II Thessalonians 2:16 “Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,”
The Lord our most merciful and loving God “hath loved us” with a “great love” (Ephesians 2:4), and in addition to an “everlasting consolation”, He “hath given us … a good hope”. Our “good hope” rises from our God-given “faith” (Hebrews 11:1; 12:2) and is “given” to us by God’s blessed “grace”; that is, we cannot do or be good enough to either earn or deserve it, so our merciful God lovingly grants it to us. By our Lord’s “grace”, we have “hope”; that is, we look forward to our Lord’s sure deliverance from our present troubles and finally He will take us to Eternal Glory to be forever with Him. While we remain in this present world, we “shall have tribulation”; but, we can also be of good courage because our Lord has “overcome the world” (John 16:33); that is, He has the power and authority and the will to, at a moment and in a method pleasing to Him, defeat the wicked for the peaceful benefit of His Church. Our duty is to follow Job’s example, be faithful to our Lord and steadfast in obedience to Him no matter how severe our tribulations become. While in this present world, we will cycle through dreadful periods of wickedness and tribulation; “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.” (Romans 14:19) and we must not “tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents” (I Corinthians 10:9). We “tempt Christ” when we act like we do not believe His Word; when we act like He really did not mean it when He gave us Commandments for morality, integrity, humbleness, and faithfulness. We need God Fearing people in Government, Law Enforcement, Military, Education, Medicine, etc. Without God Fearing people leading in godly ways and doing godly things, as a nation, we will “tempt Christ” and the outcome will not be pleasant! I spent the first twenty years of my adult life serving “ONE NATION UNDER GOD”; may God bless us to never forget that it is God first then nation!