If you have your Bibles this morning, let's go over to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We got the notes out late this morning and our apologies for that. If you'd like to have a copy of the notes, if you would please raise your hand and some of the men will be glad to distribute those for you or you can pick them up at the table there if you want to step over to the tables or get a copy immediately after the service. Either one would be fine. I want you to think about where we are as a congregation and what has happened in our congregation over the last eight decades. You and I need to be basically aware of the precedents, the antecedents of who we are and what has been accomplished here. Our founding pastor was Dr. T. Richard Dunham. Dr. Dunham was very well known in the circles of biblical prophecy. And one of the reasons that this particular church, our church, has been so greatly used of the Lord to make an impact in the way that we're going to talk about this morning is specifically about this matter of biblical prophecy. Now, with the occasional things that were conveyed that you kind of wrestle with. In the main, you and I, we went back and studied the works of John Walvoord. Many of you know that name. His books were originally published in a town called Findlay, Ohio that you may have heard about by a church that you may have heard about called Calvary Baptist Church. Originally, and Wohlberg went on to teach at Dallas just passing away probably the last two or three years here, his works were some of the most, we would refer to them as seminal works on biblical prophecy. Really outstanding, really excellent biblical exposition about what does the Bible actually have to say about prophecy. But as is often the case, you and I would understand this, that there are those who try to take advantage of that kind of teaching. These are primarily cultist, although there would be certainly those who would be white supremacist or nationalist, even Nazis who have tried to take the kind of teaching that was put forward by Dr. Dunham and others and tried to exaggerate it into something that it was not. That's pretty important for you and me to remember as we go into the text that we're going to look at this morning, that there's always going to be this, we refer to it as hyperbole or exaggerations where people say, that means, or this means, or that means, and in fact it doesn't mean those things at all. And this is exactly why when you look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 this morning, that it refers to the fact that some of these Thessalonian believers were easily or quickly shaken. Let's take a look at these three verses here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him that you 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 or had come Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. Shall we pause together to pray? Lord, we glorify you today for the understanding you give us, the light that you give us about the future, our understanding of Biblical prophecy, Lord, comes directly from your word, from your lips. Thank you for the God-breathed word. Thank you that we can sing today how firm a foundation. Thank you for helping us to sing with a mighty fortress we will not fear. And so, Lord, I ask this day that you would fill us with your spirit, that you would be glorified as we get ready for the gathering. Be glorified, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Have you ever been troubled then by the talk of the end times, or these are sometimes referred to in the media as doomsday prophecies. Have you ever been troubled by that? I would imagine if we were to take a poll and just go around the congregation, I think there would be person after person who would say, well yeah, I mean there There have been times when things have been said that really made me really nervous. Just out of curiosity, just a quick poll here. How many of you remember 88 reasons why Jesus is coming back in 1988? Just out of curiosity, how many of you remember those days? Boy, I mean, and that was Whiznut, and he reset it every year from 1988, he reset it every year until 1997, finally died in 2001. Harold Camping, the family radio network I think it's called, actually took up his mantle and went on and you've seen it most recently that it's been in the news. This always makes news. Whenever these people who set dates for the Lord's return, He's going to come back, they say, at the Feast of Trumpets. The rationale behind that would be that there are scholars who teach there is no New Testament equivalent to the Old Testament feast of the Feast of Trumpets. They would say there is a corresponding New Testament equivalent so the Lord's going to come back on at the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah. So about every September, somebody will say, well, you know, here it comes. And you always have to ask, well, what did Jesus mean when he said, no man knows the day nor the hour? So it's not all that new that you and I would face these kinds of things. Just about every week now, there are new prophetic announcements. I use that in quotes, prophetic announcements by false prophets. And whether it be blood moons or solar eclipses or the recent spat of hurricanes or earthquakes or the fact that there have been fires and floods, what these people do is they use all these events to try to persuade others about their prophecies. So as Calvary Baptist Church and our founding pastor T. Richard Dunham taught so much excellent material about biblical prophecy. I still remember several years ago, I was working through the book of Daniel and a man came up to me and he said, you know, the chart that you had up this morning, uh, he said, I remember Dr. Dunham had that very same chart. Well, I didn't get that chart from Dr. Dunham. And I said, would you like to know why that is? He said, well, yeah. I said, we're preaching from the same Bible. I mean, we're, we're preaching from the same text and that is what the text actually says. But the question that