God is going to send a great
and strong delusion on the world. It will
cause the world to believe The Lie. So declares Paul in our scripture reading
today. Yes, the Greek has the definite
article, The Lie, as if Paul has
something specific in mind. But for us
to understand what this lie is, and why God would send a strong delusion, we need
to think a little bit about the context.
Because today, this language, ‘God shall send a strong delusion’, is
very uncomfortable to most Christian’s ears.
Not that long ago, just a few
years ago, there was a article in Christianity Today about a paradigm shift in
much of Christianity and particularly the Protestant world where images of God
as Judge and King, and punishment are being abandoned in favor of the warm fuzzy
Freudian family. Not the Father of
Hebrews 12, who chastises His children for their own good, but the Freudian
father who believes his children are inherently good and ‘If I'm just nice
enough to them I won't warp them’, and we are projecting this image onto God,
and beginning to shy away from any kind of accountability and judgment type
theologies in Christianity. And some of
this afflicts the Adventist church as well.
But in the context of Second
Thessalonians 2, Paul has a vigorous doctrine of divine rulership and
judgment. You see, the Thessalonians
were one of the most persecuted groups of Christians in the whole body of
Christ. For whatever reason the
persecution at Thessalonica was extremely rough and rigorous and vicious, and
Paul alludes to this suffering in chapter 1 of Second Thessalonians, in verse 4. “Therefore we
ourselves boast of you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith
in all your persecutions and afflictions which you are enduring.” And then he continues. “This is evidence,”
that is, their suffering patiently is evidence “of the
righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the Kingdom of God
for which you are suffering, since indeed God deems it just to repay with
affliction those who afflict you, and to grant rest with us to you who are
afflicted when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in
flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and those who
do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and
exclusion from the presence of the Lord.”
You see, when you live in
peace time and aren't called upon to suffer for your faith, you tend to want to
create a God who helps massage your ego into a fashionable shape. But when you are suffering injustice after
injustice and you are powerless to find a solution, now a God who intervenes
and can do something about it becomes more attractive. And Paul says, the fact that you can hand
that justice issue over to God that allows you to suffer patiently those
injustices, that patient suffering is a testimony to that larger belief that
there is a God who judges and will settle the justice issues.
And now we come to chapter 2. Not only were they suffering persecution,
they were suffering doctrinal controversy.
We don't have any of that in the Church today, do we? “Now concerning the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” verse 1, “and
our assembling to meet Him, we beg you brethern not to be quickly shaken in
mind or excited, either by spirit or word or by letter purporting to be from us
to the effect that the day of the Lord has already come.” Apparently, somebody wrote some letters
arguing that the second coming had already occurred and ascribed the letter to
the apostles, and it caused quite a stir.
And Paul now proceeds to argue, this can't have happened because there
are certain things that have to happen first, and therefore, Christ cannot come
because these certain things haven't happened yet.
And in particular, he focuses
on this character that he calls the man of sin. Who as he says here around verse 4, opposes and exalts himself
against every so-called God, and the context seems clear, this is in the
church. He says there’s going to be a
rebellion in the church that comes first.
Since we haven't had the rebellion, Christ can't have come yet. And this rebellion in the church focuses on
this man of sin, who opposes other gods and objects of worship, takes his seat in
the temple of God and proclaims himself to be God. He continues, “Do you not remember that when I was with you I
told you this?” So Paul prophesies a
day when there's going to be a worship problem in the church, somehow on a
central figure, who is dictating or otherwise manipulating worship. For my purposes, today I'm less concerned on
trying to identify the man of sin than we are the bigger concept that there's
going to be a rebellion in the people of God that leads them into a false form
of worship.
