Sermon for CATM - September 8, 2019 - How to Be Ready for the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
This summer we began a series on first and second Thessalonians, New Testament letters by the apostle Paul addressed to the struggling church in Thessalonica.
We like to, often, preach through books of the Bible. This is because we believe it is crucial for followers of Jesus to continuously be reflecting on the Word of God, to really grow in our understanding of God’s Word AND most importantly in our application of it to our lives.
It’s our hope that you are engaging with God by reading His Word on a regular basis.
As a Christian you want God and God’s voice, which we hear through the Bible to be or become the main voice you listen to. As you grow and form your understanding of life, you want to do so with wisdom. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
With wisdom from God you can grow to thrive in this life and build resilience to be able to deal with whatever hardships may come your way in life.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Just so you know, this upcoming year we will be looking into the book of Revelation, the book of James;
we’re going to do a survey or overview of key Old Testament accounts; and we’re going to spend some time focusing on the I AM statements of Jesus.
We’re looking forward to exploring this all and together growing in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen.
So we continue our study of 2 Thessalonians. Some books of the Bible are easier to preach on than others.
First and second Thesaalonians are not among the easier-to-preach books.
Some of the subject matter is a real challenge to today’s modern culture, which - surprise surprise has veered off course from God’s Word in many ways.
And, also, some of the subject matter is just kind of weird. Today’s passage is kind of weird. And I get to speak on it. And I hope as we demystify it, God will speak to our hearts and minds.
When reading a book like Thessalonians or the book of Revelation, it’s important to develop a sense of HOW to read the book.
There are many “hows”. The ‘how’ includes ‘how’ and ‘why’ you understand the Scripture to have been written.
There are at least 2 views of this. One is that Scriptures like Thessalonians, including the one we’re looking at today,
are discussing events in the future of the original hearers and readers of the letters, but that those events have happened already and they are, for us, history.
So when it speaks of things to come we remember that this may have been upcoming in the relatively near future in the lives of those who originally heard the message of these books of the Bible. Those who lived 2000 odd years ago.
Another view is that they, or some of the Scriptures, have yet to be fulfilled in the course of time, and perhaps some of them were fulfilled before.
This is obviously true regarding the return of Jesus Christ which we still await. But subjects like in today’s Scripture text are not so obvious.
As you can probably imagine this gets confusing. It gets alarming because sometimes Christians take hard and fast stances.
- it’s either all yet to come, or it’s all happened etc - and they get pretty shirty about it. Like if you don’t agree with them, you must be a heretic.
What’s very clear in the Bible is that Jesus will be returning to gather His people to Himself.
If you know me, and if you know that Yonge Street Mission (and even if you happen to know my denomination, the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada), we’re not big on insisting that people think one way of the other about Biblical material that is disputal.
That is Bible passages that are really hard to understand and grasp.
That means we think it’s fine to hold different views on a whole lot of topics, as long as Jesus Christ and His sacrifice are front and centre and as long as we hold to a very high view of the Bible,
understanding it to be authoritative, in fact THE highest authority when it comes to matters of faith and how we practice our faith.
So we keep the main thing the main thing, and we give a lot of grace in areas where there can be a big variety of opinion.
That being said, there IS a wide variety of opinion on this most challenging passage today. The passage has been historically noted for being really hard to understand.
The noted church father Augustine writes of this passage: "I confess that I am entirely ignorant of what he means to say."
New Testament Greek scholar Vincent omits interpreting the passage in his four volume lexical commentary: "I attempt no interpretation of this passage as a whole, which I do not understand."
Another scholar, Morris, urges "care" in handling this "notoriously difficult passage." Bruce notes that "there are few New Testament passages which can boast such a variety of interpretations as this."
So where does this leave us, as we look at today’s passage in the light of the rest of the books to the church in Thessalonica?
Well we approach the text with humility, understanding that a full understanding may not come until glory.
Nevertheless, I believe that we can view most of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, including today’s passage as direction for How to Be Ready for the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
This chapter, as is most of the books to the Thessalonians, can be viewed as direction for how to be ready for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we’ll take that view as we spend some time today in the passage.