is being raised here for these believers at Thessalonica is that they were soon or quickly shaken in their mind. Now just for a moment would you put yourself into the sandals of those Thessalonian believers to ask why would that be? If you went back to read in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 you would see for instance in verse 4 that they were being heavily persecuted. They were greatly troubled and persecuted by the things that were happening to them. Well, in the midst of their persecution, in the midst of all their difficulties, here comes along someone who says, well, you know why that's happened? Because the day of the Lord has already begun. You can see in our text today that is the specific error that Paul is dealing with to help us understand. And what's beautiful about this passage is it not only deals with the revelation of Christ, it also deals with our relationship with Christ. This is going on and on as you can see in your notes. David Mead most recently, this was investigated by the International Business Times, here back on October 12th or so, he said that that planted planet X, the mythical planet X, which he called Nibiru, and that's apparently some kind of mythological. It was going to crash into the earth. Everybody remember how that felt? How'd that feel when the planet crashed into our world? Anybody remember? Well, that's because it didn't happen. That's the reason. It was all mythology. But it was all over the news, and people were getting all excited about it. And you just wonder, well, what on earth is happening in a situation like that? On October 12th, there was an asteroid that passed by about 31,000 miles from Earth. It was asteroid 2012 TC4. And there was a group that said, oh, this is exactly 100 years since there was a vision of the sun, the S-U-N, at Fatima. And it zigzagged exactly 100 years ago. And so this group said, what this means is this is the beginning of the apocalypse. I would put all of these things under the heading of an attack. This is an attack. This is an erroneous message about biblical prophecy that has been sent to persecuted believers and sent to troubled believers. I think you can see this in verses 2 and 3. Notice he says here in verses 2 and 3, the problem is that you are soon, the idea here is that you are quickly Shaken in mind. You are very quickly shaken in your mind or you are troubled. And he really makes the appeal here that they not be deceived. When you think about what is being said here, think about it this way. The real difficulty here is that first of all they were soon shaken in mind or they were troubled or they were being deceived and sometimes it was a little bit of both. That was the difficulty. That's what this passage is designed to help us with. Now, notice here when it says in our King James translation, the day of Christ is at hand. That actually translates a perfect active indicative. The idea would be that the day of the Lord has already come. That's what the false prophets were teaching these persecuted believers, that the day of the Lord had already come. And so notice the way that this error is being propagated. Now, one of the reasons I'm saying this to you this morning is, do you believe that times for Christians are going to grow more difficult? I think almost every one of us in the room would say, It doesn't look like things for Christians are getting better and better. It looks like there's persecution coming. Okay. So picture this, that there is a new thrust of persecution. There is trouble for believers all around. And right in the midst of that, somebody comes along and says, well, you know why this is happening to us? Because the day of the Lord has already begun. Now, if you can put yourself in that situation, You have just put yourself into the sandals of the Thessalonians. So now you see exactly and you feel exactly what they are feeling. Look at the way this error had been spread. It says first of all that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled first of all by spirit. Now what is meant by the word spirit here? The idea is that there is a prophetic revelation. A person says, you know, I have the mind of the Spirit. You'll still hear the cultists say that today. I have the mind of the Spirit. And the Spirit says, and they actually say this is what God is saying in the prophetic revelation. You watch TV, you listen to the radio, you read the materials that are being sent out, this is what they're saying. Not only that, they are also teaching. He says, ìNor by word.î They are actually teaching this. In other words, it's become almost doctrinal in the way that they are teaching these things, that you as a Christian are going to go into the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is that special day of the Lord's intervention. It is the day of wrath. You look in the book of Joel, you see it's the day of wrath and darkness. And there are people who even believe the gospel who say, well, you are going to, and some say you're already in the day of the Lord. They do it by spirit. They do it by word. Sometimes they do it by letter. Paul is identifying here. They do it by letter. He says, as from us, if you went to the very end of this book, you would see, he says, now look, here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to sign it with my own hand so that you know, this is really coming from me. The idea seems to be identity theft. Somebody imitated Paul and wrote a letter. But in all these things what the real thrust was, was they were teaching that the day of the Lord had already come. I mean this is really the point that they're they're trying to make and teach all these believers. And he strongly appeals, do not let no man deceive you and catch the words there by any means. And you can see the three means that were used there, by the Spirit, prophetic revelation, or by word or by letter. And so in each one of these cases, he is presenting to them the real difficulty of this. Notice then the effect. The effect is, as I said a minute ago, they were