Participants: Jon Paulien & Jon Ciccarelli
Series Code: TBOTB
Program Code: TBOTB000012A
|
00:22 Welcome to "Books of the Book."
00:24 We're studying Second Thessalonians, 00:26 A letter of Paul to the church at Thessalonica. 00:29 I'm Jon Paulien and with me today 00:32 is my Pastor Jon Ciccarelli. 00:34 John, good to be with you again 00:35 as we continue our study in Second Thessalonians, 00:38 we'll be in Chapter 2 verses 1 through 12. 00:40 And here Paul, puts his Pastoral head on 00:44 and he's talking to the Thessalonians 00:45 about some end-time events 00:48 and they have some misunderstandings 00:49 and he's gonna do some correcting a bit of their views. 00:51 So I'm looking forward to our study together today. 00:54 All right. Well, like he did in First Thessalonians. 00:57 He's moving from affirmation and encouragement in Chapter 1, 01:01 now he's moving to exhortation to correction. 01:05 Now, there are some problems here 01:07 and I have to tell you, 01:08 one of my beloved teachers said to me a long time ago. 01:13 Second Thessalonians Chapter 2 01:15 is the most difficult passage 01:17 in the entire New Testament to understand. 01:20 Now, I've got a few rivals for that 01:21 like the seven trumpets of Revelation 01:23 and maybe the middle part of Revelation 17. 01:27 Those are pretty challenging passages too. 01:29 But this is really a challenging passage, 01:32 because in a real sense we don't have all the evidence. 01:37 Would you read maybe verse 5 01:38 and I think Paul explains our problem 01:41 even though he didn't realize it at the time. Sure. 01:45 He says, "Don't you remember 01:47 that when I was with you I told you these things?" 01:50 All right, so that's the background of this passage. 01:54 He starts telling them, so this-- 01:55 oh, I don't know and I don't need to tell you this, 01:57 you already know this and you know that 01:59 and you know the other thing. 02:01 Second Thessalonians 2 is something like listening 02:05 to one side of a phone conversation 02:07 and you're hearing what the one person is saying, 02:10 you don't know what the other side knows, 02:12 you don't know what they're saying, 02:14 you don't know what they're asking. 02:16 And so there's a lot of mystery in this text. 02:19 Paul had a specific purpose at that time in place. 02:22 God would like us to mind this passage for some things 02:27 that will encourage us today, Bible prophecy. 02:31 But I have to admit, at the end of the day 02:35 we're not certain about everything 02:36 that's going on in this passage. 02:39 Many challenging features, but there was a goal, 02:42 the reason why He gave this and what was that? 02:46 So, Jon, the goal here is pastoral. 02:49 That he is really wanting to care for, 02:51 He is not laying everything out 02:52 specifically like we might like. 02:54 He's speaking specifically to their situation 02:57 which, of course, we probably like to know more about, but-- 03:01 So this is not like Daniel 2 03:03 or something where the whole prophecy is right there, 03:06 where we can see it and get a handle on. 03:08 He's speaking to them. 03:10 Some of things we'd like to know aren't here. Yeah, yeah. 03:14 Well, let's, let's move on to verses 1 to 3, 03:17 where he continues to write to them. 03:19 He says, "Now with the reference to the coming 03:21 of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering to Him, 03:24 we implore you, brothers, 03:26 that you might not be quickly shaken from your mind, 03:28 or disturbed, either by a spirit, 03:30 or a word, or a letter, as it were from us, 03:33 implying that the Day of the Lord has already come. 03:36 Do not let anyone deceive you in any way." 03:40 I think it's one thing I want to say right from the start. 03:43 I mentioned in the previous program 03:45 how there are certain Greek words 03:47 that Paul uses whenever he's answering a question 03:50 from the church. That's not here. 03:53 In another words the church 03:54 isn't asking for help on the subject. 03:56 Paul is introducing help on the subject 03:59 'cause he's concerned about it. 04:00 Now, there are asking they're fine. All right. 04:02 They think they've got it all together. 04:04 So Paul is stepping and say 04:05 wait now, wait a minute we got some problems here 04:08 and I'm aware that we've some problems. 04:10 So Paul is addressing, 04:11 he is being the disruptive prophet. 04:13 We mentioned in earlier programs 04:15 and sometimes we read the Bible simply to comfort us 04:18 in what we already believe. 04:20 Simply to support what we already think. Right. 04:23 And truly prophets were almost always disruptive 04:28 when they're living prophets. 04:29 God sends him into the situation to break people 04:32 out of this comfortable complacency that they're in. 04:36 This is what Paul is doing. 