G.K.Chesterton once said, “When people stop believing in God the problem is not that they believe nothing. The problem is that they will believe anything”
That is the world we live in today. Most people have stopped believing in God. But only a few would call themselves atheists and say they believe nothing. The danger is that people will believe all kinds of weird and wacky things! And so the words of Paul in 2 Thessalonians are particularly relevant to us today.
2 Thess 2:3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way!
As we will see as we read the New Testament week by week over the course of The Whole Story, most of letters in NT were written to correct wrong teachings. If we want to understand the letters we start by trying to identify the false teaching which is being challenged. This week we are going to start by looking at what was either the first or the second letter in the New Testament ever to be written. Around 50 AD some members of the church at Thessalonica had got hold of the wrong idea that the Jesus had already returned, that the Second Coming had already happened. So the apostle Paul wrote the letter we know as 2 Thessalonians to put them right.
2 Thess 2:3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way. Don’t be fooled! Here is an important up-to-date warning for Christians today!
The Jews in Jesus’s time were expecting God to send the Messiah, the Christ, to save his people. But at the same time they were expecting opposites to Christ, human rulers who would be opposed to God’s people. So the first Christians shared that expectation – that many would come pretending to be Christ in order to deceive God’s chosen people. And Jesus himself gave that warning.
Matthew 24:4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no-one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. ….8 All these are the beginning of birth-pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. …. 23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time.
So from the very beginning Jesus warned his disciples against those who would deceive them – false prophets – anti-Christs. And we find similar warnings elsewhere in the New Testament.
2 John7 Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.
1 John 2:22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son.
Here in 2 Thessalonians Paul uses a different title to warn young Christians not to be deceived by “the man of lawlessness.
2 Thess 2 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
This “man of lawlessness” or “man of sin” will be a human being. He will not be the devil but the devil’s human representative. He will oppose God and God’s people. And he will be a religious figure, claiming to be God.
Some people think Paul and Jesus were referring to the Emperor Caligula. Like many Roman Emperors, Caligula claimed to be a god, and demanded that his subjects worship him as a god. In AD 40 Caligula had a statue of himself placed in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. But Paul was almost certainly writing to the Thessalonians around AD50, after Caligula. So it is better to understand that there will be a number of fulfilments of this warning, a number of antichrists through the centuries. Some would say the Roman Emperor Nero, who lit his gardens with the bodies of burning Christians. Hitler? Stalin? A succession of evil men who set themselves up against God.
Listen carefully to how Paul goes on to describe this “man of lawlessness”.
9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
“All kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.”
We must be on our guard because not everything which is supernatural comes from God – quite the reverse.
There is an explosion of interest in the supernatural in these days. But people aren’t looking for answers in the church, but instead to the New Age and to the Occult.
All kinds of occult practices are now spreading like wildfire. It is curious really, since the word “occult” means “hidden” and for centuries these things were kept hidden for the inner circle of practitioners. But nowadays the occult is getting more much more free publicity than ever before. Films like the Exorcist, TV programmes like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the X-files and Charmed, books like Harry Potter, all making evil seem “cool”. Ordinary people and especially children are being introduced to all kinds of occult practices. Psychic fayres and New Age shops will sell you anything you need to do all kinds of things from casting spells to contacting the dead. And the world wide web is luring curious people deeper and deeper into evil.
In Britain today only a quarter of people now believe in a personal God. Less than a quarter believe that the Bible is the unique Word of God. Almost half believe instead in some kind of spirit or life force, like the idea of The Force described in ‘Star Wars’, an impersonal “Force” controlling destiny and events. In the 2001 census the fourth most popular named religion was “Jedi Knight.”
Around seven out of ten people think we have a soul and a quarter of the population believe in reincarnation. The proportion of people who call themselves atheists has remained constant at around 8%. But in 1990, more than half the population considered themselves “religious’. Over the last 20 years that figure has halved to LESS than a quarter! A third of people now prefer to call themselves ‘spiritual’ but NOT religious and just as many believe they can find their way to God outside of organised religion. One in six have tried astrology and just as many have tried fortune telling or Tarot cards. For many people the most important religious festival of the year is Halloween!
Be warned! Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way!
9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.
