Welcome back to
the Books of the Book.
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We're in Second
Thessalonians Chapter 2.
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And Jon, we are
ready. We are seat belted.
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We are ready for the ride.
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This is gonna be,
this gonna be a lot of
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great stuff, heavy
stuff in the several minutes
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that we have
together. So, take us there.
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All right, one of the toughest,
most challenging passages,
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hope you have
your thinking cap on.
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In verses 5 through
7, one of the key things
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and you can see
it in the translation
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just a little
bit that we gave you,
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but there is a
neuter masculine pattern.
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In other words, there is
a restraining power here.
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What that which restrains?
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But then it's
also, He Who restrains.
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So it's neuter,
that which restrains.
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And it's
masculine, He Who restrains.
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But the same thing is
true of this lawlessness.
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You have a man of
lawlessness, that's masculine.
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You have a mystery of
lawlessness, that's neuter.
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You have never
seen this in English
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that's why I am taking the time.
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Why this is such
a challenging text.
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Not only that.
There is Jesus who comes.
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The Lord Himself is a He
but He destroys the wicked
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by the breath of His
mouth, which is neuter.
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So, Paul whatever you want
to identify this restrainer
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or this man of sin,
it's got to be something
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that's both neuter and masculine
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and that complicates the
understanding tremendously.
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Furthermore, at
the end of verse seven,
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it talks about,
"He Who now restrains
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will continue until
He is out of the way."
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Now He is out of
the way, my translation,
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some people say till
he is taken out of way.
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Some people say,
till He was drowsed.
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You can translate it either way,
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so translations tends
to go one way or the other.
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But it's actually neutral
until He is out of the way.
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It doesn't tell us
whether He's an active agent.
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I will stay here
until I feel like going.
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Or if He's a subordinate agent
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I'll stay here until
somebody kicks me out.
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The text isn't
clear on which it is
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and it's crucial to
understanding this text.
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Because who is the restrainer.
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Is it some earthly power that
is subject to God and His rule?
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Or is it God Himself who removes
Himself when the time is right.
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So it's God
everything is going by my plan
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when the time is right
I will get out of the way
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and everything's
gonna take place.
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That part is not clear.
So who is this restrainer?
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Because Paul is
saying, this man of sin,
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this man of
lawlessness will be revealed.
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But right now
He's being restrained.
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So as Paul is speaking,
a restrainer is already
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at work whoever it is.
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Is that work in Paul's day.
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It's a law upholding power
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because it's
restraining lawlessness.
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He's on a divine time mission.
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I mean ultimately
who can restrain Satan?
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Only God. Yeah, right.
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So and who can hold
back the second coming?
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Satan can't, only God.
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So this is a law
abiding power that's operating
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on a divine plan, a
divine time mission.
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And at some point
He leaves the scene.
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The Earthly scene
and allows this man
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of lawlessness to
be fully revealed.
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So and it's neuter masculine.
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So you have all of these
complications and scholars
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have gone a
number of different ways
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trying to figure out who it is.
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But the two possibilities
that I think are most likely
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is one of them
is the idea of Rome
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that the restraining
force is the Roman Empire,
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and that the
restrainer is the Roman emperor.
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And that of course would
be subordinate power to God
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would be
removed in God's timing.
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And many early
Christians believe this.
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A number of the early writers
like Hippolytus and others
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wrote on these
things and they had the idea
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that as long as the
Roman Empire is going,
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the apostasy won't come.
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The apostasy will be
after the Roman Empire falls.
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That's was a common belief
and when the Roman Empire fell,
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people started
looking for the apostasy.
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And you can see that in
the early church writings
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but there's an other option.
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And the other option is
that the restrainer is God,
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because only God
can restrain Satan.
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Right. And the restraining force
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then would be the gospel,
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as the gospel is going
forth it's restraining evil.
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It's restraining lawlessness,
it's restraining apostasy.
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But when the gospel
stops being preached,
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oh the devil
breaks loose in the world.
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So those are the two options
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that I think are the
best options for understanding
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who this
restrainer in this passage is.
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Well, that second option
of God being the restrainer.
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Seems to make sense to
me, it agrees with the words
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of the Jesus when He
talks about the gospel
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we preach in the all the world
and then the end will come.