And why is it that this
happens? Well there's a mystery of
lawlessness that’s already worked etc. etc., but we get to verse 9. This rebellion comes through the activity of
Satan with power and pretended signs and wonders. The miraculous and supernatural things happen that help deceive
people. That's part of the issue, but
the bigger one is this. We keep reading
in verse 10. “With
all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to”
do what? Notice it's not that they
refused to believe the truth. It is that they refused to love it. They may well be acknowledging the truth, but they don't love
it. They don't cherish it and thus be
saved. Therefore God sends upon them a
strong delusion to make them believe The
Lie. You don't love The Truth. You will believe The Lie. I wonder what this lie is. “So that all may be
condemned, who did not believe,” now he ties it to belief, “the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Paul makes this curious comparison between The Lie, and The Truth, and by not loving the truth we set ourselves up to
believe The Lie. In the context then, I wonder what this lie
is. It seems to be something to do with
this man of sin taking the authority of God and people submitting to it.
And then there is this other
question. How do we explain God sending a delusion? It's easy to pass it off, “Well God permits
the delusion,” but Paul does not put it in weak language like that. He says God sends it, and gives God the
credit. So how do we reckon with this?
I'd like to suggest that we
may get some answer from the story of Ahab in Second Chronicles, so hold your
finger in Second Thessalonians and let's come back to Second Chronicles the
18th chapter, and for our gold star the same account is found in First Kings, chapter
22. Second Chronicles, chapter 18. Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah is forging an
alliance with Ahab, the king of Israel.
Now this is after the Mount Carmel experience by a good season, and they
are getting ready to go to war together.
And Jehoshaphat, being a little concerned about going to war, says, “Let's
inquire of Yahweh,” and he uses specifically the name of the Hebrew God. And the king of Israel gathers 4 hundred
men. Prophets. Now, when was the last time we had 4 hundred
prophets and Ahab? They were the prophets
of Baal. And these 4 hundred prophets
basically say, “Ah yes, Elohim, the gods, will bless you. You're going to win. Go on up and engage this battle.”
Now we could debate whether
they’re saying God in general or the Pantheon, but they seem at the moment to
avoid the Yahweh language. And so Jehoshaphat
remonstrates. “Don’t we have a prophet
of Yahweh here?” He knows there’s a
rotten fish here. There's something
wrong. And Ahab says, “Oh yeah, there’s
Micaiah. I hate him ‘cause he always
says bad things about me.” But to make
Jehoshaphat happy, he sends the men, “Let's go get Micaiah, bring him on in.” Messenger finds Micaiah and he says, “Look,
when you go in this time, say something nice, you know. Be agreeable.” Micaiah comes in. “Shall
we go to war?” “Yup. The Lord says go for it, you'll win.” There must have been something beyond his
reputation, because Ahab immediately comes back and says, “Stop lying to me and
tell me what Yahweh says.” He knew
there was something wrong. And he says,
“Well, I saw the people of Israel on the hills like a
sheep without a shepherd. Etc..” Ahab turns to Jehoshaphat at the end of
verse 17 says, “Didn't I tell you he would say bad about me?” And Micaiah continues now in chapter 18,
verse 18. “Hear
the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord
sitting on His throne and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and
on His left, and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, the king of Israel that he may go up and fall
at Ramoth Gilead?’ One said one thing
and another said another, then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord
saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the
Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And
he said, ‘I will go forth and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his
prophets.’ And He said, ‘You are to
entice him and you shall succeed. Go
forth and do so.’ Now therefore behold,
Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these your prophets and the Lord
has spoken evil concerning you.”
You see, Ahab didn't want to
hear Yahweh's perspective. It crossed
his will. It crossed his desire. It did not help him achieve what was
fashionable in his society. And because
he didn't want the truth and in a sense was already deceived, God said it's time to bring this to
fruition, and He commissions the lying spirit to take over and deceive
him. He sends a strong delusion to
Ahab, and Ahab believes it, not because he doesn't know it but because he
doesn't want to hear it.
