Unshakeable Confidence

Well, our preaching this morning will be from 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verses 1 -4, though I'll read verses 1 -12.

We'll be reminded constantly of the context and the flow of the Apostle Paul's thoughts as we stay in this passage, verses 1 -12, for at least a few weeks.

Paul writes to a church that was really pretty unsettled by means, by methods.

They were not told exactly, they were stirred up, and they had eschatological confusion.

And eschatological is just a big word that means end things. They were confused, they were stirred up, they were worried about the end times, about Jesus' return, what that would look like, how that would happen, when that would happen, what the ramifications of it were.

They were very stirred up about all that and very confused about it. It seems that they had fallen under some wrong but persuasive teaching regarding all this.

As we saw in the first letter to this church, their fear was that they had somehow missed the day of the

Lord. Now, by day of the Lord, we simply mean the return of Jesus Christ, which would be an unsettling prospect to say the least.

Did they miss him? Or worse, did he miss them? So these are the kind of questions that had them stirred up.

And somehow, through means, again, that we were not told exactly, some false teaching had gotten into them, persuaded them, or at least knocked them off their foundation a little bit, so they were concerned about what was really going to happen.

And this is what the Apostle Paul begins to settle them down with, is the true word of God and to try and satisfy their yearnings to know what was going to happen when the

Lord returns. So with that, please stand and I will read 2 Thessalonians 2, 1 -12.

This is the word of God. Do you not remember that when

I was still with you, I told you these things? The fact that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called

God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan, with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned, who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

May God bless the reading. And now the preaching of his word. Please be seated. You know,

I got a rather alarming call not long ago. It seems that the

IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, had a big problem with one of my tax returns, and so, by consequence, a big problem with me.

Now I'm pretty intimidated and scared and hopefully a little respectful of the

IRS. I would not so much as mis -dot an I or mis -cross a

T on a tax return, at least not knowingly, and if the

IRS had a problem with me, they would find in me a submissive and rather intimidated and quick to cooperate subject or citizen.

They would find that all I wanted to do was avoid any excitement and just get the matter resolved quickly.

But to tell the truth, as alarming as such a call can be, as unsettling as it was meant to be, as intimidating as the best collection agency in the world can be, they who can call you guilty and you must prove yourself innocent, sort of reversing the jurisprudence that we are accustomed to, it really didn't alarm me at all.

In fact, I kind of snickered. You know what a snicker is? A snicker is a half -suppressed, scornful laugh.

I snickered about the whole thing. Why? Why didn't that call tell me that because of fraudulent information on proffered tax form criminal liability charges would be brought to warrant against me?

I see a few smiles. We've gotten that call before, haven't we? Well, most of you already guessed that that's what it was.

It was not the IRS at all. It was a ploy, a phishing, or whatever they call it. And a lot of us have gotten those calls.

And if you didn't guess why I was not alarmed, here's your first takeaway this morning.

Though it's not the Bible takeaway, but it's an important takeaway. The IRS doesn't call you. They send letters.

So if you ever get a call from somebody who wants to alarm you and tell you this is IRS with much fraudulent problem on your tax return and you must give me your credit card number in order to satisfy criminal liability immediately and something like that, just hang up or sticker as I did.

It's not the IRS. They don't call. They send letters. Okay? So that's your first takeaway. But no, they didn't shake me.

They didn't alarm me because I knew right away it was not the Internal Revenue Service. But there are many things in the world that would conspire to unsettle us.

Things that come and kind of work their way past this fear of biblical belief in Jesus Christ that we have and would sort of knock us off our foundation, shake us up a little bit, make us quiver, make us worry.

Many of these things are false. What was coming into the Thessalonian church were falsehoods.

They shook them up pretty good. As we saw in 1 Thessalonians, we're seeing now in 2 Thessalonians, and we'll work through some of that this morning.

It shook them up pretty good. But why? Because they were believing something false.

They were believing a false source of information. They had heard the Word of God from the

Apostle Paul. It says in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 13, that they heard what

Paul preached them, not as the Word of men, but for what it really was, which is the Word of God.

It's only the Word of God. It's only being centered on the Word of God that keeps us from being shaken off.

Shaken off the foundation. As Jesus Christ said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he who builds his house on the solid foundation of the

Word of God will not be shaken. Although the storms come and the rain beat down on it, that house will not be moved.

