Welcome to "Books of the Book."
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We're studying
Second Thessalonians,
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A letter of Paul to
the church at Thessalonica.
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I'm Jon Paulien
and with me today
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is my Pastor Jon Ciccarelli.
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John, good to be with you again
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as we continue our
study in Second Thessalonians,
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we'll be in Chapter
2 verses 1 through 12.
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And here Paul, puts
his Pastoral head on
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and he's talking
to the Thessalonians
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about some end-time events
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and they have
some misunderstandings
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and he's gonna do some
correcting a bit of their views.
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So I'm looking forward
to our study together today.
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All right. Well, like he
did in First Thessalonians.
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He's moving from affirmation
and encouragement in Chapter 1,
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now he's moving to
exhortation to correction.
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Now, there are
some problems here
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and I have to tell you,
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one of my beloved teachers
said to me a long time ago.
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Second Thessalonians Chapter 2
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is the most difficult passage
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in the entire New
Testament to understand.
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Now, I've got a
few rivals for that
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like the seven
trumpets of Revelation
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and maybe the middle
part of Revelation 17.
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Those are pretty
challenging passages too.
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But this is really
a challenging passage,
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because in a real sense we
don't have all the evidence.
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Would you read maybe verse 5
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and I think Paul
explains our problem
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even though he didn't
realize it at the time. Sure.
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He says, "Don't you remember
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that when I was with you
I told you these things?"
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All right, so that's the
background of this passage.
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He starts
telling them, so this--
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oh, I don't know and I
don't need to tell you this,
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you already know
this and you know that
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and you know the other thing.
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Second Thessalonians 2
is something like listening
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to one side of a
phone conversation
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and you're hearing what
the one person is saying,
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you don't know what
the other side knows,
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you don't know
what they're saying,
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you don't know
what they're asking.
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And so there's a lot
of mystery in this text.
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Paul had a specific
purpose at that time in place.
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God would like us to mind
this passage for some things
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that will encourage
us today, Bible prophecy.
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But I have to admit,
at the end of the day
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we're not
certain about everything
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that's going on in this passage.
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Many challenging
features, but there was a goal,
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the reason why He gave
this and what was that?
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So, Jon, the
goal here is pastoral.
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That he is really
wanting to care for,
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He is not laying everything out
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specifically like we might like.
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He's speaking
specifically to their situation
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which, of course, we probably
like to know more about, but--
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So this is not like Daniel 2
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or something where the
whole prophecy is right there,
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where we can see it
and get a handle on.
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He's speaking to them.
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Some of things we'd like to
know aren't here. Yeah, yeah.
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Well, let's, let's
move on to verses 1 to 3,
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where he
continues to write to them.
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He says, "Now with the
reference to the coming
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of our Lord Jesus Christ
and our gathering to Him,
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we implore you, brothers,
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that you might not be
quickly shaken from your mind,
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or disturbed,
either by a spirit,
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or a word, or a
letter, as it were from us,
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implying that the Day of
the Lord has already come.
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Do not let anyone
deceive you in any way."
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I think it's one thing I want
to say right from the start.
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I mentioned in
the previous program
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how there are
certain Greek words
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that Paul uses whenever
he's answering a question
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from the
church. That's not here.
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In another words the church
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isn't asking for
help on the subject.
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Paul is
introducing help on the subject
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'cause he's concerned about it.
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Now, there are asking
they're fine. All right.
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They think they've
got it all together.
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So Paul is stepping and say
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wait now, wait a minute
we got some problems here
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and I'm aware that
we've some problems.
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So Paul is addressing,
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he is being the
disruptive prophet.
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We mentioned in earlier programs
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and sometimes we read the
Bible simply to comfort us
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in what we already believe.
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Simply to support what
we already think. Right.
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And truly prophets were
almost always disruptive
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when they're living prophets.
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God sends him into the
situation to break people
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out of this comfortable
complacency that they're in.
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This is what Paul is doing.
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They think they've got it right,
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he says no you don't,
here's your problem. Right.
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So, he's moving in on this one.
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A lot of the language
here in Second Thessalonians 2
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especially these first verses
echoes, the language of Jesus
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and it's also
echoes the language
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of First Thessalonians 4 and 5
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where he is
addressing the same subject.
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So Paul has the
first letter in mind.
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He also has some other
sayings of Jesus in mind
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as His writings
Second Thessalonians 2.
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Now there is
confusion in the church
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and there seems to be
three possible sources says
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they've been shaken
or disturbed by a spirit
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or a word or a
letter as it were from us,
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implying that the day of
the Lord has already come.
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So Paul doesn't
seem to be exactly clear
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why did they get
off on this track?
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Was it a spirit,
some prophetic teaching,
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did somebody
step up and say hey,
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the Lord has shown me
this is where we need to go
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or was it a word, a rumor
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or something that
came on the grapevine,
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do you know, or was it a letter,
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was it First Thessalonians
that triggered this
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or was it some other letter
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that claimed to be
from Paul and wasn't.