And so it is with people in the
church in the last days. We must not
confuse sending a delusion with making a delusion, nor with the act of deluding. But God takes credit for sending the
delusion, not in order to deceive but in order to reveal who already is
deceived. That when grand events happen
and judgments fall, it will be unquestionable that God has not made a mistake. And so God takes credit for sending this delusion
in the last days to a church who does not love the truth. And therefore, and he adds, “they have pleasure in unrighteousness.” They love sin more than they love
truth. And because they are already
deceived quietly, He sends a delusion that will make it baldly clear. And hence, it says, they believe the
lie. But I wonder what this lie
is? As I said before, it's obviously
related to this whole worship of the man of sin, but I think we can get a
little bit more clarification, because this strange juxtaposition of The Lie
and The Truth happens only 3 places in the New Testament.
Two of the 3 are penned by Paul. Let's go to his second one in Romans 1,
verse 25. Romans 1, and let's set up
our bearings here. Paul is making a
formal indictment of the Gentiles as to why they are lost in need of salvation,
and he starts by saying, “God's wrath is revealed,”
not executed, but revealed, “from Heaven against all ungodliness.” We’re in verse 18, “and
against wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress The Truth. For what can be
known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.” What is it God has shown them? Verse 20.
“Ever since the creation of the world, His
invisible nature, namely His eternal power and Deity, have been clearly
perceived in the things that are made so they are without excuse. They knew God, but wouldn't honor Him or give
thanks to Him and they became futile in their thinking.”
Let's stop for just a
moment. What was it that God showed to
the Gentiles about Himself? It’s right
there in the text. One, He's powerful. Right?
Look at all this stuff. He made
it. That's some kind of power, and yet
I look at all this stuff and I can't find or see God directly, so His other
point was, God is invisible. His
invisible nature and His eternal power.
Two points. How do these
Gentiles respond to this knowledge of God?
Verse 23. They make idols and
images. Right? Of men, beast, etc., and they worshiped
them.
Question for you. If I went to one of our art professors at
Southern and I said, “I want you to take this piece of marble or clay or wood,
or pick your material, and I want you to make me a sculpture of something
invisible.” Do we have a problem
here? See, knowing God is invisible,
you should've at least known you can’t make an image of Him. But Paul says that they exchanged, verse 23,
a conscious choice, they exchanged the glory of God for these images. So God hands them over to the lusts of their
hearts, and then we get it again. Verse
25. Because they exchanged, a
volitional choice, The Truth about
God for The Lie. Wonder what the lie is? Next phrase. “Worshiping and serving the creature
instead of the Creator.”
You see, the great lie is
believed when we elevate our judgment over God's revelation. “It doesn't make sense to me to bow down and
worship something I can’t see. Let me
make a little visual aid to help me out.”
And what happens is we only start to obey and worship when it makes
sense to me. And in so doing, ‘Me’
became the highest authority in my life.
Right?
Oh, as Christians we love to
generate rationale for God. Right? We don't commit adultery, ‘cause it has
nasty consequences, right? That makes
sense. We don’t steal. That makes sense, right? But God starts to probe another area of the
life. How about 10% of your
increase? That may not quiiite make such
good sense. One day in 7 makes
sense. Be picky about which day in 7? You follow me? If we submit to God only when it is sensible and cannot obey when
it is mysterious, we believe The Lie, that I am smarter than God.
And this lie, according to
Christ, John chapter 8, started not on earth, but in heaven. John, chapter 8. This is the third text where this unique contrast of The Lie and The Truth happens. Jesus
has said, “If you're sinning that makes you a slave of sin,” and the leadership
says, “Heh heh. We’re not slaves, we’re children of Abraham. We've never been in bondage.” He says, “If you were Abraham's children you’d
act like Abraham.” and they said, “Well
we’re God's child.” and He says, “Well, why are you trying to kill Me? You don't act like God.” Verse 44.
Jesus now indicts them. “You are of your father the devil. Your will is to do your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning and has
nothing to do with” what? “The Truth. Because there is no truth in him.” And now our English Bibles do us a disservice. Very literally, it says, “When he speaks The Lie, he speaks according to his own
nature, for he is a liar, and the father of lies.”