Like my call from the Felony Fraud Division of the Internal Reporter Fraudulent Activity Service, once you recognize that it's false, it can really cause you no more alarm than your alarm clock in the morning would.

So we need to be centered on the Word of God. This is what Paul does with the Thessalonians to get them settled down, to stop being nervous, to stop being shook.

He brings them back to the Word of God. The Thessalonians were especially concerned, of course, about Jesus' return.

We don't know exactly why this was, but we could well have a hint in 1 Thessalonians 2 verses 1 -4.

They've been knocked off the solid foundation of God's Word by false teaching. Like the serpent with Eve, it was carefully packaged to disguise its true nature.

You can think of a beautiful apple pie served after a wonderful dinner, and it's still got a little steam, and you can smell the apples and all the sweet stuff, and you get a scoop of it onto your fork, and you set your mouth for the sweet tart apples that are just swimming in that wonderful sauce with the cinnamon and the sugar, and you're all ready for it, and you look, and what is it that's on your fork?

Stinking, rotten vegetables covered with slime. And that's the way the false teaching is often packaged.

It's this beautiful meal set before you like an apple pie, and what you expect is not quite what's in there.

Well, such is any teaching that bends the Scriptures to mislead you. Such is what happened to the

Thessalonians some 2 ,000 years ago. Such is what happened here a few years ago when Harold Camping made confident but wild predictions of Jesus' soon return.

Well, the Thessalonians were shaking. The Thessalonians were quaking. Now, Paul says in 1

Thessalonians in several places how they were living out the Word of God. He says in several places in 1

Thessalonians to keep doing what they were doing, showing brotherly love just as you were doing, living lives pleasing to God just as you were doing, encouraging and building one another up just as you are doing.

And all this, all this progress into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, all this good fruit from their obedience to the apostles' teaching is put at risk as they're completely distracted and knocked off that foundation by these concerns from the false teaching.

These slimy, rotten, mold -filled vegetables hidden to look like a wonderful apple pie.

Your faith in Jesus' return, your being gathered up with Him, all this is supposed to have a calming effect that promotes your work in the

Gospel. Far from knocking you off the foundation, far from making you quake and shake and be nervous and be distracted from the good work of the

Gospel, your progress into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, what we call sanctification, growing in sanctification and holiness.

This is all put at risk. By what happens when false teaching comes in.

And I want us today to recognize false teaching. I want us to take our cues from the Scripture so we can know when something is false, when something is wrong, when somebody has taken the

Scripture and bent it or manipulated it in some way that sounds right. And we don't know how to argue our way out of it.

And we don't know how to prove them wrong. And I can't put together all the verses and put them in a package that absolutely knocks away their arguments.

And yet here we are. Shook, a little less confident, and much distracted from living out the life of the

Gospel that Jesus would have had of us to do. Your faith in Jesus' return, your confidence in that we will be gathered up with Him, this has a calming effect.

This is a confidence -inspiring effect that it should have. And it should remove the distractions so you can put your focus on growing into the image of Jesus Christ and serving

Him by serving others. Jesus' coming or being gathered up, it steadies you, it must calm you when it's rightly taught.

The Apostle says, Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, and we'll stop there for a moment.

Just look at this for a minute. This is the subject matter. This is the topic, if you will. One event in two parts.

One, Jesus is coming, and two, our being gathered to Him. And these are coincident.

They happen at the same time. When Jesus comes, we're gathered to Him. No doubt about it. A very simple thing to understand.

How it's going to happen is a little more complicated, but the fact of it and the confidence in that is that steadying, calming effect.

You see, when the Lord comes, we will be gathered to Him. Exactly how the Lord, who is in a physical body,

He was resurrected in a physical body, a glorified physical body. He ascended back to the

Father in a physical body. The angel told the disciples that He will return in the same way as you saw

Him leave, which means physically and on a cloud. Exactly how

He, in His physical body, will gather all of us, also in physical bodies, to Himself is a mystery.

At least it is to me. I'm sure it is to you, but if in childlike simplicity we trust that He will and we leave how

He will to Him, I think we're far better off. It keeps us from speculating and from speculating than worrying about things that are beyond our control and usually beyond our comprehension.

So this is first. He says concerning. Here's the subject. The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to Him.

It's a glorious truth. It's placed in Scripture by the Spirit's inspiration so that we,

Christians, will be strengthened, not weakened. So we'll be more confident not shaking while we wait for Him to come.

