The Weekend, September 5 –
Welcome to Labor
Day weekend, and my hope that you have some extra time to Sabbath rest before
Tuesday work begins. As always, the
weekend means we have one reading. We
are starting Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, reading 1:1 – 2:12. After reading the text of Scripture, please
come back, and we’ll look at it together once more.
Prophecy about the end times has always meant mystery and intrigue. Paul had sent his first letter to this church
only to find out that the church in Thessalonica was immersed in speculations
concerning the when of Christ’s return.
As Christians, we know the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ will return
someday (re-read Acts 1:9 – 11). There
is no controversy concerning whether Jesus will return. Still, there has been
speculation, and expectation, in just about every generation of Christians
since that first promise to the disciples in Acts 1. One cannot help but read the New Testament
writings and see that the first-century believers fully expected Jesus’ return,
but it was obviously not to be. The second
letter Paul wrote the Thessalonian church was meant to help them as they faced
ongoing persecution, and urged them not to be “shaken in mind” (2:2)
because it hasn’t occurred.
A quick overview
of 2 Thessalonians helps us understand the situation they were in, and Paul
addressed it. First, they were still
facing persecution, trials in their faith – “Therefore we ourselves boast
about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your
persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (1:4). They were holding on, but asking questions of
“why” the persecutions kept occurring and why Jesus did not come back to save
them from these trials. Paul’s response
is to remind them that God knows what they are going through (1:5-6), and to put
their trust and hope in Christ, who will one day return to both set up His
Kingdom, and to deal justly with those who will be eternally punished (1:7-10).
One note comes at
the beginning of the letter. You
remember reading Paul’s introduction(s), how he often gives thanks and speaks
of the church (he is writing to) as people of “faith, hope, and love?” Yet, when we read the opening of 2
Thessalonians, Paul greets them with a statement of their “faith, growing
abundantly” and “love, for each other that is increasing,”; but
there is no mention of “hope.” They were
struggling to have hope that both their persecution would end, and Christ would
do justice. This first chapter is meant
to encourage them not to doubt that Christ Jesus knows their suffering, and he
will remember their courage. He prays for them – “To this end, we always
pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill
every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the
name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to
the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:11-12).
If there is a place of doubt, of hopelessness, for some Christians, it is in
suffering. We want God to come riding on
a white horse and banish it from us. We
are people of fast food, instant information, quick judgments, and expectations
of why this keeps occurring. One person
aptly put it: “The problems of pain, suffering, death, and injustice in a
world created by a good, all-powerful, all-knowing God are like deep potholes
in the path of many people's walk with God. When believers suffer affliction,
they often doubt the Father's power or love. They find themselves striving with
God intellectually and emotionally, wondering if something about their theology
is wrong. Is God really all-powerful? Is He really loving? Is He really just?[1] It is hard for people to get their bearings
when everything is confusing.
What we need is a theology of pain and suffering that
is equal to our belief in our Sovereign God.
When C.S. Lewis wrote his classic work, The Problem of Pain, he spoke to these two truths –
we will experience pain, and God is sovereign.
What he reminds us is that suffering is not God’s goal in our lives, but
neither is it his will always to end it. Lewis reminds us that God’s great purpose
for our lives – his will – is our Sanctification (remember 1 Thess. 4:1-3?). What Paul reminds them in this first section
is that pain and suffering will not have the last word. We live in a world that begs for justice, but
the works of the flesh cannot achieve it, and those who are exercising
injustice – Paul tells us “they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction,
away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (1:9).
With all the
difficulties they were experiencing, it would only be natural to wish that it
would all go away. Someone told them
that it was going away, and whoever he was, this man falsely sent a letter, in
Paul’s name, saying that the Day of the Lord, which is marked by Christ’s
return, had already taken place. Paul
was infuriated:
“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered
together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind
or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from
us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” (2:1-2).
While Paul had been with them, he had taught the Thessalonian believers about
the Day of the Lord and what would happen as Christ returned (1 Thess. 4). Yet someone decided to use Paul’s name to
tell them it had occurred – which ultimately meant they had missed it! As we have seen in other letters, Paul had several
opponents who often told churches lies in order to create mistrust towards
Paul. He set out to set the record
straight about what he had taught, and what was occurring now.
The Bible teaches
that one day – the Day of the Lord – Jesus will return, and the entire world
will realize it. Yet, preceding that
time, there will be a period of a great rebellion, lawlessness, destruction,
that will be brought on by Satan as head over it all –
“Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the
rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of
destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or
object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming
himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I
told you these things?” (2:3-5).
This time will let loose upon the earth a “rebellion” – from the Greek word “apostasia,”
from which we derive the word “apostasy.”
We use the word “apostasy” as a way of defining a rejection of Biblical
truth and a denial of any Godly law, including the validity of the Ten Commandments.
Paul later would
write to Timothy, reminding him – “The Spirit clearly says that in later
times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things
taught by demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). While
I have seen the spirit of Apostasy grow and grow in my own ministry lifetime,
it is the Satanic Spirit behind Apostasy that creates rebellion, and Paul calls
the person who will one day be revealed as “the man of lawlessness, the son
of destruction.” The church saw him
as the Anti-Christ (1 John 2:18). There
have lots of attempts to define who this might be. Leon Morris cautions our quick applications
of pointing towards an individual: “Throughout history, there have been many
who have done Satan's evil work ("many antichrists,") and this is a
warning against over-hasty identification of the man of this chapter with any
historical personage. Paul's concern is not with the evil ones who appear from
time to time, but with the most infamous of all, one who will appear in the
last days. He never uses the term "Antichrist," but plainly he has in
mind the being John calls by this name.”[2]
Martin Luther thought it was the Pope, the early church Fathers saw it as
the Roman Emperor, and so it goes on even to today.
Paul is telling
the Thessalonians that this man will precede a time of Great Tribulation upon
the earth, which will mark the Day of the Lord, and since the Day of the Lord
had not yet come, the man of Lawlessness has not yet appeared, why? –
“Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in
his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who
now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way” (2:5-7).
The spirit of lawlessness is actively at work in the world, but the restraining
of this man of lawlessness is a “He.” In
this case, the restraining of the lawlessness, and evil, has to be the work of
the Holy Spirit – the third person of the Trinity, who is God. When the “restraining” is removed, the man of
lawlessness, the Anti-Christ will be unrestrained. While there have been other interpretations,
from Paul’s preaching of the Gospel to the power of the State governments to
exercise law, none of those could stand on their own against Satan’s
power. It is – in my opinion – the Holy Spirit
that actively restrains the evil one.
Paul now
describes the rebellion that will someday come – “The coming of the lawless
one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and
with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to
love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong
delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be
condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2:9-12).
The rebellion will be public, visible, and worldwide. It will involve deception, and opposition to,
and removal of, God’s law which will result in a worldwide breakdown of
society. It will be a period of “Great
Tribulation.” Let us remember, God will “give
them over to their delusion and condemnation.” It is a reminder of what Paul wrote to the Romans
when he said three times, “God gave them up…” (Romans 1: 21 – 31).
We are in a
period of continued restraint, but there will come a rebellion – the beginnings
of which we can clearly see – and then will come the lawless one who will
control all laws, reinterpret all justice, and create a world of chaos. Yet, it will not stand, for Christ Jesus will
defeat and destroy the Anti-Christ. This
is history – or as one man put it, “His Story.”
History is not fate nor random events.
It is the steady movement of God to restore the creation – free of sin
and redeemed by His Son.
Peace
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