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Right. Matthew 24.
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Right and then
in the Revelation 14
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John the Revelator. You know,
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that first angel's message
out of the Three Angels message,
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having the Eternal
Gospel and then announcing
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the hour of the
judgment has come.
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So you see in Jesus and in
Revelation it seems to point
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that the restrainer
would be God Himself.
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Amen. And one possibility
we have to keep in mind
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is that maybe it could be both,
because in the western mind,
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we kind of say, it's gotta
be this or it's gotta be that.
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And sometimes in the
Hebrew way of thinking,
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there can be a tension
between two possibilities
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and maybe both of
them could possibly
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be right in their own way.
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And we'll explore
that a bit further.
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But why don't we move
ahead to verses 8 through 10.
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Okay. In verses 8
to 10 Paul writes,
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"And then the
lawless one will be revealed,
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whom the Lord Jesus
will overthrow by the breath
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of his mouth and bring
an end to by the brightness
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of His coming,
whose coming is according
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to the working of Satan
in all kinds of miracles
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and signs and lying
wonders and in every deception
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of unrighteousness among
those who are being destroyed."
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Now you see, at some point comes
this revelation of lawlessness.
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The restraint is removed,
then there is the Revelation
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and the context of these verses
is the second coming of Jesus.
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You see that would be
in support of the idea
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that the
restraint is the preaching
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of a gospel and
God's plan. Yeah.
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And that when that
restraint is removed,
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when the gospel is no
longer going forth to the world,
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then evil will be
allowed to show its full force,
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will become public and obvious.
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So that's one possibility.
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Others however have
suggested if the restrainer
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is the Roman Empire,
then the revelation of
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lawlessness would
be when the apostasy
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in the church
becomes public knowledge.
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And so they would point to
the idea that the Middle Ages
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with all the excesses of
the papacy in the Middle Ages
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would be the place where
this revelation took place.
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So with the other
view you could say, yes,
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the Middle Ages was
the mystery of lawlessness.
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It's the place where, I
mean, this is the church.
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Yeah. And so people are saying,
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this must be where God is.
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And it isn't so obvious
to everyone but at the end
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it will become
obvious to everyone.
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And this is a
painful truth in many ways,
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to realize that opposition to
God can have a Christian face.
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Yeah, you know, I
think if we're honest
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we have to face
ourselves and say,
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you know, that's tension
we constantly live with sin
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is that opposition to the
kingdom of God in my own life.
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You know of really allowing
that's surrender we talk about,
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of really allowing
Christ to reign over my life.
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When Jesus came He
said, I have come now
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to proclaim the kingdom of God.
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That you can now enter
into the reigning of God.
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And that's the good
news, but the tension always
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is trying to keep the control,
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trying to keep me on
the throne if you will.
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Instead of letting Christ reign.
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And so there are the struggle
of pride and self centeredness
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that definitely happen
even after you're a Christian,
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you know, wrestling with that.
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It was a bit of a
warning for all of us.
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I think so. In this.
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Yeah. I think even pope recently
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has admitted that the
excesses of the papacy
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in the Middle Ages
undermined the gospel
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and often did great
harm to many godly people.
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But I would point
out, there's a difference
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between a system and the
people who are in the system.
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This is not about Catholics.
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It's about a system
that was often well meaning.
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I think it, the
system came into existence
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through lots of
little decisions,
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the unintended
consequences of which
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where a system that often
did harm as much as it did good.
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And so, in that
context we understand.
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We're not talking
about individuals here
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but recognizing
that even religion.
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Religion means well,
it's trying to serve God
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and to honor something
that God has done in the world.
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But often religion gets more
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focused in
preserving institutions.
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Yeah. Than in honoring God
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and when that
happens when money and wealth
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and power become where it's at.
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Then even though it
has a Christian face,
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it can be working against God.
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Yeah. It can
become scary really fast.
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And in the final crisis,
there will be no more mysteries.
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All these
things will be exposed.
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History will become perfectly
clear but prophecy gives us
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windows into that
history ahead of time.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Well, John, shall we
move on to the next verse.
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I think we need
to. Okay let's do that.
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Verses 10 through 12 Paul says,
"Because they did not receive
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the love of the truth in
order that they might be saved,
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and for this reason God sends
them a working of deception
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in order that they
might believe the lie.