You think of Titus 2, verses 11 -14? The same apostle

Paul writes, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, in this world.

While we wait for Christ, what are we doing? Renouncing ungodliness and living self -controlled, upright, godly lives.

Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave

Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

What is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ meant for? Well, it's meant to give us confidence that He will come.

It's meant to give us confidence that we will be brought up to Him, resurrected back to Him when

He comes. But it's also with that confidence, with that certainty, it is meant to give us that foundation from which we live these self -controlled, upright, and godly lives.

Living for Christ, growing in holiness and sanctification. Now, there's other passages we could read that make the same point, but I think

Titus 2 .11 -14 makes it well enough. The fact of Jesus' return, the fact of our being taken up to Him, is a hope that sustains and strengthens us while we wait.

And how do you know when you've been mistaught? Because it weakens you.

Because it weakens you in your faith. It distracts you from Jesus Christ.

Many influences that drive us off this mission, this mission of together as a body, growing up in the stature of Him who saved us.

Many things can drive us off that. The world's temptations are always pandering to our flesh, our own struggles against sin, insecurity in our jobs, our health, our marriages.

All these can neutralize us in our service to the Lord Jesus Christ. And for the Thessalonians, as for many people today, maybe for you today, misinterpretations of the

Bible, persuasive, convincing, but wrong teachings can knock you off your rocker.

Now think about this for a moment. We don't know who came into the Thessalonian church or how this wrong teaching got in there.

Paul doesn't say. It's not like in the Corinthians, especially 2 Corinthians, where we have those super apostles, and we can point and say, okay, they're the ones who brought the corruption into the church.

The super apostles, the wrong ones, the ones who are masquerading as angels of light, as Satan does.

We don't know what the Thessalonians. But imagine if someone convinced you the

Bible surely says or promises something like this. And after I convince you of it,

I promise you that you're going to have something. Now you'd have to imagine somebody other than me, let's say younger, and really good looking, and well dressed, and very eloquent, and charismatic, just a convincing presence of personality, something like that.

I don't have that, and I can't even make it up and fake it for you for a moment. But just imagine that someone like that comes to you and says something like this.

You know what James 5, 17 to 18 tells you? You know what the Word of God tells you? Let me read it to you here.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. I just read to you the

Word of God, did I not brethren? Now I'm playing that part for a second. But I just gave you the

Word of God. So I learned from this, and I want to tell you that if you pray rightly, if you pray like Elijah did, and I can teach you that, well for a small fee, you'll be able to bring an end to the drought in California.

That's what the Word of God says. And you can see where this kind of thing goes. You can see how convinced someone could be, and how attractive that would be.

You mean if I pray with the right kind of faith? If I pray with the right words? If I make the right connection to God, I can do this?

Oh yes. Oh yes. And what about your child's cancer? Oh, and your husband's

Alzheimer's? What about your wife's arthritis?

Oh yes. Because Elijah was a man like us. And if you pray rightly, well you can see where this goes.

And wouldn't you be shaken if you had been convinced that was true? What would that do to you if your spouse continued to grow in the

Alzheimer's? If your child's cancer didn't go away? Wouldn't that shake you up?

Wouldn't that knock you off your rocker just a little bit? It sure would. I think it would. But it's because it's a false teaching.

It's a mangling of the Scripture. You see, the

Word of God is truth that steadies and calms you. And that's how we can tell if we've gotten a false teaching.

That's the first way. Are you in Jesus Christ? Do you have His Spirit within you? Because if you're in Jesus Christ, if your faith is in Him, you have

His Spirit. And the Spirit testifies to your own spirit. The Spirit, capital S, the

Holy Spirit of God, testifies to your spirit, small s, but He testifies to you that you are a child of God.

The Spirit testifies to you, always telling you the truth. And here's one way you can know if you've been told something that's untrue.

Because it unsteadies you. It shakes you. It makes you nervous.

It distracts you from your service in the Gospel. The Word of God is a truth that has to steady and calm you.

And now in verse 2, is the first of the two things that the Apostle Paul asks. Remember in verse 1?

He says, we ask you, brothers, now in the Greek, we ask you is at the first part of that sentence.

In our ESV, and that's fine, it's at the end. Concerning this subject, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we ask you, and here's the first of the two things that are being asked.

We ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the

Lord has come. We ask you not to be shaken or alarmed because of falsehoods that you've heard telling you that Jesus Christ came.

