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­­LSB  2 Thessalonians 2:1 - 4

1 Now we ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken in your mind or be alarmed whether by a spirit or a word or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it has not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the sanctuary of God, exhibiting himself as being God.

This is now the main meaty section of first and second Thessalonians.  Our brother Carl suggested that we study these two timely books and I have to believe, because I think I know Carl's heart, that this important section plus the clear teaching in 1 Thess. 4 on the rapture is what interested Carl more than the rest of the books.

If you find the idea of prophecy tantalizing, the fact that God pre-tells events before they will happen and then they do, then this section of what Paul writes to the Thessalonian christians will have you sitting at the edge of your seat.

Is there another god, another ancient book, that pre-tells history before it happens?  And if there is not, then, does that not prove that this God and this book are unique in all of written literature, head and shoulders above the rest?

The answer is that what I just said is an understatement.  If there is a God who speaks, and if He has shown that He is the God of gods because He can foretell events eons before they happen, then we should not only bow down and worship THAT God but we should also put His Book and all of His words in a category of authority over every other written and spoken word or idea.

The God who tells ahead of the event what will happen, and then it happens just as He spoke it, He is God of god's and Lord of lords, and we need to bow down to Him alone in worship and obedience.

In Isaiah 46 God Himself says;

8 “Remember this, and be assured;
Cause it to return to your heart, you transgressors.

9  Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,

10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My counsel will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’,

11 Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man of My counsel from a far country.
Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.
I have formed it, surely I will do it.
 
Our God declares the end from the beginning, and then He reveals to those who have ears to hear, what will happen in the future.  God is soveriegn over every event.  Even horrific events.  Shockingly evil events that have occured and will occur, were done and will be done, not by God who can do no evil, but by Satan who can only operate within God's perfect plan and within the sovereign permission of God.

Jude in his letter, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the very words of God, tells an amazing prophecy;

14 But Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, also prophesied about these men, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, 15 to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

Enoch was seventh generation from the first created man, Adam, and Adam was probably still living when Enoch lived because of the long lives of those initial generations before the flood.

And God speaks through someone alive before the flood while Adam was probably still living, and tells us how things will end, literally at the beginning, and we have the written record of the words.

The book or writings that Jude had available to him with Enoch's prophecy is now lost to us.  But we have this prophecy, given to Enoch while Adam was probably still alive, 6000 years later, and it coincides perfectly with what God has told other prophets through the centuries.

Not only that, but before our very eyes, we have witnessed the transition in our nation of sinners becoming more and more and more vile and ungodly, and like never before, the verbal sewage of hate against God and His book, and His people by sinful men has increased more than exponentially.  

With increasing knowledge has come increasing arrogance against God.  The arrogance of our current culture and generation of enlightened people who think they know so much.  Arrogance is the single indicator to me that we are very very close to final things.  Last things.  Because I know something the elite's don't know.  God is opposed to the proud.  God has limits against pride and arrogance.

So there is this sense where people who are trying to piece all of the puzzle pieces together, make a special work of studying prophetic things as we try to get a feeling for where exactly we might be at as regards the rapture and then the events that will follow after God removes His elect.

We call that special area of study;  Eshatology.  That name comes from the greek word eschaton which means last.  Eschatology then is the study of last things.  Final things.  

How can we study things that haven't happened yet?  A couple of things come to mind.  And the world is busy with the first.  Projections.  So-called science puts numbers from the exquisitely short term history which we actually have reliable recorded evidence, into computers, and they make projections.

How well does that work.  Well, in my lifetime we were going to perish many times already from starvation, overpopulation, pestilence, Covid 19, and the overheating of the earth causing bizarre weather.  Those are just the ones I can remember, I'm sure there's more.  

Add to that the Doomsday clock.  According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists the minute hand keeps creeping towards doomsday annihilation.  As we speak this morning it is 100 seconds to midnight.

"In their decision, the Bulletin cited disinformation, global security threats including ‘nuclear saber rattling,’ lack of actionable climate policies, disruptive technology and insufficient worldwide COVID-19 response."

And, oh, by the way, the things I say from this pulpit would mostly be lumped into that category of disinformation.  I'm actually part of the problem as those folks perceive it, moving the second hand inexhorably towards utter and final doom.

I looked at the 75 year history of the doomsday clock and the minute hand has been hovering near midnight wavering back and forth with different perils and fears for 3/4 of a century and yet doomsday, which is real, never seems to come, and that's because sovereign God has that day locked down which after 75 years sort of makes the atomic scientists look panicky over nothing.

So the world has projections and we can laugh at most of them because they've already come and gone, so why would we put any weight behind their current projections.  You got it wrong in the past, why am I supposed to believe the "science".  Science is in scare quotes folks, because it just isn't.

That's the best the world's got to predict last things.  We have a book that tells us exactly how the apocalypse will unfold.  It's actually a lot more frightening than what all of the arrogant God rejecters are predicting.

If I were going to set the hands on a doomsday clock according to the arrogance and pride of this vile and wicked culture, this current generation, I'd have to move the second hand much closer than the 100 seconds their so called science has placed it.  I'd move it right up to about 5 seconds to midnight.  Based not on science, but on God's tolerance in the past of arrogant prideful boastful vile sinners.   

