chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians. And in this chapter you will find the Apostle Paul correcting errors concerning the day of the Lord and how they perceived it. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul had sought to comfort the hearts of the afflicted and the persecuted members of the church at Thessalonica. And it's so difficult for us, as I stated before, to really identify with first century Christians, because we don't face nearly the life and death situations of real persecution from the state and from religion like they did in the first century. Christianity historically, from its very beginnings, I mean, think about the most perfect person who ever walked the earth, who went about doing good. He was the manifestation of love and grace and truth. No one that has ever walked the earth has been as wonderful and marvelous as the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the founder of what we would call the Christian religion. He is the savior of sinners. He is the only way to God. And He actually told people that, and then proved everything that He said was true and right, by not only burying our sins on the cross, and being buried, just like He said He would, all according to the Scriptures, but He rose again from the dead. Something no one has ever done before or since. And this One who was all glory, Everywhere He went, He was healing the blind, the lepers, unstopping the ears of the deaf. He walked on water. He fed the multitudes on different occasions. He would do so many remarkable things. And they killed the Lord of glory. So it should not surprise us And of course, Jesus himself told the disciples, marvel not if the world hates you. It hated me first. And if they've persecuted me, they will persecute you also. And I'm telling you, that was a reality in early Christianity, a day-to-day reality for anyone who embraced the Christian faith. There was real cost involved. Now over the years as Christianity has spread and it's gone throughout the world and there's been a great influence of truth and righteousness that has embedded a lot of Western culture, it has affected society And so Christianity became more acceptable. However, we have in the word of God warnings that evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse. That in the last days, perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, proud bolsters, disobedient to parents on and on. And we're seeing it. There is a growing hostility today, tonight as I speak, for genuine biblical Christianity. The governments of our world, especially those who are striving to bring about global governance, they are all in on preparing for the man of sin. And that entails hating genuine Christianity and replacing it with a false suedo religion that will accept the lies of the coming man of sin, the Antichrist. And it's not hard at all for me to believe that at this juncture in human history, When the Antichrist comes, it's not going to take much for him to deceive people, to control people. And we're going to find in 2 Thessalonians 2 quite a bit of discussion about the unveiling, the revealing of the man of sin, who's also identified elsewhere as the son of perdition, the wicked. That's how he's referred to here. But in this chapter, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, again, the disciples in early Christianity, they would sometimes mistake persecution that maybe we're going through the day of the Lord right now that Paul was talking about and false teachers would play upon their fears. And so that a lot of that had to be corrected. So in this chapter, Paul seeks to calm their fears concerning the coming of the Lord. The day of the Lord, I should say. And this chapter, 2 Thessalonians 2, is one of the most important prophetic chapters in all of the New Testament. It gives a detailed account of the rise of the Antichrist, as well as what will characterize his ministry during the tribulation period on the earth. His sure and swift demise is also alluded to by the inspired apostle. The occasion for the contents of this chapter came about because of the rise of false teaching within this church, the church at Thessalonica, concerning the Day of the Lord. And again, it was a result of intense persecution. The members of the Thessalonian church that were experiencing the persecution they were experiencing, they began to think that they were already in that time period known as the Day of the Lord when divine judgment would be meted out upon the inhabitants of the earth. There is coming a time on this earth when God is going to deal directly with human sin in a very open way. The wrath of God is literally going to be systematically poured out. Paul calms their fears by revealing to them that the day of the Lord will not come until the saints were gathered to Jesus Christ and the rapture. And the Antichrist was then revealed to the unbelieving masses. Now, I'll tell you at the outset, I approach this from a pre-tribulational, pre-millennial, that's how I view the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I realize that there are good men that I love that believe in a post-tribulational coming after the tribulation period. And you know what? What I've learned to do is I've learned to agree to disagree. We're talking about seven years. quite a bit