So many fantasy stories are based around magic. Whether it is Harry Potter or Merlin, or Charmed, books and television and films present magic and witchcraft as harmless and even exciting. But the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy warns of the dangers of supernatural knowledge and different forms of The Occult.
Deuteronomy 18 9 When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no-one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practises divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the LORD your God.
We should be on our guard against dabbling in the Occult. Witchcraft, magic, spells, voodoo are ALL evil!
So also are all forms of fortune-telling or divination. Crystal balls, tarot cards, runes, crystal gazing and palm reading, reading tea leaves (etc), Astrology and horoscopes, dowsing, psychometry. These are all dangerous deceptions, doorways into danger. CHRISTIANS SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO with any form of fortune telling
The same is true of SPIRITISM or SPIRITUALISM
Attempting to communicate with the dead: we find that in films like Ghost, What lies beneath, and TV programmes like “Medium”.
Séances, Mediums, Ouija boards, table tipping, automatic writing, trances, spiritualist so-called “churches”or spiritual healers. These also are all dangerous deceptions, doorways into danger! CHRISTIANS SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO with any form of spiritualism.
Remember that the Old Testament commanded the death penalty for mediums and any form of spiritualism. ALL dangerous because they bring people into contact with the demonic
Of course there are the fakes, the frauds, or the illusionists like Derren Brown who use very clever trick to entertain people. But what about the paranormal? What is the truth about psychics and mediums, extrasensory perception (ESP) telepathy, clairvoyants, second sight or déjà vu, or “unexplained” phenomena like ghosts and poltergeists.
These things might appear real when you watch series like Twilight Zone, Sanctuary, Warehouse 13, or films like Indiana Jones or The Librarian or X-men. X files says “the truth is out there.” But what is the truth?
The Bible teaches us very clearly that ALL supernatural knowledge is either good or evil – from God or from the devil and the demonic! There is NO neutral ground, no “special powers” which some human beings have and others don’t. No “paranormal phenomena” which are morally neutral and therefore safe to dabble in. There is only good and evil. Either it’s from God or it’s from the devil – make your mind up!
We mustn’t rule out messages from God. God still speaks in his church through ordinary people and the spiritual gifts of prophecy and words of knowledge and words of wisdom. But the Bible gives us criteria for testing prophecy to see if it comes from God.
Deuteronomy 18 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death.”
21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.
If predictive prophecy does not come true, then it was not from God. But the corollary of that statement is NOT that if it does come true it must have come from God. There are dangers from magic and the occult in the world around. But there are dangers of being deceived even in parts of the church too. We must be on our guard for false teaching.
2 Tim 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
We must continually check out what we are taught by comparing it with the timeless truth of God’s Word the Bible. As we read last week.
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
The devil can know the future. And demons CAN produce miracles! Healings through witchcraft or voodoo or spiritualism. If we see what appears to be a miracle, that is not necessarily proof that it is God at work!
So we must not be distracted by the miracles reported even in churches. I passionately believe that God still works miracles of healing and deliverance in the church today. I have seen God work such miracles and I have experienced miracles of healing in my own body! But we must also be on our guard against being deceived.
2 Thess 2:9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.
Again – when we see miracles even in churches, we must be on our guard. A genuine miracle of healing or deliverance is God’s gift to the person who is healed – it is NOT proof of that every word the preacher says is true. Genuine miracles can happen in a church where those who God heals and others around are believing Christians – even if the evangelist or preacher is far, far away from God, and some American so-called evangelists and preachers spring to mind. God still works despite the sins of men.
We need to be on our guard so that nobody deceives us in any way! We need the spiritual gift of discernment, because the devil is out to lead Christians astray even more than ever.
There have been so many false teachings though the ages leading the church astray: Christ wasn’t truly God, Christ wasn’t truly human, God is too loving ever to punish sinners, we can be saved by good works, we can be saved by generous giving,
And there are so many wrong ideas in the church today – health wealth and prosperity teaching. All religions lead to God. Success is proof of truth. These are wrong ideas – don’t be fooled!
But also, finally, don’t be worried! God will be victorious!
2 Thess 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming.
Christ will have the final victory! But until He returns, be warned – be on your guard. Don’t be fooled! Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way!