Epistles to the Thessalonians
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that their faith was not waning, and that love abounded toward one
another, and for the cause of their divine Master. He also states that he
presents them to other churches as furnishing a sample of the patient
and persevering faith which bravely withstands the persecution and
tribulation brought upon them by the opposition of the enemies of
God. He carries them forward to hope for rest from all their cares and
perplexities, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed, “in flaming fire
taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
He then showed that great events were to transpire in the future,
as foretold in prophecy, before Christ should come. Said the apostle:
“Be not soon shaken in mind, nor be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by
word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let
no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except
there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed.” The
papal power, so clearly described by the prophet Daniel, was yet to
rise, and wage war against God’s people, and trample upon his law.
Until this power should have performed its deadly and blasphemous
work, it would be vain for the church to look for the coming of their
Lord.
Thus Paul put to naught the arguments of those who represented
him as teaching that the day of Christ was at hand. He charged his
brethren not to neglect their duties and resign themselves to idle wait-
ing. After their glowing anticipations of immediate deliverance, the
round of daily life and the opposition which they must expect to meet,
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would appear doubly forbidding. He therefore exhorted them to stead-
fastness in the faith. Their work had been appointed them of God;
by their faithful adherence to the truth they were to communicate to
others the light which they had received. He bade them not to become
weary in well-doing, and pointed them to his own example of diligence
in temporal matters while laboring with untiring zeal in the cause of
Christ. He reproved those who had given themselves up to sloth and
aimless excitement, and directed that “with quietness they work, and
eat their own bread.” He also enjoined upon the church to separate
from their fellowship any who should persist in disregarding his in-
structions. “Yet,” he added, “count him not as an enemy, but admonish
him as a brother.” He concluded this epistle also with a prayer, that