distraught, they were deceived, they felt that they were being somehow wrongly taught or did not know the Word of God. One commentator, I think this was Robert L. Thomas, who made this comment, he said, it is absolutely amazing how gullible some believers can be when a new prophetic fad appears. We could say amen to that. But that's really, it is amazing how gullible people can actually be. The antidote, he continues, to such a deception is a thorough grounding in the truth as revealed in the inspired scriptures. And that's exactly what Paul does in this very situation. He says it this way. Here's part of the difficulty. And you're going to hear these, I mean you hear these conspiracy theories and you hear so many people saying, well look there's this secret revelation that's come or there's an oral history and it goes on and on and on. Here's the difficulty and a man named Abains, Richard Abains actually dealt with this. Now he's a former cultist and in my opinion sometimes he goes a little too far in the wrong way. But notice what he says here, I think he's on target here. To many Christians it is unthinkable that a radio Bible teacher, pastor, or televangelist would lie since lying is condemned in the Bible. Nevertheless, A number of end-time speakers, be they Christian or non-Christian, have resorted to spreading facts that are less than 100% accurate. And that's the kind of thing that is being said. They actually use these very forceful tales or say, well, look at the way history comes together, and when you really study it, it really isn't that way at all. There was a man even in Zimbabwe recently, Robert Mugabe, there is the Prime Minister, President, and this man predicted that Robert Mugabe would die, I think it was this past Tuesday, October 17th. Well, Robert Mugabe is still very much alive. And the newspaper there actually wrote a note about this and an editorial about it. It is quite shocking that these tricksters, these con artists, these magicians or illusionists have the audacity to play God, attributing to him things that he never said to them. And Richard of Bain's followed up with that. It would say, people are simply too busy to study out every new little thing that is told them as if, Oh, well, that's, that's absolutely true. That's, you know, the prophetic preacher gets on the radio or on TV and says, here's the way it is. The fact is most people just don't have time to sit down and actually study it. And so they are faced with, well, do I reject that or do I embrace that and do I accept that? And I think they're on target. So here's basically the appeal that Paul is making here. Notice the very wonderful way that he approaches this, and I love this about this passage. He does not say, now we command you. He doesn't say that. He says, now we beseech you. You see why we would refer to it as an appeal? This is an appeal. He says, now we beseech you. And to whom does he make this appeal? He makes it to the brethren. And how does he make this appeal? Well, he really places it in the revelation of Christ, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But notice the words he uses here. He says, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. No, wait, there's more. By our, now watch the word, gathering unto him, gathering together unto him. Do you see how he is really stressing the relational aspect of this? He is giving them biblical doctrine. He is giving them exactly the right understanding. of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but he is making it highly relational by using words like the appeal, and brethren, and our, and the twin use of the word our there are gathering unto him. That's where he's really placing the emphasis here. It is absolutely right that he should stress the relationship, our relationship with Christ. When you are tempted to be quickly shaken in mind by some new prophetic teaching and you say, well, the man says, nobody's ever heard this before. The woman prophet preacher says, nobody's ever understood this before. I'm the first person. Be very careful, folks, and go back to ask, Wait a minute. What is the biblical doctrine? And is the Lord going to, in essence, leave us in a lurch? I mean, is he going to cause that we would be so quickly shaken in our minds and be so troubled about what we're seeing? The answer is no. The answer is here that he's saying is don't let any man do this. He says, let no man deceive you by any means, by a prophetic revelation or by some kind of teaching or by a letter that you receive. And then he goes on to say it this way, and this is the way that translators have had to work through this, but virtually every translation of this, you will see this, is the idea is this, that day shall not come except or unless there come a falling away first. Now, interesting word about this word, falling away here, In the original language that is a definite article. It would be translated the, the falling away, the literally the apostasy is the way it's being used. The falling away and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition. So see, he's identifying here two specific aspects of the coming of the Lord. There is the falling away, note the word there, proton, or first. The idea is that first this is going to happen, there's going to be the apostasy, and then there's going to be the coming of the man of sin. Now he's saying all this, again, in a very highly relational way so that you and I as believers would understand some things. First of all, Ephesians chapter 4, we're not to be blown about by every wind of doctrine. That was the attempt here to, in essence, blow believers off course by every wind of doctrine. Paul was stressing here the prophetic calendar or the prophetic timetable in order to grant them the assurance, give them the assurance they needed that, wait, wait, no, the day of the Lord has not begun. There is no reason to be so quickly shaken in your mind and troubled. There's no reason to be deceived because the day of the Lord has not come. Now, the one difficulty we have here