04:37 They think they've got it right, 04:38 he says no you don't, here's your problem. Right. 04:41 So, he's moving in on this one. 04:44 A lot of the language here in Second Thessalonians 2 04:47 especially these first verses echoes, the language of Jesus 04:52 and it's also echoes the language 04:54 of First Thessalonians 4 and 5 04:56 where he is addressing the same subject. 04:58 So Paul has the first letter in mind. 05:01 He also has some other sayings of Jesus in mind 05:05 as His writings Second Thessalonians 2. 05:08 Now there is confusion in the church 05:11 and there seems to be three possible sources says 05:15 they've been shaken or disturbed by a spirit 05:19 or a word or a letter as it were from us, 05:24 implying that the day of the Lord has already come. 05:27 So Paul doesn't seem to be exactly clear 05:31 why did they get off on this track? 05:33 Was it a spirit, some prophetic teaching, 05:36 did somebody step up and say hey, 05:38 the Lord has shown me this is where we need to go 05:41 or was it a word, a rumor 05:43 or something that came on the grapevine, 05:46 do you know, or was it a letter, 05:49 was it First Thessalonians that triggered this 05:53 or was it some other letter 05:54 that claimed to be from Paul and wasn't. 05:57 Paul isn't clear exactly, how they got off track? 06:00 But he knows that they're off track 06:03 and that's what he's gonna deal with Him. 06:05 What exactly the problem is the language isn't clear 06:09 if they were teaching that the Second coming 06:11 is almost there or that it's already there. 06:15 And I think most scholars would go with the already there 06:18 because the whole point of Chapter one is saying, 06:21 that the coming of Jesus gonna be so visible, 06:24 so noisy, so disruptive, you're not gonna miss it. 06:29 If Jesus has already come, 06:31 somebody is living in fantasy land. 06:33 So he's translating, no he hasn't come. 06:35 These things should have to happen first. 06:37 Yeah, and it's almost like they kind of the failed 06:39 to heed Jesus' warnings. Yeah. 06:42 You know, about sign chasing 06:43 you know in Matthew Chapter 24, 06:45 Jesus says see that you are not troubled about these things. 06:49 Although it's so easy to get troubled about those things 06:52 and we can live in that kind of fear factor. 06:56 You know, they see the things 06:57 and they can stresssed out 06:59 they can worry us and it's not hard to do 07:02 specially again in this day and age with the economy 07:05 and things going on internationally 07:06 all kinds of things. 07:08 And we see the earthquakes and so forth 07:10 and we can get stressed out. 07:12 We can get worried, but we need to remember 07:13 what Jesus said, see that you're not troubled. 07:16 And this can happen. 07:17 You know, for Christians that have been mature 07:20 and growing and walking with Jesus in longtime. 07:21 We can slip into this temptation. 07:23 It's so easy, it's so easy to get our eyes off Jesus 07:26 and look at the signs or all those things 07:28 that are happening around us. 07:29 And yet Jesus keeps saying no, no, no you know, focus on me. 07:31 Well, studying the Bible is hard work. 07:33 Studying texts like this is hard work 07:35 and it's easier just to chase robots 07:39 and signs and things like that. 07:41 Yeah, it is. It's so easy to move into that 07:44 and that seems to be what they were doing 07:46 here in Thessalonians. 07:47 They are doing little sign chasing. 07:48 They were happy about it. 07:49 They didn't need Paul to disturb their little disruption. 07:52 They didn't know they need Paul to come in. 07:54 But thank God the spirit was working 07:56 through Paul to say, hey, we need to work with this. 07:59 Yeah. Let's move on to verses 3 through 4 08:02 in our study and Paul continues and he says this, 08:07 "Do not let anyone deceive you in any way, 08:10 because that Day will not come, 08:12 except the apostasy come first, 08:15 even the revelation of the man of lawlessness, 08:17 the son of destruction, who opposes or exalts himself 08:21 over everything that is called God 08:23 or is an object of worship, 08:25 so as to sit in the temple of God as God, 08:28 proclaiming himself to be God. 08:31 Wow! So Paul is just saying look, 08:34 what you guys think has happened. 08:36 Can't possibly have happened 08:37 because there are so many other things 08:39 that have to happen before Jesus comes. 08:41 So you've jumped the gun in a sense here. 08:45 You know, hold off, relax just a little bit there. 08:47 There are things that have to happen 08:50 and it's interesting as we look at these two letters, 08:52 Paul is struggling to bring them to a balance. 08:56 Christians need to have a balance on the one hand, 08:59 anticipating the soon coming of Jesus. 