In 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul, Silas and Timothy write a very confusing section of Scripture. The section includes figures we don't understand and inferences that don't make sense to us because we're not told what they mean. Some of the Thessalonians believed that Christ has returned and they had missed it. Paul wrote to them to assure them that Christ had not returned and left them, they hadn't been forgotten and that it was still important for them to continue to follow Christ.
Questions for Reflection:
- What ideas about the Second Coming of Christ have you carried at various points in your lifetime? How did those attitudes affect they way you lived your Christian life?
- Have you ever thought that you might have missed the Second Coming of Christ? What feelings came to you at that time?
- If you read 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 do you come away more confused or less confused about the Second Coming of Christ? What are you focused on that leads to your confusion? If you focus on what you do know instead of what you don't know does your confusion dissipate somewhat?
- What does it do for you to know that Christ has not yet returned? How does that affect how you live your Christian life?
- What does it do for you to know that there is one who seeks to replace God in our lives? How does that affect how you live your Christian life?
- What does it do for you to know that Jesus wins in the end? How does that affect how you live your Christian life?
- At which of the three stages are you in your life? What might be most helpful to you when you enter a time of struggle? How might your brothers and sisters in Christ help you to persevere in times of struggle? Will you let them help you?
As you look back on your life as a Christian what are the different ways in which you have thought about the Second Coming of Christ? I’ll tell you about some of my attitudes and then I’ll give you some time to share some of your attitudes or thoughts.
I can think of three different attitudes I’ve had about the Second Coming of Christ over the course of my life. Actually there have been more than three but I only want to share three with you this morning. If you really want to know some of my other thoughts on the Second Coming of Christ you’ll need to bring a 2 liter of Coke and a bag of Zesty Cheese Doritos to my office some day and we can talk about the Second Coming.
One of the strongest memories I have of my feelings toward the Second Coming of Christ is fear. In 1973 a film was released called “A Thief in the Night”. It was a movie about how the rapture had come and a woman was left behind while her husband and children were taken. She refused to take the mark of the beast and the police were out to get her. Back in the 70’s we didn’t get out much and movies weren’t available like they are now - and I sound old when I talk like that - so when our youth group brought in a film or a movie you could be assured of a good turnout. Well, I saw this movie and I had dreams and times of intense fear for a long while afterward. When that movie was combined with an End Times hysteria that seemed to be sweeping across the church at that time I went for years living in fear that the Second Coming would happen and due to some clerical error I would be left behind. Throughout all this time I was a Christian and I knew I shouldn’t be afraid but fear does not make sense. Anybody remember fear as one way you’ve thought about the Second Coming of Christ?
The second attitude I remember having in the middle of all this fear was one of Procrastination. The prevailing attitude of that time seemed to be that the Second Coming was imminent - maybe not today but within the lifetime of many people who have died since that time. In the middle of that time, I remember thinking and perhaps even praying that God might delay the Second Coming until some momentous event in my life had passed - till I was able to go to youth or till I got my driver’s license or till I got to go away to MCI.
I was pretty sure I would be okay if the Second Coming happened, but somehow I didn’t quite grasp that heaven would be better than youth, or driving legally or living in residence during high school. If God would just procrastinate to suit my desires that would be good, I thought. Anybody ever think like that?
The third attitude I remember having about the Second Coming of Christ in my lifetime is one of an escape route. I remember hearing about the overwhelmed Bible College student who was faced with exams and papers and was overwrought by the whole ordeal and stood up from his seat in the library and called out in a loud voice, “Papers, assignments all due the same week and all my exams next week; Oh Lord please come now.”
That was my attitude at times. I might have done something bad - it could happen - that I needed to own up to with mom and dad, or I might have an exam or test in school on which I might do poorly or that would be quite hard I would wish that the Second Coming would happen and through it happening I could escape my hardship. Does that sound familiar to anyone?