with the scripture is we don't know everything that Paul taught while he was there in Thessalonica. But we do know that what we find in the Word of God corroborates or backs up what he said. And so he's reminding them that even when I was there with you, I actually taught you about these things. First of all, he mentions then, as part of the prophetic calendar, the first thing he mentions there is the falling away first. Before the second coming of Christ, there will be a great apostasy, the great apostasy, or falling away from the Christian faith. One author put it this way, he said, this worldwide anti-God movement will be so universal as to earn for itself a special designation, the apostasy. The climax of the increasing apostate tendencies evident before the rapture of the church. That's what he's really driving at here. That's what he's really saying is. you think it's been bad so far. You've already seen denominations that many of you grew up in, that I grew up in, that used to be a gospel preaching denominations. They've turned their back on that. They've turned their back on the Bible, turned their back on the gospel, turned their back on The Lord Jesus Christ in his finished work, that would be called apostasy. The verb there would be apostatized, they have turned away. But what he's identifying in this passage is worldwide there will be the turning away, the apostasy. Many would connect this not only with leading up to the rapture but certainly after the rapture when believers are taken to be with the Lord. that there will be a turning of the back on Christianity altogether and the man of sin will be revealed. So he refers first of all here to this apostasy and secondly to this revelation of the Antichrist. Now as you read on in the passage you can see the Antichrist is discussed many many times all down the next several verses And so what we'll actually do is we'll devote the next messages in this series to a discussion of the Antichrist. What does the Bible actually teach about the Antichrist? Lord willing, that's what we will throw ourselves into. So as we think about this today then, let's ask some questions. What is it here that is before us? What is before us is the doctrine of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is an appeal that is being made to us here and the appeal is that we would not be shaken in our minds, that we would not be troubled. What you have on the screen here is basically on the last page of your notes and you can see it there. He responds to that with a doctrinal defense saying the day of the Lord shall not come unless first there comes this apostasy and there comes this man of sin, the Antichrist. And as you can see in verses 4 through 11, this is amplified, and then down in verse 12, as we get to it, this will be explained. We come to a point in every message where we have to ask those two little word questions, and that question would be this. It would be, well, you tell me, what's the word? So what? Okay, so we understand these things. Well, very clearly in this passage, the central emphasis is don't be so easily shaken in your mind and troubled. Don't be deceived by the things that are being said about biblical prophecy. Even if someone has a Bible in front of him, In Paul's case, somebody wrote a letter over his name, and they said, this is actually coming from Paul. And you can just imagine how this was bandied about. Oh, I heard Paul preach this myself, or I heard Paul teach this myself, or hey, we have a letter here that came from him. Folks, you and I need to know the Word of God so well that we would be able to mount a defense here. And so let's think about the applications. First of all, don't you love this in the passage when he talks about our gathering unto him. Let me just pause here to say here's the real point. Get ready for the gathering. Get ready for our gathering unto our Lord Jesus Christ. There is the highly relational aspect of what we're talking about here, about the revelation of Christ. When you and I try to grapple with and understand some of the technical aspects of biblical prophecy, Here's where the point is. It is highly relational. Just as the Father and the Son and the Spirit in their relationship, so it is with us. We can document from several passages of Scripture that we have a glorious opportunity to fellowship with them. When you think about our gathering, you have to stop to think about it this way. The Lord Jesus Christ came as the Savior of the world, but there will come a day when he comes as the Judge. Bear that in mind. He came as our Savior. He will come as the Judge of the world. And so passages like this one would remind us, flee from the wrath to come. The appeal would be very simple for you and me today would be this, are you part of the hour gathering that is here in Second Thessalonians? Have you truly embraced the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the only answer for your sin, the only answer for your evil? Have you embraced Him, the one to whom we will be gathered? Have you embraced Him as your Lord and as your Savior? as your leader. If so, you see how relational this is and what a family relationship this is? Hey, it's about getting ready for the gathering. It's about thinking about it's going to be a wonderful time when we gather with the Lord. One interesting word, this word gathering, is the very same word that's used in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 25 when he says, It's basically, if you read it in English, it would be like epi-synagogue, epi-synagogo. The idea is that you're gathering together. It's only used twice in the New Testament, if I remember correctly. And it's interesting in both cases he is talking about a very relational aspect of it. You say, well, how would you apply that? Well, today we are gathered on the Lord's Day. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25, forsake not the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. There's a sense in which every Lord's Day is an opportunity to get ready for our gathering. What if you treated your Sunday school class like that in just a few minutes? To say, you know what we're really doing here? The reason we are assembling here together is we're getting ready for our gathering unto the Lord. That would be a wonderful takeaway from this passage to say, yes, that's what I want to be part of. I want to be part of that gathering. I want to be absolutely sure. Let me put it to you this way. When you see this word our right here, our gathering, it doesn't matter how many hours you would have to take to be absolutely positive that you are part of that gathering. Whatever number of hours you needed to spend to be part of our gathering, That time would be well spent, my friend, to be absolutely sure, in the words of 2 Corinthians 13, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. There's a second application that we can see here, and that is don't be easily shaken or alarmed by prophetic teaching. I don't imagine that a month goes by that I don't get two or three requests, many times from outside the congregation and occasionally from inside the congregation, where somebody says, well, have you heard this? Are you aware of this? Believe it or not, we get these letters in the church office where some people locally will just, they'll photocopy reams and reams and reams of these things that I think they're expecting us to read. When you try to start reading it, I mean, it's like gibberish. What if we really tried to take that and say, oh, this person's received a prophetic revelation or this is a letter. We would be very easily deceived and shaken in our minds. Much better to go back to what the Lord Jesus Christ actually says and shows us the great need to understand the revelation of Jesus Christ and our gathering to Him. So don't be deceived by so-called revelations of the Spirit or false teachers or letters claiming to be authoritative You'd be absolutely sure when somebody is opening his Bible, or for that matter, her Bible, that they are actually showing you what the Bible says in its context. I mean, go always to ask, what is the surrounding passage actually about? And I hope that we as a congregation will always be thinking in those terms. It is absolutely right and good that we should, like Paul, appeal to our brothers. Go back to the very first verse. What does he say? Now we beseech you, brethren. That would be a great approach for you and me to take today in our morning service, in our evening service, in our Sunday school time, that we would appeal to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and we would cause each other to think upon our gathering unto him. How very important that is then in the context as you and I especially think about Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 25. Now you remember the entire series here, the wait for it series that we went through. We notice the number of times that these prophetic passages are placed right in the middle of very strong exhortations to practically apply. So here it is again in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25. Look what he says here, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Dearly beloved, do you see the day approaching? If you have your Bible in front of you and you are seeing what the Bible actually says, you know it's coming. You know it's coming very, very quickly. Now, does that mean then that we need to yield to every new cultist who comes along and tries to shake us up and scare us? No, no. That's what Paul's driving at here is don't be so easily shaken. Don't be so easily deceived and pulled aside. But in this very plane here, As you see the day approaching, there are certain things we ought to be doing. Number one, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. There is such a blessing for me to gather with the people of God and to sing and to praise the Lord. There's something about corporate worship that just really helps me to lift my soul up to the Lord even more than when I'm in my study trying to study these things out. There is something wonderful about the assembly, the assembly of ourselves together. I can tell you right now, I'm really looking forward to going into our Sunday school class, my Sunday school class in a few minutes. I'm really excited to hear what did the Lord show the men in my class this week. I get a great deal of benefit by hearing them share and point to specific verses. There's a great blessing there. So as we see the day approaching, number one, we don't forsake the assembling of ourselves together. But what are we doing? We're encouraging one another. Can I appeal to you today to encourage each other? Why? On the basis of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering unto Him. Can you see how it would be the right thing to do today? to exhort each other, to encourage each other, to bless each other, to help each other really decide today, you know what I really want to do? I really want to get ready for the gathering. I really think that's the main point he's emphasizing to us today. Don't be so easily shaken, but get ready for the gathering. Shall we bow our heads together? Lord, we do praise you and thank you so much for what you have shown us today. Thank you, Father, for helping us to understand these wonderful truths. Lord, now I'm asking today for anyone here who is not part of the hour gathering that is described in this passage. Lord, it is so very important that this day would be a day of salvation for them. This day would be a day when they would recognize that Jesus Christ came as Savior, but he will return as judge. Lord, how I pray for the soul that is nearest hell today. that, Lord, you would cause that one to turn and embrace our Lord and be part of our gathering. And then, Lord, for us, in these hectic times, in these troubled times when so many people are stressing so many strange things about prophecy, I pray, Lord, today you would help us to follow through on this passage, not to be quickly or easily shaken in our minds. And, Father, we pray these things in Jesus' name.