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Paul isn't clear
exactly, how they got off track?
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But he knows
that they're off track
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and that's what
he's gonna deal with Him.
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What exactly the problem
is the language isn't clear
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if they were teaching
that the Second coming
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is almost there or
that it's already there.
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And I think most scholars
would go with the already there
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because the whole point
of Chapter one is saying,
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that the coming of
Jesus gonna be so visible,
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so noisy, so disruptive,
you're not gonna miss it.
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If Jesus has already come,
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somebody is
living in fantasy land.
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So he's
translating, no he hasn't come.
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These things should
have to happen first.
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Yeah, and it's almost
like they kind of the failed
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to heed Jesus' warnings. Yeah.
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You know, about sign chasing
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you know in Matthew Chapter 24,
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Jesus says see that you are
not troubled about these things.
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Although it's so easy to
get troubled about those things
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and we can live in
that kind of fear factor.
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You know, they see the things
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and they can stresssed out
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they can worry us
and it's not hard to do
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specially again in this
day and age with the economy
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and things going
on internationally
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all kinds of things.
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And we see the
earthquakes and so forth
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and we can get stressed out.
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We can get worried,
but we need to remember
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what Jesus said, see
that you're not troubled.
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And this can happen.
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You know, for
Christians that have been mature
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and growing and
walking with Jesus in longtime.
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We can slip
into this temptation.
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It's so easy, it's so
easy to get our eyes off Jesus
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and look at the
signs or all those things
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that are happening around us.
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And yet Jesus keeps saying no,
no, no you know, focus on me.
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Well, studying the
Bible is hard work.
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Studying texts
like this is hard work
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and it's easier
just to chase robots
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and signs and things like that.
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Yeah, it is. It's so
easy to move into that
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and that seems to
be what they were doing
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here in Thessalonians.
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They are doing
little sign chasing.
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They were happy about it.
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They didn't need Paul to
disturb their little disruption.
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They didn't know
they need Paul to come in.
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But thank God the
spirit was working
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through Paul to say, hey,
we need to work with this.
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Yeah. Let's move on
to verses 3 through 4
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in our study and Paul
continues and he says this,
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"Do not let anyone
deceive you in any way,
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because that Day will not come,
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except the apostasy come first,
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even the revelation of
the man of lawlessness,
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the son of destruction,
who opposes or exalts himself
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over everything
that is called God
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or is an object of worship,
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so as to sit in the
temple of God as God,
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proclaiming himself to be God.
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Wow! So Paul is
just saying look,
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what you guys
think has happened.
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Can't possibly have happened
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because there are
so many other things
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that have to
happen before Jesus comes.
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So you've jumped
the gun in a sense here.
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You know, hold off,
relax just a little bit there.
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There are things
that have to happen
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and it's interesting as
we look at these two letters,
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Paul is struggling to
bring them to a balance.
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Christians need to have
a balance on the one hand,
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anticipating the
soon coming of Jesus.
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You don't want
to come to the place
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where you're
put in far, far off.
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You wanna constantly have fresh,
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Jesus is coming
soon, at the same time,
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you need to
occupy till He comes.
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You need to prepare your plan
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for your children
and your grandchildren.
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You're to worry about
retirement, life insurance.
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Keeping those two
intentions doesn't always,
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it's not easy to do and
Paul is wrestling to do that
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on the one hand,
excited about Jesus soon coming,
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yet planning as if He
might not come just right away.
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Now here's another one of these
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incomplete sentences of Paul
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and in my translation the term
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that day will not
come, isn't there?
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It's not there at all
but your have to say it
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because there's no
verb, no noun, no nothing
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I mean, he just starts off
in the middle of the sentence
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and says, except the
apostasy comes first,
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even the revelation of
the man of lawlessness,
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the son of destruction,
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or who opposes or in the
Greek it's not a sentence.
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So you have to supply a sentence
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in order to make sense of
it, which is why translations
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and translators had struggled
with this forever. Yeah.
00:10:09.27\00:10:12.37
So he is saying okay, the
day of the Lord has not come
00:10:12.37\00:10:16.51
because before it
comes first there's gonna be
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the apostasy is the
language of the Greek.
00:10:19.48\00:10:22.72
In other words, a
falling away in the church,
00:10:22.72\00:10:26.45
the apostasy will come,
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the man of sin or
some translations have it,
00:10:28.16\00:10:31.19
man of lawlessness and the
reason for that is in the Greek
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the two words
are almost the same.
00:10:34.83\00:10:37.07
A sin is hamartia and
lawlessness is anomia.
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You see, the two
sound about the same.
00:10:42.34\00:10:44.77
So when scribes
were copying the Bible
00:10:44.77\00:10:46.98
that may have heard
the one written the other,
00:10:46.98\00:10:48.98
is what seems to have happened.