I. Remember What you Know (vv. 1-5)
The apostle Paul wants the church at Thessalonica to remember what they know, what they were taught by Paul and (Silas?).
This would include all of the teachings of the gospel, with a special focus here on “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him”.
Remember what you know:
1. Remember that Jesus came to gather to Himself a people for Himself
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10
Remember what you know:
2. Remember HOW Jesus did this
Hebrews 9: 26b But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Remember what you know:
3. Remember WHY (God’s love)
God so loved: 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John Piper put this well: “The death of Christ is not only the demonstration of God’s love (John 3:16), it is also the supreme expression of Christ’s own love for all who receive it as their treasure.
“The early witnesses who suffered most for being Christians were captured by this fact: “Christ loved me and gave himself for me.”
“They took the self-giving act of Christ’s sacrifice very personally. They said, “He loved me. He gave himself for me.”
“Surely this is the way we should hear about the sufferings and death of Christ. They have to do with me.
They are about Christ’s love for me personally.
“It is my sin that cuts me off from God, not sin in general. It is my hard-heartedness and spiritual numbness that demean the worth of Christ.
“I am lost and perishing. When it comes to salvation, I have forfeited all claim on justice. All I can do is plead for mercy. (John Piper, 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die, 30)
So God is encouraging us, as through Paul He encouraged the Thessalonians, to remember what they know.
There’s a reason for this. It’s one of the reasons we gather every Sunday and throughout the week a great many million other Christ followers gather. We gather to remember.
We gather to remember BECAUSE the human mind is easily distracted and the human mind simply finds it easy to forget.
So don’t…forget (we’re encouraged), and in not forgetting there’s also a call to not take for granted what we know. I’ve seen that happen to people who were in the church.
They started to take Jesus for granted. They started to not care, they became numb to the gospel, to the fact that Jesus died for them.
They had asked questions, like many of us do, about why there’s suffering in the world and other such things. At one time the very good answers that satisfied them.
But then, as they let go of their faith, those answers stopped being good answers and they spiralled down a slippery slope.
And now all I can do is pray for them. And trust that God is not done with them yet.
Paul doesn’t want any of us to forget, to stop remembering why Jesus matters so very much. How Jesus is so beautiful in His character, in His love, in his grace.
Don’t forget, and don’t take for granted. Remember, and hold on to, what you know.
2. Don’t Be Deceived (V.3)
Deception easily leads to anxiety and fear and that was certainly the case in Thessalonians.
The main way that we avoid deception is by following Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:14 “no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”
The threat of deception exists because “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light…His servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.” (2 Cor. 11:14-15).
A hallmark of false doctrine is some form of attack on the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
There is an effort to take away from the power of the cross, the power of Christ’s sacrifice; there is an attack on the Bible, upon which our knowledge of the gospel is based.
That’s perhaps the most frequent activity of the deceiving work of Satan. But, since life is hard and largely confusing, there are other forms of deception, some more easily embraced by followers of Jesus.
Benny Hinn is a controversial character who became a Christian in the early 70’s at Broadview Faith Temple, a church I attended in the 80’s, led by Pastor Winston Nunes.
He came to be part of the “Prosperity Gospel” movement, or heresy (as some, including me, would call it).
He does healing crusades and he’s known to teach that God will reward monetary generosity (usually in the form of cash “gifts” to ministries) with monetary blessings and wealth.
He’s done crusades here in Toronto and all over the world. Just recently he’s come to, apparently, reject the prosperity gospel that he has taught for years.
That means that he’s recognized that he was in error and taught error - taught things that were not true.
He taught it, and a ton of people bought it. Made him very wealthy.
He’s begun the process of detangling himself from the deception of the prosperity gospel. And we should pray for him, that God continues that work.
Whatever form deception takes, it’s a threat because, like all lies, it can be dressed up in the appearance of truth.
So we must be alert and strengthened by the Word of God. So when deception does comes, we will see it for what it truly is; Satan’s lies.
And we don’t need to study the lies to know they’re lies. We need to study the truth.