And again, as I said in the beginning, you missed him. Poor little untrained, untaught

Christian. You didn't know what you were looking for. He's come and gone. You missed him.

Or worse, and it would be blasphemous to teach this, he missed you.

He forgot one for whom he bled and died on the cross. He forgot one who the Father gave him before the foundation of the world.

That's Ephesians 1 .3. They had somehow been convinced that Jesus had returned, and they missed it.

They missed it. And here they were, being afflicted and persecuted in Thessalonica for their faith, and there

Jesus was, gone away, and he left them in their misery. And if his return initiates the eternal final state of things, if when

Jesus comes, everything is remade, and it's permanently, eternally remade, which it will be, but that happens, and that remaking happened, and you missed it, and you're now in this eternal state of what?

Well, it's hell on earth. That'd be shaking. That would knock you off your foundation just a bit.

You'd be alarmed as well, that is, if you believed it. The word shaken is actually a nautical term.

It was used of a ship being tossed around by the waves. You can think here of Ephesians 4, 11 through 16, where Paul writes about how solid biblical teaching will prevent you from being tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, and deceitful schemes.

Now, that was written to the Ephesians about seven years after he wrote to the Thessalonians, so you can see some development in the apostle

Paul's thoughts. But this word shaken, it describes also a ship at anchor being shaken so violently that the crew has to cut away the anchor before the stress on the rope would tear the ship apart.

You know, the rope that holds the anchor would be a very strong rope, and it'd be strongly attached to the ship, so if the ship's being shaken that hard, that the rope, because of where it's attached to the ship, could actually do damage to the ship.

And that's what this word has behind it. Not to be shaken. Not to be torn off your moorings.

When Paul says shaken in mind, we might read it shaken from your mind. That's actually what it says.

Do not be shaken from your mind, unmoored from your ability to think things through, so unnerved by false teaching that you sell all your goods, quit your job, disavow the church, and get in line to be taken up on May 23rd, 2011, which is the date

Harald Camping, who I mentioned earlier, had proclaimed and predicted. 1

Corinthians 2, verse 16 says that the Christian has the mind of Christ. Isn't that what the apostle

Paul says? But we have the mind of Christ. Where do we have the mind of Christ?

Well, I'm not as smart as Jesus, and neither are you. I don't have his brain. I have my brain, as you have your own.

What does it mean that we have the mind of Christ? It means in Scripture. It means in God's Holy Word we have the entire compendium of all faith and practice.

And this is what the Thessalonians were in danger of being unmoored from, ripped away from by a violent storm that was shaking them.

The pure Word of God. He tells them not to be alarmed. Don't be shaken or alarmed.

Alarmed is just this outcry of fright. The only other use of this word is when

Jesus in Matthew 24, 6 said not to be alarmed by wars or rumors of wars. Now think about this for a moment.

I mean, isn't war a frightening thing? What would war mean today? If we found out we were at war with one of the other superpowers, as they're called,

China or Russia or anybody else who's nuclear armed, would that not alarm you a bit? Even believing in Jesus Christ, that would be an alarming, shaking, unmooring kind of a thing to hear.

And Jesus says when you hear rumors of war don't be alarmed. And this is the word we have in 2 Thessalonians.

How can you not be alarmed by such a prospect? Well, because Jesus tells us beforehand.

That's one way. Because in Scripture, because in the Word of Truth, Jesus, who is the

Word of God, tells us everything we need to know. He's told us beforehand. Because God says in Isaiah 44 .8,

He says, God tells us beforehand.

Why? To prove He's smart? Of course not. To steady us. To keep you calm.

To keep you confident in Him so you're focused on what we're here to be doing. We're serving.

Growing in the stature of Jesus Christ and so forth. Think of Isaiah 46, verses 8 -11.

The man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken and I will bring it to pass. I have purposed and I will do it.

Why does God tell us the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning? Why do we have these sorts of things in the

Scripture? Again. So we'd be confident in Him. So that the machinations of the world around us, trying to pull us away from Christ, trying to shake us up, trying to alarm you, will have no effect on you.

Jesus Christ Himself said something very like this in John chapter 14. Let not your hearts be troubled.

Well, there's a good way to start. Let not your hearts be troubled. Do you have Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

Let not your hearts be troubled. Don't be shaken. Don't be alarmed.

Christ is in control of all this. Christ will not let His people go anywhere that He is not destined for their good.