This lie, that the creature
is more important than the Creator started in the courts of heaven. And the way he captures Eve makes it
suggestive to me that there was some event that caused a dissonance where what
Lucifer perceived and what God was telling him contradicted. Cause he puts Eve in the same situation, as
we'll see. And when push came to shove,
Lucifer decided to go with what made sense to him instead of what God
said. Don't have time to develop that
fully here, but if you come back to Genesis 3, right? Serpent is more subtle than all the creatures of the field, etc.
etc., and what does he say to the woman?
“Did God really say that all the trees are off-limits?” What's the obvious answer. “No.”
What's he trying to do? He's
trying to get her to ask the question herself, “I wonder why God made this one
tree off limits?” And it works. “Oh,” she says, “God told us don't eat of
this tree or touch,” a little addition.
Or we what? And he immediately
says, “Not going to die. God’s lying to
you, Eve, because He knows, if you eat of this tree, you'll move from being
under His thumb to being in a collegial relationship of co-deity. You'll become like God.” Boy!
Let's look at the evidence.
Snake’s touching the tree, and he's not dead. Of course, God never said don't touch, but you know, when you add
a little something to God's word, it can set you up for a fall. Snake might be eating the tree. If you believe Sister White’s writings, he
was eating the fruit. Which is how he
appears to get the power of speech. So
he's eaten the fruit, and he's not dead.
And then verse 6, I think it is, she looks at the tree and it says the
tree looked good for food. Pleasant to
the eye and desirable to make one wise.
All the empirical data is telling Eve that God is wrong. And Eve has to choose. And she believed The Lie and elevated
creature above Creator. And sucks Adam
into that lie with her.
Wouldn't we expect then, that
if Christ were tempted in all points as we, that he would face the lie and have
to defeat it. And I would suggest to
you that we can see this very clearly in the temptation story. What happened right before the temptation of
Christ in the wilderness, immediately?
He was baptized. Did God say
anything at the baptism? “This is My
beloved Son.” Christ gets an audible
affirmation of His identity. He now
gets driven into the wilderness and we’re virtually six weeks later. He doesn't exactly look like the Son of God,
and I doubt that He feels like Son of God.
And this beautiful being shows up in front of Him, and what’s the very
first thing he challenges? What God
said six weeks ago. “If You are the Son
of God. Look at You, Jesus. You look awful. Look at me, I'm so beautiful.
Jesus, You must be the fallen angel.
I'm the Son of God.” I would
suggest that the whole sensory, empirical experience of Jesus was telling Him, “God
is wrong. You better trust Yourself on
this one.” Do you see the significance
of His answer. “Man
shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God.” Man shall not live by his
perceptions and judgment, but by the word of a wiser God. And He rejects that lie.
The ultimate deception, my
friends, is not a deception over the day of worship. It's not a deception over tithe paying or some other
doctrine. Those are all symptoms of a
deeper deception that I serve God for what it will do for me, instead of, like
Job, serving God, because it's the right thing to do. And in the time of trouble, when there is no good self benefit to
serving God, and we suffer like the Thessalonians, those who serve God because
it makes sense to them will be deceived and fall away. The challenge then is that we be humble
enough to live with mystery. I may not
understand all of God's revelation, but I trust the Giver of it. And I will hang in there, even when there is
no apparent self interest in it. The
modern-day church has been groomed the opposite way. Don't trust God, unless you can understand. And many are being groomed to believe The Lie
and to trust themselves instead of their Maker. Let us exercise trust in Him now in the little areas, because
that's what will forge the trust for the big areas. Let's trust and obey.
Let's sing our closing hymn,
Trust and Obey.
Hymn of Praise: #272, Give Me The Bible Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 Hymn of Response: #590, Trust and Obey
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Sermon at McDonald Road transcribed by Steve Foster 3/13/09