Bank tellers are taught to recognize counterfeit money not by studying all the varieties of counterfeit bills, but by examining closely the ACTUAL money, for-real currency.
They get so familiar with what is real that they can spot what is false very quickly.
So with us, we must be SO familiar with the gospel, with the Bible, that when the lies come along - and they will come along - we can spot them, identify WHY it’s a lie, and then not be led astray, AND help others to not be led astray.
In Verses 4-12, Paul talks about the Man of lawlessness. I said at the beginning that there are numerous views on what the Man of Lawlessness refers to, and that some of the best theological minds in the church have not known what to do, really, with this passage.
But let’s look quickly at 2 views - and this will give you an idea of what I meant earlier about how different views of especially the future-focussed or apocalyptic Scriptures have been understood within the church.
Three are at least 2 views of this:
1. One is that Scriptures that deal with prophecy were discussing events in the future of the original hearers and readers of the letters 2000 years ago but to us is history.
2. Another view is that they, or some of Scriptures, which ones are hotly debated, have yet to be fulfilled in OUR time.
Here’s an example of the first:
Nearly all commentators, both ancient and modern, identify the man of sin or the man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 as the Antichrist, even though they vary greatly in who they view the Antichrist to be.
The man of sin is variously identified with Caligula, Nero, the papacy (among some fundamentalists) and the end times Antichrist.
So preterism is a Christian eschatological view, of view of the end times, interprets some or all prophecies of the Bible as events which have already happened.
So here the Man of Lawlessness is viewed as Nero Caesar, who also is the Beast of Revelation, as a number of Church Fathers believed.
The theory is that the reason Paul describes Caesar in this obscure language is out of fear of speaking negatively about the Roman emperor.
Thus, Paul becomes very obscure, apparently hiding his prophecy regarding the coming evil of and judgment on the Roman emperor.
Dispensationalist View:
What’s called the “Dispensationalist View” is that this as a reference to a coming world ruler (Antichrist) who will succeed in making a peace treaty with Israel for 7 years, guaranteeing some sort of Middle East peace settlement with the Arab nations.
This, it is thought, will occur after the rebuilding of the Third Temple in Jerusalem and the restoration of temple sacrifices.
He will break his peace treaty with Israel 31/2 years into the plan, enter the "rebuilt Third Temple" and perform the abomination of desolation by setting up an idol of himself in the Temple and declare himself God.
That’s a very simple explanation of 2 ways of seeing today’s Scripture passage. You might be disappointed that I’m not pushing a particular view.
I’m what’s referred to as a pan-millenialist - it will all pan out in the end. God knows, and given the difficulty of understanding this passage, I’m content that God knows.
BUT, what really matters is; what really matters is are you living ready for the second coming of Jesus?
Are we as a church living in anticipation of the good news of the return of Jesus, AND are we encouraging one another when we meet.
When we gather in small groups, as more and more of us are doing of late, are we, in addition to seeking to understand the Bible better ourselves...are we ALSO encouraging those around us to faithfully trust and follow and serve Jesus.
This is really what it’s all about. We’re encouraged to not only live for today, but to live with an eye to the day that is coming when Jesus will be revealed to all, in all His glory.
Do you know Jesus today? Have you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?
Have you been ‘playing church’ for long enough and now you really want to experience what it is to live in intimate communion with Jesus, with the one Who loves you more than you will ever be able to grasp.
Are you willing to give your life to the one who gave His life for you on the cross?
Are you ready to deny yourself, pick up your cross daily, and follow Jesus? Do you want to live a transformed and transforming life?
If any of those are you, I want to pray now. This is an opportunity for you to renew your love for Jesus, your walk with Jesus. It’s an opportunity for you to for the first time receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.
Are you ready? Are you ready to trust your Maker, your Redeemer, the Lover of your soul? If you are, let’s close our eyes together and pray.
We’re going to thank Jesus for His love and His grace in going to the cross for us, to save us from our sins.
We’re going to confess that we believe that Jesus died for our sins, that He took our place, took the penalty for our sin upon Himself. We’re going to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of our lives.
Are you ready? Let’s pray.