09:02 You don't want to come to the place 09:03 where you're put in far, far off. 09:05 You wanna constantly have fresh, 09:07 Jesus is coming soon, at the same time, 09:11 you need to occupy till He comes. 09:13 You need to prepare your plan 09:15 for your children and your grandchildren. 09:17 You're to worry about retirement, life insurance. 09:20 Keeping those two intentions doesn't always, 09:24 it's not easy to do and Paul is wrestling to do that 09:27 on the one hand, excited about Jesus soon coming, 09:30 yet planning as if He might not come just right away. 09:35 Now here's another one of these 09:37 incomplete sentences of Paul 09:39 and in my translation the term 09:42 that day will not come, isn't there? 09:45 It's not there at all but your have to say it 09:48 because there's no verb, no noun, no nothing 09:50 I mean, he just starts off in the middle of the sentence 09:53 and says, except the apostasy comes first, 09:55 even the revelation of the man of lawlessness, 09:57 the son of destruction, 09:59 or who opposes or in the Greek it's not a sentence. 10:02 So you have to supply a sentence 10:06 in order to make sense of it, which is why translations 10:09 and translators had struggled with this forever. Yeah. 10:12 So he is saying okay, the day of the Lord has not come 10:16 because before it comes first there's gonna be 10:19 the apostasy is the language of the Greek. 10:22 In other words, a falling away in the church, 10:26 the apostasy will come, 10:28 the man of sin or some translations have it, 10:31 man of lawlessness and the reason for that is in the Greek 10:34 the two words are almost the same. 10:37 A sin is hamartia and lawlessness is anomia. 10:42 You see, the two sound about the same. 10:44 So when scribes were copying the Bible 10:46 that may have heard the one written the other, 10:48 is what seems to have happened. 10:50 So the man of sin and man of lawlessness is the same person. 10:53 It's not, not something different. 10:56 I wanna make that very clear. 10:59 What he's basically saying is the big challenge ahead 11:04 is that the biggest opposition to the gospel 11:07 is not going to be the Roman Empire. 11:09 It's gonna have a Christian face 11:11 and that is tragic, that is shocking. 11:15 He's saying, look until the apostasy comes, 11:18 until the greatest opposition to true faith 11:21 comes from inside the house. 11:24 Jesus hasn't come yet. Okay. 11:26 It's a point that he's making. 11:27 Who is this man of sin, who is this opposer? 11:31 The language in verse four offers two options. 11:36 When you go back to the Old Testament 11:37 and other parts of the Bible the language in verse four 11:41 can be applied to two different things 11:42 one can be applied to Satan. 11:45 He is a sense, the one who opposes, 11:48 and by the way, it's all present tenses is here. 11:50 So whatever this says, it's already present in Paul's day. 11:53 Yes, it's Paul day. 11:55 You see, he is one who opposes 11:57 and that would be Satan. 11:58 Temple of God would be the church. 12:01 You see, so the one who opposes calls 12:04 or an objective worship that seems to point to Satan, 12:07 but it also points to the little horn of Daniel 7 and Daniel 8 12:12 and that is not Satan but is an agent of Satan, 12:15 an earthly agent, a power on this Earth, 12:19 that serves Satan's goals. 12:21 So there's a tension here between Satan 12:25 and an agent of Satan as to who this man of sin, 12:28 man of lawlessness really is. Yeah. 12:30 Well, I should appreciate what Paul has written 12:33 but I wish we knew Paul was leaving out, 12:36 that would just make everything a lot more easier. 12:39 It has to be the John it gets worse. 12:40 Read verses five to seven. 12:42 All right. Here we go. Here we go. 12:45 "Do you remember that when I was with you 12:48 I told you these things. 12:49 And now you know what is restraining him, 12:52 in order that he might be revealed in his own time, 12:55 for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, 12:58 only he who now restrains will continue 13:02 until he is out of the way." 13:04 Wow, it seems like Paul is kind of outlining 13:06 three stages of history if you will, 13:09 the time of mystery and restraint that he mentions, 13:12 a revelation of a man of sin and then the second coming. 13:17 That's right, so there are several things 13:19 that have to happen before Jesus can return and folks, 13:24 I want you to put your thinking caps on. 13:26 Get your Bible in front of you. 13:28 In 14 minutes, we're gonna talk some other difficult, 13:32 most difficult passage in all the Bible 13:35 and we're gonna bring in a lot of informations. 13:37 We're gonna by quick you may want to run this program 13:41 by at a future time. See it again. 13:43 But for now, let's take a quick break. |
Revised 2023-01-25