The one attitude I don’t remember really ever having about the Second Coming of Christ was one of comfort. The way I learned about the Second Coming and the way it was taught in my early life the Second Coming of Christ was never a comforting thought for me. Some of that makes sense. It should never be a comfortable thing to realize we are going to be in the presence of Almighty God. But, I believe the biblical literature about the Second Coming of Christ was originally written to bring comfort to the first readers, not fear. Something seems out of whack to me when we’ve changed the spirit of the Scripture in such a fundamental way.
What attitudes or thoughts have you carried in your life toward the Second Coming of Christ? Has it been something you didn’t think about much if at all? Has it been something you avoided thinking about? Were thoughts of the Second Coming of Christ a great comfort to any of you? Does anyone want to give voice to any of those thoughts?
You might remember that back in September we began a look through the small New Testament book of 2 Thessalonians. At that time we looked at Paul, Silas and Timothy’s prayer of thanksgiving for the Thessalonians. They were thankful that the Thessalonians’ faith was growing more and more. For all the thoughts they had about the Thessalonians the one thing they always seemed to come back to was to give thanks that the Thessalonians’ faith was growing more and more. In addition to that was the fact that the love every one of the Thessalonians had for each other was increasing.
When we looked at that passage I made the connection between choosing to love or not and the effect that decision would have on either growing or shriveling our faith. When we decide to love our faith grows because faith is living God’s call on our lives and loving is God’s most basic call on the lives of all believers. When we choose not to love our faith shrivels and we lose ground because we are disregarding that most basic call of God on our lives. When we choose not to walk according to God’s call we choose to shrivel our faith.
This week we want to rejoin the Thessalonians and look at what Paul, Silas and Timothy had to say to them in the first 12 verses of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. If you’ve got your Bibles with you I would ask you to turn there at this time. The passage we’re about to read is one of the most confusing passages we have that Paul wrote. Having said that, I think there are lessons to be learned from this passage for how we might live as we wait for Christ to return.
2 Thessalonians chapter 2 beginning with verse 1,
1Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers,
2not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.
3Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way,...
In these verses we come to Paul, Silas and Timothy’s purpose in writing the book of 2 Thessalonians. There were some people in the Thessalonian church who had come to believe that the Second Coming of Christ had already happened and that for some unexplained reason they had missed it. As you can well imagine, especially if you’ve ever seen “A Thief in the Night”, the movie of my childhood and youth, the Thessalonians were devastated by the thought that God might have forgotten them and Christ might have returned and not taken them with Him. I don’t know what they thought, we’re not told, but I can imagine the panic that must have set in within these people the church.
On top of all of this the persecution which they had begun to experience when Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians had intensified. They had been left behind, so they were told, and they were being persecuted. No doubt they were discouraged and had begun to wonder if they had made a mistake when they had chosen to follow Christ. No doubt there was also a goodly amount of wondering how they could somehow get out of the struggle in which they were mired. Might there be an easy way out for them? The way out that looked the easiest would be to abandon their faith.
Paul wrote to tell them that these people who’d told them that the Second Coming of Christ had already occurred had lied to them and they had been deceived. Paul wanted to assure them that the Second Coming had not yet happened and that their faith was not futile.
Verse 3,
3Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.
4He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
5Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things?
6And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.
7For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.
8And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.
9The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders,
10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
11For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie
12and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
What makes this section the most difficult of all Paul’s passages to interpret is the fact that Paul, Silas and Timothy and the Thessalonians knew some things that we don’t know. For example in verse 4 Paul said,
4He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
Paul assumed that the Thessalonians had some idea who the ‘he’ was that Paul was talking about. Paul assumed that the Thessalonians had an idea about what those things were that were called God and Paul assumed that the Thessalonians had a fairly good understanding of what he meant when he referred to the Temple. We need to remember the Thessalonians were a long way from the temple in Jerusalem so there is no guarantee that the Jerusalem Temple was what Paul had in mind.
In verse 5 Paul told the Thessalonians that he used to tell them about these things while he was among them. The Thessalonians knew what it was he was talking about so Paul, Silas and Timothy felt no need to explain it to them all over again.