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come again and will take you to Myself that where I am, you may be also.

Christ has told us in advance. Not so that we can speculate to the point of nervousness.

He's told us in advance. So that we can be solid and secure and unshakable.

You know, the shaking of a ship. Can you imagine that? Back to that word.

Do not be easily shaken. Do not be quickly shaken. Different translations put it that way.

Do you ever get seasick? I have virtually no motion problems at all.

I don't get any kind of motion sickness ever. Except one time,

I almost did. Many years ago, it was about 1995, maybe 94.

My son, my dad and I up in Depot Bay, Oregon, rented a small boat to go out salmon fishing.

And very soon, when we were out there on the waves, my dad got seasick. So he had to go down below and get in a berth and try and get over it.

My son lasted a couple more hours. Then he had to go below where my dad was. And so I'm running all three lines trying to catch all the fish that we had paid for permits for and everything like that.

And as we're going back to the shore, we looked over and I kind of judged in the speed and I saw the dock and I was thinking

I'm about four or five minutes away from kind of joining them. I was starting to feel it and that's the first time in my life and it was really the only time in my life

I started to feel it. But you know what happened? I made it. I didn't get fully seasick.

He docked the boat. He tied it up and as soon as my dad got on the dock that wasn't shaking, he was okay.

And my son got on there. And as soon as he took his first few steps and I saw the thing that wasn't moving, he was okay.

And the same thing happened to me. I was starting to get there. I was getting a little queasy. I said, oh, I know what this might be starting to feel like.

But as soon as I was on solid ground, it went away. And this is what it's like when the world's shaking you up, when you're getting that nervous feeling, when that queasiness is just starting to build up, you've heard the wrong word.

You need to return to the solid foundation of God's Word and as soon as you put your foot on that steady ground, the nervousness, the alarm, the shaking ends because God's Word is a solid foundation.

Because God's Word is there to make you confident. And when someone shakes you up with a new kind of teaching, it doesn't absolutely mean they're wrong.

Men are having insights into the Word of God. This eternal Word of God will never completely plummet steps.

Constantly. Good men, Christian men, God gives the church scholars, geniuses, if you will.

And we need to listen to them carefully and circumspectly.

And here's one key. When it shakes you up, when it alarms you, when it unnerves you, doesn't mean it's absolutely wrong.

Very careful. Because God's Word is not meant to do that. Exactly what means we're used by whom to cause the

Thessalonians to be shaken, we don't know. Paul sets out three possibilities. We'll go through them quickly.

Either by a spirit, someone speaking as if in the spirit, proclaiming doctrines foreign to what Paul had taught.

Or a spoken word. Maybe someone came and claimed to have spoken to Paul or been taught by him.

They come to the Thessalonians and say, really? You're still waiting for Jesus? Well, he's come and gone, you silly people.

Yeah, I just talked to Paul. I just came from Corinth or Athens or wherever. So speaking a word as though from Paul.

Or a letter seeming to be us, maybe a counterfeit. All these are like that false call I got from very angry internal revenue servicing of fraudulent claim, etc.,

etc., etc. Falsehoods. You know, a lot of people claim apostolic authority.

And in a sense, we do that here too. But there's a difference between claiming to have the same authority the apostles did and claiming to preach the apostolic message.

In the former, men claimed the authority to pronounce scripture and new revelation and further claimed to be the sole arbiter of what it means.

That's a false way of claiming apostolic authority. In the latter cases, in our understanding here, and I do believe we have it right, we preach the apostolic message as given to them by Jesus Christ himself and to us by the word that they wrote.

So where's the apostolic authority from this pulpit? It's the scripture. What authority do

I have? To declare this as accurately as best I'm able with the gifts that God gave me. What authority do you have?

We know the story of the Bereans in Acts chapter 16. When they heard Paul preach, they said, you come back.

I'm paraphrasing. Because we're going to look to the scripture and see if what you're saying is true. And they looked to the scripture and saw that what

Paul said was true. And they were converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's apostolic authority.

That's preaching the word of God accurately. That's very different than saying, I'm the arbiter of the word of God for you, which

I am not. Neither is Pastor Owens. That's very different than saying, I have a word of God that's as authoritative as his scripture, which we would never do.

That's blasphemy. We claim no new revelation. We deny any revelation beyond the 66 books we have.

We preach and perform our duties as pastors under apostolic authority. The word of God.

