putting the iniquity of us all and making it fall upon him. So Yahweh has taken vengeance on all iniquity by making all of the wages of their iniquity to fall on Jesus. So the vengeance of God was ultimately displayed and exhausted and poured out on sin at the crucifixion of Christ. Make sense.

So this is why Jesus lived a perfect life.

The vengeance of God on all sin was first what? Thorough.

You and I have been saved from sin. All of it. Amen. God had prepared a grave for Christ, as he had prepared a grave for the Assyrians, Nahum 14, 14, right? I will prepare your grave for your contemptible.

So the vengeance of God was triumphant over sin through the death and burial of Christ. But the vengeance of God would prove to be ultimately triumphant through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Sin and the power of sin proved to be no more because Christ was victorious. So he was victorious over sin and death itself. And that's 1 Corinthians 15. I want to read this for you.

So where, O death is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So our faith is founded upon Christ's triumph over sin. Make sense? Both actualized and proven through the resurrection from the dead. And that is historical, incontrovertible fact that Jesus died and rose again. Atheists can try all they want. They could never disprove the resurrection. It is historical fact. And that is the testimony of God. That we can trust him because he has always proven himself true to be true to his promises, true to his word, and faithful to his people. Amen. God is faithful to every single one of his promises.

Repeat after me. God is faithful to every single one of his promises. Every single one. Not one word, not one iota, not one jot or tittle will pass away until heaven and earth pass away. Every single promise he has made, he is faithful.

God has not promised, though, earthly wealth, comfort, success, or prosperity to you and me. Make sense. Let me repeat this. God has not promised earthly wealth, comfort, success, or prosperity. Actually, it's the opposite. Jesus Himself. Can you click the slide? Said, in this life, we will have trouble. Nod your heads if you've experienced trouble. That's not because God is unfaithful to you. He did promise to never leave us or forsake us. He did promise to be with us until the end of the age. He did promise that he would come again.

He promised that the world was gonna go get from worse to worse. He did promise that there will be earthquakes, famines. He did promise that the love of most will grow cold, and the increase of wickedness will add to the coldness of heart. He did promise that the gospel will be preached through all the nations, and then the end of end will come.

And he promised that he would return to take us home. So God is faithful to his promises. He is a keeper of his word, and that is why we walk by faith, not by sight. We know he has always been faithful to his word. Not one single thing in his word has not been contradicted. Some of it is still waiting to be fulfilled. But like he has ordained for the Assyrians to serve as a disciplinary rod for the people of Israel, God may ordain for seasons where trouble and hardship come to discipline and shall correct us. So when it comes, submit to what God is trying to teach you. Amen.

And those who are afflicting and troubling us in the world. Just by just further record. A Christian can never afflict a Christian. Make sense? A Christian will never afflict a real Christian. Persecution does not come from Christians upon weaker Christians. It's just that there are many impostors in the church, as he said in 2 Timothy. Okay? So for those who are afflicting and troubling genuine Christians in the world, God will repay with vengeance. And that's what we're going to be studying in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. God is faithful to his people. He loves us. He will sanctify and purify us for his glory and for our good. So the vengeance of God on sin and on sinners is good news for you and me.

Think about this. The vengeance of God on sin and on sinners is the gospel for you and me. I saw an ad last week on social media that one of the streaming services was going to replay all seven games of this Hero's World series.

I remember.

Sin and death have been defeated at the cross through his resurrection, and that is news to be celebrated. But that's also bad news and a source of agony and a cause for weeping and gnashing of teeth for those on the other side because the doors have flammed shut and they're outside looking in. But unlike dodgers win, death has been defeated. No one will meet that with apathy. All eight billion people alive right now will not be able to be apathetic to those news, to those words. God has avenged for sin, God will avenge for sin, and may that be the greatest of news to you. And may this be the greatest source of all comforts from the God of all comforts, especially if you're going through a rocky, difficult, trouble-filled season.

God is faithful.

And I'm going to show you a different picture, a different angle, a different celebration of the winning locker room with this. Revelation 21.

He will dwell among them. They shall be his people. And God himself will be among them, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And there will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain, because the first things have passed away. And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And he said, right. And this is to John. These words are faithful and true. Then he said to John, they are done. It is finished. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. This is our God. And his vengeance is good news. Because his vengeance for the saint is all past tense.

Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the reminder this morning that you don't change. And that you're faithful to keeping your word. And as we think about Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who took away our sins. I pray that you would help us never to grow apathetic to the sacrifice. Help us never to treat it as simply just information. But may it always be good news, not just to our heads, but to our hearts as well. So as we remember your broken and bruised body and the blood that was shed on our behalf to atone for our sins through the partaking of the elements, I pray that you would fill our hearts with greater peace, with greater joy, and with greater trust.

We worship you and we thank you, God, for your provision and kindness in our lives. And pray all this in Jesus' name.