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In order that all
might be judged who did not
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believe the truth, but
delighted in unrighteousness."
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Wow! John, that kind of
gives me a major reaction
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if you will--it
sounds, it sounds terrible.
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God sending a
working of deception.
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Yeah. Now, you're gonna
have to really unpack this one.
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God sending a delusion
some translations have it.
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What it's clear
from the context is,
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this deception exposes decisions
that have already been made.
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This revelation of
lawlessness is exposing
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what's going on,
it's not creating it.
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God sends a deception at
the end in order to expose
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the working of Satan,
even within the church.
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Those who are
deceived or those who have
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refused to receive
the love of the truth.
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There's three
people in the world
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those who love the
truth, those who hate the truth
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and that mass in the middle
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that's kind of
confused, you see.
00:11:20.48\00:11:23.08
In the end all of that will
be exposed all that would be
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revealed and the whole world
will know who's on what side.
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You know, we
talk about truth more.
00:11:30.52\00:11:32.19
What is, what truth?
00:11:32.19\00:11:35.62
And there was a
statement that Jesus
00:11:35.62\00:11:37.29
made that gets quoted often.
00:11:37.29\00:11:39.06
It says, and you
shall know the truth
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and the truth
shall make you free.
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But so often the
verse just before
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that and what Jesus said.
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He says if you abide in my word,
00:11:46.77\00:11:48.97
you are my disciples indeed.
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And then you will know the truth
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and the truth will set you free.
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You know and so I think
it's important that we remember
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the focus on
Christ, of Him reigning
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in our life and
letting him reign.
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Letting Him rule our lives
and as we abide in His word
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and in His truth,
that also protects us
00:12:07.69\00:12:10.36
from self deception if you will.
00:12:10.36\00:12:12.43
It's interesting
that my favorite author
00:12:13.80\00:12:16.33
outside of
scriptures studied this text
00:12:16.33\00:12:18.43
and had some
interesting things to say.
00:12:18.43\00:12:20.54
She would have said
both. Both the restrainers.
00:12:20.54\00:12:25.01
Both the men of sin are there.
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For example,
regarding the Middle Ages,
00:12:27.48\00:12:30.25
she says, not till
after the great apostasy
00:12:30.25\00:12:33.28
and long period of the
reign of the man of sin.
00:12:33.28\00:12:35.78
Can we look for
the advent of our Lord.
00:12:35.78\00:12:38.05
The man of sin, which is
also styled mystery of iniquity
00:12:38.05\00:12:40.89
represents the papacy,
which is foretold in prophecy
00:12:40.89\00:12:44.43
was to maintain its
supremacy for 1260 years,
00:12:44.43\00:12:47.56
that's from Great
Controversy, page 356.
00:12:47.56\00:12:50.70
But then later on
in page 624 and 625,
00:12:50.70\00:12:55.17
she talks about the crowning act
of the great drama of deception.
00:12:55.17\00:12:58.61
Satan himself
will personate Christ.
00:12:58.61\00:13:02.38
In gentle compassion tones,
he represents some of the same
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gracious heavenly
truths that the Savior uttered.
00:13:05.58\00:13:08.32
Heals the diseases of the people
00:13:08.32\00:13:10.49
and then assuming
the character of Christ,
00:13:10.49\00:13:13.29
he claims to have
changed Sabbath to Sunday
00:13:13.29\00:13:15.42
and commands all to hallow
the day that he has blessed.
00:13:15.42\00:13:18.99
Only those diligent students
of scripture will be shielded
00:13:18.99\00:13:22.70
from these powerful delusions.
00:13:22.70\00:13:24.83
So she sees are
both end in this text,
00:13:24.83\00:13:27.97
that we've discovered here.
00:13:27.97\00:13:29.20
Yeah, well, it's been
great studying this Jon
00:13:29.20\00:13:31.97
and it's been
great being with you.
00:13:31.97\00:13:33.48
Knowledge is important
but it's not everything.
00:13:33.48\00:13:35.54
It's abiding
Christ. Until next time,
00:13:35.54\00:13:37.35
we'll see you. God bless.
00:13:37.35\00:13:38.51