Nor do we claim the absolute right as infallible interpreters. So what is

Paul saying here when he says, don't be alarmed or shaken by a spirit, a word, or a letter that seemed to be from us?

He's self -consciously inferring that what he taught them is what God inspired him directly, inspired him to teach them.

Back to 1 Thessalonians 1 .13 where he commends them because they heard his words, not as the word of men, but for what they really were, the word of God.

So can you know when you've been taught wrongly? I would say you can. First, you have the word of God in front of you, right there in your laps or right there on your phone.

No secrets, no codes, no formula. The pure milk of the word ready to be read and taken plainly.

That's first. Second, you have friends and you have pastors to get you through the hard parts, and there's plenty of hard parts in the scripture.

We've wrestled through a lot of them and we have shells full of books written by men whose wrestlings and conclusions have stood the test of time.

In fact, stood the test of centuries of time. And the third thing, did what you heard shake you from your mind?

Did it unmoor you? Did it cause you alarm? If so, then yes, be shaken and alarmed a bit, but in a different way, shaken away from the anchorage of that dangerous port, alarmed at the danger of having your ship torn apart when it strains against the ropes holding you in that part.

Yes, be shaken and alarmed that you heard falsehood and get away from it. But don't be shaken and alarmed in your life with Christ.

Don't be distracted from going into the image of Christ. God's word brings a calm confidence.

Even the hard parts steady us and turn off the sirens. When you read or hear a hard teaching about your sin, that might shake or alarm you, and it should shake and alarm you a bit.

Sin is a blight on humanity. Sin is that for which Jesus suffered and died. Your sins have separated from your

God. That's Isaiah 59 .2. Your sin cherished in your heart is why God doesn't hear your prayers.

That's Psalm 66 .18. Let that shake you. Let that alarm you, but don't leave yourself there because Jesus doesn't leave you there.

With Christ there is forgiveness that you may be feared. That's in the Psalms. Psalm 32.

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Or 1 John 1 .9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So yes, let your sin alarm you when the scripture points it out to you, when the Holy Spirit stirs you up and gives you that shaking to shake you off your sin and to bring you back to the solid foundation of God's word and to be reminded that in Christ Jesus there is forgiveness and come away calm and once again confident in him.

If you hear the Bible, if you hear from the Bible something that shakes you, that alarms you, it may be

God working in you by his Holy Spirit. And how do you know if it's God who's doing it or a false understanding?

Because as I just said, God does not leave you there. When he alarms you over your sin, the

Holy Spirit leads you to the cross from which you cannot come away except overwhelmed by the mercy of God and what he has done for you in Jesus Christ.

If a seasick tumbling brought you there to the cross, your first step away from it is on steadying and solid ground.

So knowing from scripture what must come first is a truth that steadies and calms you. And God has told us what comes first.

Verse three, let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called

God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God proclaiming himself to be

God. I already quoted from Isaiah 46 where God reminds us that he declared the beginning from the end.

The Thessalonians are guided away from their stirrings by this same idea because Paul told them what must come first.

He said, you don't have to worry about it. Jesus has come because I told you that this man of lawlessness has to come and be revealed first.

Do you not remember? Verse five, which will begin next week. Do you not remember that when

I was with you I told you these things? Many people think this man of lawlessness was

Nero. I think if it was Nero, Paul would have said so because they would have known exactly who he meant.

Whoever convinced them that Jesus had come or they might have already come stood against Paul.

Stood against what Paul had already taught them. This man must come first before Jesus comes.

Paul doesn't say when he will be revealed or how long after his revelation Jesus will come only that the day of the

Lord will not come unless sometime after those certain events. They had been deceived when they were told that the

Lord had come. Deceived, as in Romans 7 -11 how sin deceived the struggling

Pharisee Saul. Or Romans 16 -18 how smooth talkers and flatterers deceive

Christians and cause divisions. Or 2 Corinthians 11 -3 how the serpent deceived Eve.

Deceived can also mean seduced. Seduced or drawn away from the truth to give yourself to another.

To have the scales put back over your eyes. To have the veil put over your face once again that hides

God's truth. Have all that reintroduced to you. Well there's an awful lot to say here about this mysterious figure.

This man of lawlessness. And this message would stretch our patience if I tried to cover it today.

And next week we're gonna preach through chapter 8 or verse 8 and in that message we're gonna pick up some of these pieces some of this mystery of this man of lawlessness.