We assume that Paul and the Thessalonians both knew what all these things plus all the other inferences and inside language in the rest of the verses meant, but we don’t. Because we don’t know what all this meant we’re not sure what the passage is really saying to the church. It’s confusing to us and we can get frustrated because there is a bunch of stuff here we don’t know. However, having said that there are several things we do know which teach us how to live until Christ returns.
The first thing we know is that Christ has not yet returned. The Thessalonians were convinced by someone or some group that Christ had come and gone and they had missed the bus. We’re more likely to see people in our culture making wild predictions of when the world will come to an end or when Christ will return than we are to find people who believe it has already happened. You may remember that May 21, 2011 was supposed to be the day Christ returned - according to radio preacher Harold Camping. He is just the latest in a long line of predictors of the end times that stretches throughout history and goes back at least as far as the Thessalonian church.
We do know that Christ has not yet returned. Therefore, the great commandment and the great commission remain in force. We are to be, like the Thessalonians were, a people who love God with our whole heart and love each other and the world in which we live as much as we love ourselves.
Because Christ has not yet returned we are still mandated to be a people who love the world in which we live enough that whenever possible we will be about spreading the good news of the possibility of human beings having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ - and as St. Francis said, if necessary, we will use words to communicate the message of Jesus Christ. Paul very clearly assured the Thessalonians that Christ had not yet returned. Because Christ has not yet returned we are to be about the business of the great commandment and the great commission. That’s the first thing we know from this passage.
The second thing we know from his passage is that there is among us one among us who seeks to push God aside and take His place in our lives. We are continually tempted to give up our faith in Christ and follow this imposter who seeks to set himself up as God in our lives. That person is described by Paul as the man of lawlessness in verse 4. He is the enemy of our souls who seeks the destruction of all who name the name of Jesus in their lives.
While faith in Christ is the call to walk unswervingly in the direction in which Christ has called us the enemy seeks to tell us that there are shortcuts to be taken which will make the trip much less arduous. We’re invited by him to just fudge a little here or just cut this corner there. He tells us that we can still call ourselves obedient even while we disobey Christ’s call on our lives. He will seek to convince us that we can disobey and stop loving and be self-seeking and still please Jesus Christ. He seeks to be the one to whom we will listen first when seeking direction in our lives. When we listen to him first, he has successfully taken the place of God in our lives. We know that Satan is real and that he wants to replace God as the voice to which we will listen.
The third thing we know is that Jesus wins in the end. Verse 12 said that all those who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness will be destroyed. Jesus wins. Those of you who are fans of gospel music might very well remember the song that the Cathedrals made famous called “I’ve Read the Back of the Book and We Win”. That’s what Paul, Silas and Timothy were saying to the Thessalonians and what we can know as well. That’s the message of the book of Revelation and it’s the message of Daniel and all the other literature that speaks about the End Times. It’s designed to show the people of God that no matter how bleak things may look, we can know and we can rest assured that there is a time coming when God will emerge victorious. Jesus wins; our faith is not misplaced. Stay the course.
How do we live while we wait for Christ to return? As the Thessalonians found out living the Christian life is hard. For them it was persecution from an external source, the Roman government. For us it’s the temptation to give in to the subtle voice that calls us to put ourselves first and pursue our own gain and comfort ahead of Christ’s call to love. Both external persecution and internal temptation make it hard to live the Christian life. Much of our culture in the last decades has been enamored with how to make life easier. Most of the comforts we enjoy have been sold to us because they will make life easier and usually when life becomes easier it also becomes faster or more efficient. We lament that life is so fast-paced and despite all of these things that make life easier we still speak about how life is hard and how we don’t have time. We long for an escape from the difficulty of life. Then the subtle voice of the enemy of our souls whispers in our ear that he has an easier way if we would listen to him. How do we live our lives while we wait for Christ to return?
At our Winkler Ministerial meeting this past week Walter Enns shared with us part of his story. He talked about a book he read - I think it was called You Don’t Have to Quit by Anne and Ray Ortlund. Walter told us that in the book he read the author talk about three phases that can come into our lives. The first phase is the phase where life is good and the living is easy. Our job is going well. Our Christian life is without crisis. Our relationships are all smooth sailing. Life is good and the living is easy.