00:10:48.98\00:10:50.21
So the man of sin and man of
lawlessness is the same person.
00:10:50.21\00:10:53.65
It's not, not
something different.
00:10:53.65\00:10:56.02
I wanna make that very clear.
00:10:56.02\00:10:59.82
What he's basically saying
is the big challenge ahead
00:10:59.82\00:11:04.69
is that the biggest
opposition to the gospel
00:11:04.69\00:11:07.23
is not going to
be the Roman Empire.
00:11:07.23\00:11:09.20
It's gonna have a Christian face
00:11:09.20\00:11:11.60
and that is
tragic, that is shocking.
00:11:11.60\00:11:15.40
He's saying, look
until the apostasy comes,
00:11:15.40\00:11:18.51
until the greatest
opposition to true faith
00:11:18.51\00:11:21.31
comes from inside the house.
00:11:21.31\00:11:24.35
Jesus hasn't come yet. Okay.
00:11:24.35\00:11:26.05
It's a point that he's making.
00:11:26.05\00:11:27.38
Who is this man of
sin, who is this opposer?
00:11:27.38\00:11:31.72
The language in verse
four offers two options.
00:11:31.72\00:11:36.26
When you go back
to the Old Testament
00:11:36.26\00:11:37.86
and other parts of the
Bible the language in verse four
00:11:37.86\00:11:41.16
can be applied to
two different things
00:11:41.16\00:11:42.96
one can be applied to Satan.
00:11:42.96\00:11:45.23
He is a sense,
the one who opposes,
00:11:45.23\00:11:48.90
and by the way, it's
all present tenses is here.
00:11:48.90\00:11:50.77
So whatever this says, it's
already present in Paul's day.
00:11:50.77\00:11:53.88
Yes, it's Paul day.
00:11:53.88\00:11:55.01
You see, he is one who opposes
00:11:55.01\00:11:57.08
and that would be Satan.
00:11:57.08\00:11:58.48
Temple of God
would be the church.
00:11:58.48\00:12:01.05
You see, so the
one who opposes calls
00:12:01.05\00:12:04.25
or an objective worship
that seems to point to Satan,
00:12:04.25\00:12:07.49
but it also points to the little
horn of Daniel 7 and Daniel 8
00:12:07.49\00:12:12.59
and that is not Satan
but is an agent of Satan,
00:12:12.59\00:12:15.46
an earthly agent, a
power on this Earth,
00:12:15.46\00:12:19.13
that serves Satan's goals.
00:12:19.13\00:12:21.37
So there's a
tension here between Satan
00:12:21.37\00:12:25.11
and an agent of Satan
as to who this man of sin,
00:12:25.11\00:12:28.74
man of
lawlessness really is. Yeah.
00:12:28.74\00:12:30.98
Well, I should
appreciate what Paul has written
00:12:30.98\00:12:33.75
but I wish we knew
Paul was leaving out,
00:12:33.75\00:12:35.72
that would just make
everything a lot more easier.
00:12:36.75\00:12:39.19
It has to be the
John it gets worse.
00:12:39.19\00:12:40.96
Read verses five to seven.
00:12:40.96\00:12:42.59
All right. Here
we go. Here we go.
00:12:42.59\00:12:44.96
"Do you remember
that when I was with you
00:12:45.79\00:12:48.13
I told you these things.
00:12:48.13\00:12:49.90
And now you know
what is restraining him,
00:12:49.90\00:12:52.57
in order that he might
be revealed in his own time,
00:12:52.57\00:12:55.00
for the mystery of
lawlessness is already at work,
00:12:55.00\00:12:58.51
only he who now
restrains will continue
00:12:58.51\00:13:02.08
until he is out of the way."
00:13:02.08\00:13:04.61
Wow, it seems like
Paul is kind of outlining
00:13:04.61\00:13:06.88
three stages of
history if you will,
00:13:06.88\00:13:09.82
the time of mystery and
restraint that he mentions,
00:13:09.82\00:13:12.99
a revelation of a man of
sin and then the second coming.
00:13:12.99\00:13:17.56
That's right, so
there are several things
00:13:17.56\00:13:19.49
that have to happen before
Jesus can return and folks,
00:13:19.49\00:13:24.50
I want you to put
your thinking caps on.
00:13:24.50\00:13:26.74
Get your Bible in front of you.
00:13:26.74\00:13:28.94
In 14 minutes, we're
gonna talk some other difficult,
00:13:28.94\00:13:32.07
most difficult
passage in all the Bible
00:13:32.07\00:13:35.71
and we're gonna bring
in a lot of informations.
00:13:35.71\00:13:37.98
We're gonna by quick you
may want to run this program
00:13:37.98\00:13:41.22
by at a future
time. See it again.
00:13:41.22\00:13:43.59
But for now, let's
take a quick break.
00:13:43.59\00:13:45.35