Today I want us to understand that the rebellion has come and the man of lawlessness has been revealed.

So Jesus could come at any moment. Reformed tradition which is based on proper exegesis of the

Bible and good exegesis of history. A discerning and a circumspect view of history.

And the actual doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church putting all those together identifies who this man of lawlessness is.

I'll just say it outright. It is the Pope. Emperors in that day were considered gods usually after they died but if Paul meant

Nero he would have said so. It is the Pope. It is he and every man who's ever taken up that mantle who led and still leads the rebellion.

The rebellion against God. Paul goes on and he says who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called god and object of worship.

The Pope claims ultimate and universal authority over men's consciences. Popes today,

John Paul was a prime example. Acknowledge other gods. They just placed them beneath their spiritual umbrella.

They worship Mary especially but they allow for some of the lesser saints to be worshipped.

He exalts himself all the while claiming to represent our Lord Jesus who is gentle and lowly in heart.

Matthew 11, 29. Jesus who for our sake became poor. 2 Corinthians 8, 9.

God's only son who humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on a cross.

That's in Philippians 2. You find Jesus in the pontifical exaltation and you've beat the greatest geocaching contest ever.

It can't be done. You remember Forrest Fenn with that geocache and that million dollars that he hidden and was finally found?

I think finding Jesus Christ in all the pontifical grandeur would be far more difficult.

It would be impossible. Proclaiming himself to be God. You won't find a Pope who actually said,

I am God. They do worse. They deceive. They do it underhanded like those illusionists with the card tricks.

Say, who me? God? No, not God. I'm the vicar of Christ. I'm not God. I just forgive sins in his name.

When I want to forgive for whom I want to forgive and on what basis

I care to forgive and for whatever price I set for that forgiveness. No, I'm not God.

I'm just a humble servant of God. Taking upon myself that which God gives to no other.

And only in Jesus Christ are sins forgiven. And yet here is this man of lawlessness leading this rebellion saying that forgiveness is by and through me.

And your salvation is by your child baptism with your baby.

And by being a member in the church by that baptism, therefore you're saved. If that's not self -exaltation, brothers and sisters,

I don't know what is. The Jews asked of Jesus, who can forgive sins but God alone? And that's the right question.

The answer to the question is only God can forgive sins. Only God has forgiven sins. Only by Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and only by faith in him, in Jesus Christ, with no intermediary, no human intervention, no human effort, in Christ alone is salvation found.

And in him alone is there forgiveness by faith alone and by faith which is a gift of God.

None of us have on our own. Well, I'm going to have much more to say in the next few messages about this in particular.

But I'm going to let Tertullian, the 3rd century Christian apologist for the faith, have the last word today.

Listen to what he wrote way back in the 200s. I hear that there has even been an edict set forth, a dogmatic one too.

The Pontifex Maximus, that is the bishop of bishops, issues an edict. He said,

I remit the sins of both adultery and fornication to those who have fulfilled repentance. O edict, on which cannot be inscribed good deed, and where will this liberality be posted up?

On the very spot, I suppose, on the very gates of sensual appetites.

Way back in the 200s, Tertullian identified this man, this position, growing into what we today call the

Pope, as the Pontifex Maximus, the bishop of bishops, the man of lawlessness.

He's been revealed. The Bible says that Jesus' return will be after that, knowing that God has determined all this before any of it happened.

In eternity past is when it was decided, which means it was never not in God's will. All this must give us something, an unshakable confidence as we live out our faith, as we awake

Christ, there's nothing that can shake us or alarm us, as we look to, as we study and apply his word to our lives, we stand on solid ground that will never fail us.

How do you know when you've been mistaught? When it shakes you, when it knocks you off your mooring to Jesus Christ, when it alarms you and gives you or makes you forget the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

His return should give us that hope. His return is meant to give us that confidence as we awake.

How do we know that we've been mistaught? We forget that in Jesus Christ and him alone is forgiveness of sins and we forget that if God has declared the beginning from the end, which he has, and he's told us that Jesus Christ will return, he will return indeed and not forget a one of us.

Amen? Heavenly Father, thank you once again for bringing us together, for giving us this day of worship.

I pray, Father, that we would live confidently in Jesus Christ, that we would not be shaken off the foundation of his word and our faith in him and that in all things you would receive the glory and the honor in Jesus' name.