The second phase is that phase that comes to all of us at some point where life is no longer good nor easy. In fact life stinks. It might be that our job has become unfulfilling or difficult or very demanding. It may be that God seems absent in our Christian life or that we have a crisis of faith where we’re not sure what is right or wrong or what it is we believe anymore. It may be that one or more of the relationships in our lives has entered a crisis phase. We may have been hurt or betrayed by someone we love. We may have hurt or betrayed someone we love. There is brokenness in that relationship. The end result of any of that is that life is no longer good nor easy; it’s hard.
Now what do we do when life becomes hard? Our culture tells us to look out for number one to place our needs and desires first. If we’re in pain or in a struggle we should get out and get to a place where life is once again good and easy. If someone has hurt us we can’t trust them and we should end that relationship. If our job is not fulfilling us at this point we should find a different job. If we choose the path of leaving when the going gets tough, according to the authors of the book, we will never grow up and we’ll never grow to the next stage of maturity that God has for us. If we bail in the middle of hard times we will never acquire the skills or life lessons that God requires us to have for what He might want us to do in later stages of our lives. If we leave and go back to the first stage of life where it’s easy and good we will never grow up.
I see a lot of people doing this in our culture and I have often done it myself. There is no need for the divorce rate to be as high as it is. Often, not always but often, it’s self-centeredness and lack of courage and lack of commitment to work at tough stuff, on the part of one of the people in the marriage - it only takes one to mess up a marriage - and it’s a desire for life to be good and easy and to not have to experience or work through hard stuff that leads to many divorces. How often don’t we hear that someone got a divorce partly because they found the marriage to be unfulfilling or hard? I’m not talking about staying in an unsafe place or with an abusive spouse - please don’t hear me saying that. I’m talking about a challenging but still safe environment which leads to most divorces.
I’m often tempted when things get tough to bail and take an easier path and anything looks easier when times are tough. What I’ve found is that when I’ve persevered through the hard times and when I’ve gotten out the other side of the tough stuff, life actually becomes better than it was before the hard times. That’s the third phase that Walter Enns told us about. He said when you get through the hard stuff you find yourself equipped for things that you would have never been equipped for had you turned and run from the challenges and difficult times. We acquire skills and abilities in tough times that we’ll never get in easy times. In the third phase life becomes good once more and the living is easy but it’s actually better than it was before because we have grown and we are more than we used to be.
Last spring Dave Currie was in town for a marriage seminar and on an evening before the marriage seminar he met with pastors from our area to talk about how to help people who struggle with pornography and how to help those who have to work through marital unfaithfulness. He said something that our culture will never tell us because our culture is committed to the easy, quick and seemingly painless fix and the conviction that life should always be easy and good. He said that in his 20 years or more of counseling experience couples who hit a significant problem in their marriages - like the unfaithfulness of one partner - and who walk away from the marriage and refuse to do the hard work, five years later 20-25% of those people report that life is good and they are happy. On the other hand, those who work through the hard stuff and re-learn trust and love and intimacy, five years later 80-85% of them report that life is good and they are happy - in fact life is better than it was before the hard stuff started. Our culture never tells us that if we work through struggles and avoid the easy exit that we can be happier than if we bail. That’s the voice of the one who seeks to replace God in our lives.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said it very well when he said, “I wouldn’t give a fig for the simplicity that exists on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity.”
How do we live as we wait for Christ’s return? We live faithfully to the call of faith - to walk the path to which Christ has called us. We stop looking for the easy escape, whether that seemingly easy escape is the Second Coming of Christ or listening to the voice of the enemy of our souls or bailing on our spouse or throwing a hissy fit and quitting our job because it got hard or leaving our church because it looks easier and more fun somewhere else. We press through the hard times that will come in faith that the simplicity God has for us on the other side of this current complexity will be worth it.
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