SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/18/2014
11:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Do Not be Unbelieving
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Thessalonians 2:10c-12
Message
of the verses: Being on vacation for
the last couple of weeks has made it much more difficult to get my Spiritual
Diaries done in a timely manner so I thought that it would be a good idea to
kind of do a little review on what we have been looking at since we began the
second chapter of 2 Thessalonians. I
have mostly been following the outline in John MacArthur’s commentary on 2 Thessalonians
and so I thought it would be good to review this outline to get us up to
date. In the first five verses of 2
Thessalonians chapter two MacArthur entitled the chapter “How to be Ready for
the End Times PT-1 Remember What you Know.”
In the second chapter, which is the part we are in now he entitled it “How
to be Ready for the End Times PT-2 Be Strong and Courageous.” In following this outline MacArthur wrote
that there were four exhortations which Paul gave to the Thessalonians so that
they would be ready for the end times.
These exhortations are “not being deceived, forgetful, ignorant,
unbelieving, insecure, or weak.” We
looked at not being deceived when we looked at verses 1-5 and now that we are
in verses 6-17 we have looked at forgetful and ignorant. Ignorant had four sub-sections in it and we
finished those up in our last SD. Today
we begin to look at “Don not be Unbelieving,” which covers verses 10c-12. I am not sure how far we will get but we will
get started now. It should also be noted
that chapter two speaks mostly about the coming Antichrist, as Paul is proving
to the Thessalonians that they are not in the “Day of the Lord,” because the
Antichrist is not present in the world at that time.
“because they did not receive the
love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them
a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that
they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in
wickedness.”
When we go back to the beginning of
the Bible we find that Satan told a lie to Eve and that lie is “the lie” we
find throughout Scripture. Satan has not
changed his tactics at all from what he told Eve: “"For God knows that in the day you eat
from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."”
The lie is that you will be like
God. God never told man that he could be
like God, for no one is like God but God Himself. Just because Adam and Eve learned about good
and evil did not mean that they would be like God. In this section of 2 Thessalonians chapter
two Paul uses a phrase that is only found here in the New Testament and that is
“they did not receive the love of the truth.”
Now what is the love of the truth?
The truth of the Gospel is something that we are to love, but we are
also to love the Lord Jesus Christ who is truth. “Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and
the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me (John 14:6).” 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace
and truth were realized through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).” 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been
taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus (Eph. 4:21).”
John MacArthur writes “Unbelievers
do not welcome either Jesus or the gospel He proclaimed. Their antipathy to the truth is not
intellectual, but moral, and their self-imposed blindness leaves the unredeemed
under a damning level of satanic deception.
It is not surprising, then, that Antichrist will deceive the entire lost
world.” I mentioned above that this 2nd
chapter of 2 Thessalonians is about the Antichrist and we see from these verses
that He is deceiving the lost so that they will not hear and understand and
accept the truth so that they can be saved.
This has always been what Satan desires to do, that is deceive the lost
so that they will believe “the lie.”
There is an Old Testament story that
speaks to what Paul is writing about in this section and that story is about
Pharaoh. Pharaoh was looking at the same
miracles that the rest of Egypt was looking at and he knew that these miracles
were all against the gods that he worshiped, and so he knew that the God of
heaven was the One doing these miracles through Moses and yet his heart was so
hardened that eventually God would completely harden his heart so that he would
not believe the truth that was right before his eyes. Warren Wiersbe writes “In
this paragraph (verses 10-12), Paul wrote a sobering truth: a person can so resist the truth that he
finally becomes deluded and has to believe a lie. There can be no neutral ground: either we believe the truth or we believe a
lie. To reject the truth means to
receive the lie.
“Does this mean that God is to blame
for a man’s rejection of Christ? No more
than God was to blame for Pharaoh’s spiritual condition when Moses was bringing
the plagues on Egypt. Pharaoh heard God’s
Word and saw God’s wonders, yet he refused to bow to God’s will. Pharaoh occasionally relented and gave lip
service to God’s will; but he always resisted in the end and refused to obey
God. He hardened his heart so that he
could not believe the truth, and this led to God’s final judgment of the land
of Egypt.”
Now in an earlier SD I mentioned
that there were some commentators who believed that this section from 2
Thessalonians chapter two taught that if a person heard the gospel before the
rapture they could not be saved. Dr.
Wiersbe writes the following to help clear this up for me: “Does this mean that those who have heard the
Gospel before the Rapture of the church cannot be saved after the Rapture? Not necessarily. If that were true then our witness to the
lost is condemning them, should Christ return.
However it does mean that no lost sinner can afford to treat God’s truth
carelessly or reject God’s Son repeatedly.
The human heart become harder each time the sinner rejects God’s truth;
and this makes it easier to believe Satan’s lies.”
One more point the Dr. Wiersbe
brought up: “Second Thessalonians 2:11
reads literally, ‘That they should believe the
lie.” Now I wrote about this at the beginning
of this SD but it is worth repeating: “What
is ‘the lie?’ Satan is the liar and has
foisted many deceptions on the human race.
But there is one ‘lie’ that, from the beginning has led people
astray. Satan first spoke it to
Eve: You shall be as God.’ The lie
is the idea that man is his own God and therefore can do whatever he pleases
and better himself by his own human efforts.”
As I have been thinking about the “lie”
and the fact that it was given to Eve at the very soon after God had created
both Adam and her, and that this lie has been the chief weapon of Satan all
through history, I can see it culminating during the time when the end of the
world as we know it comes about. Now if
we go back two chapters in the book of Genesis we can see that the world was
made perfect and then if we go forward from Revelations chapter 19, which is
when Christ returns to planet earth we will see that again the earth will be
made perfect for the next 1000 years, but there will still be sin in the world,
but it will be judged immediately, and then this present earth will be burned
up (2 Peter 3:10) and a new heaven and a new earth will be come into existence
and again all will be perfect again. The
important message of this SD is not to believe the lie, but believe the truth
of the Gospel and be saved.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: As we see
the day approaching it is necessary to get the truth of the Gospel out so that
people can reject the lie and believe the truth and be saved and then wait for
our Lord to return in the Rapture to receive us unto Himself.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Get the
truth out so people can be saved.
Memory
verses for the week: Colossians 3:8-11.
8
But now you also, put them all aside:
anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have laid
aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who
is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who
created him-11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and
Jew, circumcised, and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman,
but Christ is all and in all.
Today’s
Bible question: In what city did Ahab
reign?”
Answer
in our next SD.
10/18/2014
1:23 PM
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