that's going to happen. I personally believe that the blessed hope is that Jesus is going to come before the Antichrist will be revealed. Now there's no doubt in my mind that every age has been influenced by those who have the spirit of Antichrist. But I believe there is a literal person called the Antichrist. who will be revealed. And I'm not looking for Him, I'm looking for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in the first two verses, we find Paul calming the fears of the saints. Now, we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand." False teaching concerning the coming of the Lord had crept into the church at Thessalonica. In fact, I think many of them believed that they were in the tribulation period. when the wrath of God would be poured out on the inhabitants of the earth. And they had confused the persecution they were suffering and the trials, the tribulations, and the afflictions that Christians are called to endure for the period of time known as the Day of the Lord. And some false teachers or teacher had obviously played upon their fears by feeding them false doctrine concerning the coming of Christ. Now I'll be honest with you, you begin the study of eschatology, the study of last things, I probably have 10 or 12 Baptist theology, systematic theology books And I could probably pull out of every 10 of those systematic theologies. There's probably some differing viewpoint on Eschatolah, whether it be all millennial, post-millennial, pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib. They're going to have different ideas about the coming of the Lord. Now one thing that aggravates me, I'm going to say this right up front, I don't like it when pre-millennialists, and I am a dyed in the wool pre-millennials, I hate it when pre-millennialists try to read and push in everything as they see things unfolding in the news. They try to make everything fit into some scheme, and then they begin to set dates. They start a mathematical formula like this is, I don't like that. We have no, we don't know when the Lord's coming again. We're just responsible to be ready for the coming of the Lord. And my whole ministry, I have preached. You better be ready because Jesus said, behold, I come quickly. Now, Paul addresses the troubled saints as His brethren." We beseech you, brethren. His brethren in the faith. Instead of sharply rebuking them for their doctrinal confusion, He calmly beseeches them in the name of the Lord. Paul knew how to deal patiently with erring saints. He understood that the fears that they were facing were very real to them. And that's why he dealt with them tenderly in an attempt to calm their fears. I like the comment by MacArthur. He said, unlike much contemporary teaching on eschatology, Paul's motive was not sensational, but pastoral. Now he had sat right on the head. I think most of today's, the way that eschatology is presented, a lot of it is sensational and trying to sell books. You know, who was the guy that came out with the Ten Blood Moons or whatever and is trying We've all of that in John Hagee. All right. John Hagee is an Armenian. He, he don't, he, he is so far off on the gospel and just how to be saved. I don't believe in all that stuff. Uh, so when, when people say that, did you, have you read about the ninth blood moon and what that involved? No, I haven't. I, I'm just going to stick with the book, what the Bible says. Because I don't want to sensationalize things to try to sell books or scare people. You ought to fear God. You ought to believe what Jesus said in the very last statement He made in Revelation. Behold, I come quickly. MacArthur goes on. His goal was not to gratify curiosity. about the end times, but to comfort confused Christians. Therefore, he limited his instruction to what was necessary to correct the error that robbed them of their joy, hope, and peace. And he did so tenderly, kindly, and patiently. He humbly called the Thessalonians his brethren and used the gentle term Arateo. Now that's the Buffalo Creek pronunciation. The word beseech. And it's a verb that means to plead, to implore, or even to beg. Instead of coming across as an authoritarian, intolerant, or overbearing, Paul gently corrected those. struggling under this error. So his concern was for their welfare as believers. All right. Now in verse 1, it reveals the subject matter that had to be corrected. It was concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when the saints would be gathered unto Him. Even though two phrases are employed, It says, We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him. Those two phrases are both statements referring to the same event. This gathering together unto Christ had already been discussed in detail in the first epistle that he wrote. If you'll turn back there, we'll go ahead and read it. First Thessalonians chapter four and verse 13. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord." This is scriptural. It's by the word of the Lord. "...that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep." For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." So He had already covered what many call the first phase of the Second Coming. When Jesus comes in the air to gather His people. I believe it's different from the rapture, if you will, even though that word is not used in the Bible. The catching away, the gathering of the living saints and the resurrected saints. They go to heaven, they're caught up into heaven. Whereas the revelation of Christ is when He comes back to the earth in the second advent. So in the rapture, the dead bodies of departed saints will be raised in glorification according to this passage, and the living saints, people who are alive at the coming of Christ, will be translated with them, and so both parties will be gathered unto Christ. in the air and taken to heaven. This is the first phase. And I believe, I personally believe, I have no qualms about this, I believe it will happen before the Antichrist is revealed, before the tribulation period officially begins. Now, go back to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 2. He exhorts them and warns them here. He says, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. He exhorts them and warns them not to be shaken in their minds by what he considered to be false teaching concerning the return of Christ. He warns them not to be blown about and unsettled by a false doctrine that had crept in among them. And I want you to understand something. Without a completed Bible, it would have been easy for a false teacher to come along and declare that the Holy Spirit had inspired him. or that he had received a word of revelation directly from God. May I put this in here today? We have a completed Bible. We shouldn't face that kind of error. But there are plenty of people I mean, I don't watch televangelists, really never have, but I have seen Pat Robertson a time or two. This dates me a little bit. And even Oral Roberts. I used to call him Oily Roberts, because he had a slick way of stealing money from people. But you know what? Those guys would actually, they would, say on air, I just got a word, just got a word of revelation. Oh, you out there that need your tooth, your teeth filled. I'm praying that tooth, that let that tooth be filled right now. That gallbladder be taken out right now. And they would make these revelationary statements about health and about other things or about what may be coming. They were liars. There is no continuing revelation. When the book was finished, you're not to add to it or take away from it in any degree. So people today should, we don't trust in dreams or visions or special revelation or people, somebody talking in tongues. We don't trust in any of that. We've got the Word. Whether they be tongues, they shall cease. And there wasn't that jibber-jabber stuff. They were actually talking in languages that previously they did not have any ability to speak in. Like tonight, if I had a special revelation, somebody from... Do Brazilians speak Portuguese? Is that what they speak? Okay, for some reason, we get 10 or 12 Brazilians that are here in Chesapeake for some reason, and they decide to come to church, and I get up and start preaching, and all of a sudden, the Spirit gets a hold of me, and for the first time in my life, I start preaching the gospel in Portuguese. Now, that'd be the gift of tongues. But God's not doing that today. I've never spoken a word of Portuguese. And if they came in, I'd just have to speak English. But in the first century, God gifted people to be able to do that in a miraculous way. That's not going on today. People who claim that it is, who believe in continuing revelation, they're just as bad as the false teachers. that were creeping in the early churches. But without a completed Bible, it would have been easy in a lot of ways for somebody to say, hey, God's just revealed this to me. I mean, think about how many people were duped by Joseph Smith, the Mormon guy. I mean, have you ever read how that came about? Now he had to have these huge spectacles in order to be able to understand the hieroglyphic writing of the angel Moroni. I mean, it was nonsensical. And yet you have an entire religion based on the rantings of Joseph Smith. And there's still plenty of people. The state of Utah pretty much is given over to Mormonism. How do people believe it? False teaching. The idea that Joseph Smith had some new revelation from God. Well, it's also possible that a forged epistle could have been written by an imposter claiming to be the Apostle Paul. These new believers who were eager to learn the things of God could have been easily manipulated by a false teacher. And that's why Paul writes to reassure them that the day of the Lord had not commenced yet. You see, the early churches were plagued with false teachers and false prophets, which is why there are so many warnings about them and their heresies. in the Inspired Record. And I'm going to stop there tonight because I want next week to deal specifically with a lot of verses in the Bible that warn about false teachers and how they would infiltrate and affect the early churches. And I have several passages I want to go through and then we'll get into the events After I finish that section, the events preceding the day of the Lord. But I just can't cover it all tonight, and I'm too tired anyway. So, I'm going to shut her down for tonight. Listen, the spirit of prophecy is the Lord Jesus Christ. It all ought to point to His glory, His honor. So, all the finer details are wonderful to study, But make sure your focus in all of this is the glory of Jesus Christ alone. Let's all stand.