In fact, knowing what I know from reading the history of God's acts in the history of the world since Adam fell, I'm more than a little surprised that we're here this morning.  Based on real events in real history, I can only surmise that God is storing up wrath for the end that goes far beyond what He ever put up with during 6000 years of his judgements in previous history.

I'm saying I believe the only reason anyone is still here is because God is waiting for the "big one".  His clock is set.  He knows the day and the hour, and in the meanwhile, men are more wicked than He has ever tolerated in the past, simply because He's storing wrath for that ultimate day.  5 seconds to midnight is actually only because of storing up wrath that would have been unleashed in past history that we can study.  

Those of us who want to know with as much precision as possible where we are on God's time clock, study eschatology.  Last things.  And Paul actually uses eschatological logic to correct an error that the Thessalonians were experiencing first hand.

Is it good to put some effort specifically towards eschatology as opposed to other important things in this revelation.  Yes, of course.  We are told over and over to do that.  

1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His slaves the things which must soon happen; and He indicated this by sending it through His angel to His slave John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the witness of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it, for the time is near.  Rev. 1:1-3

Blessing comes in knowing what God is going to do before He does it.  But it's a conditional blessing.  You're blessed if you read.  You're blessed if you hear.  You're blessed if you keep the things written.  The time is near.

Paul tells the Thessalonians;
1 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. 3 While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman who is pregnant, and they will never escape. 4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief, 5 for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;  1 Thess 5:1 - 5

Paul tells us we aren't in darkness, literally, because we have the study of last things available to us, revealed by God for our benefit and comfort.

John the apostle tells his readers;  But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.  1 John 2:20

And Jesus tells the disciples, and by extension all of us who belong to Him;
"The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.  Matt. 13:11

There is safety and comfort in knowing last things.  Very beneficial to study these things, and the inverse is true for those who ignore what is available to them.  For lack of knowledge my people are destroyed says Hosea 4:6

There is safety and comfort and wellness and preservation and even salvation for those who hear and obey God's word and certainly God's warnings of what is shortly to come to pass.

Now do people go too far and only concern themselves with the future at the expense of the present.  Is there a balance issue?  Of course.  Of course.

We hear all kinds of silliness and sometimes the world is right to ridicule people who are up on their rooftops in their pajamas.  A few years ago you all remember the billboards that were giving the actual date of the rapture and doom for those who miss it.  Millions of dollars spent on that effort, and in the end, hearts are hardened by the excesses.

My own father in law had shut out religion because as a child of 12 to early teens or so people were teaching that Hitler was in fact the anti-christ and that judgement and Christ's return was imminent.  It terrified him, and when it didn't happen it hardened his heart like flint to the gospel.

Prophecy can be grossly mis understood, mis applied, and ultimately used by Satan to cause harm towards people.  So there is a balance, and I hope we find that balance.  We don't want to err on either side.  We want all of the benefits of knowing what God has provided for us, and none of the harm from what this book calls, going too far.  Getting out of balance.

What is the apologetic for any of this?  An apologetic is an argument for something.  Why would anyone believe this ancient book written by goat herds with bad teeth has prophecies in it that are reliable?

The answer is that those who study can show you hundreds of prophecies of events that were foretold and have already now come to pass hundreds and thousands of years after the foretelling, just as prophecied.

We're going to be in Daniels amazing prophetic book often the next couple of weeks as we consider this broad topic of the anti-christ, but just to get the adrenalin flowing to get us started let's look at one specific prophecy in Daniel chapter 12.  The last chapter in Daniel's prophecy.

Daniel is stressing about what all of the revelation he got means and what to do about it and the message comes back to him, do nothing.  Seal up the book for the end of time.  It isn't for you, it's for those folks.

Amazing that we have that record intact 2500 years later.  That's a miracle.  But as to the time when the words would become important, the angel gives two statements in vs. 4;

4 But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the time of the end; many will go to and fro, and knowledge will increase.”

Seal up the book until the time of the end.  OK.  When will that be.  Well it will be a time when we see a couple of signs of it's approach.

Many will go to and fro, and knowledge will increase.  What does that mean?  Well, I believe it means exactly what I've witnessed in my lifetime.

In 1952, people were still going to Europe from the United States on luxury liner ships.  But airplanes were just beginning to offer a viable alternative that was much faster.  

Also in 1952, knowledge was at the base of a long straight line through history that had just begun to increase.

70 years later, no one thinks twice about jetting anywhere on the globe from anywhere else on the globe.  Need to be somewhere else in the world?  Go to the nearest International airport and step through the magic doors into a jet that will leave Los Angeles and land almost anywhere else on earth.  One lifetime.

And knowledge.  If you looked at a curve on a graph of all of the collective knowledge on earth it's a nearly flat line through the centuries but by 1952 there's a steep arc going upwards and then by 2022 that line is going almost vertical.

Are we at the time of the end then?  I'd have to say either we are knocking on that door, or you can throw Daniels words spoken 2500 years ago in the trash.  You'd have to work pretty hard to suppress that prophecy and say it doesn't mean anything.

Seal up the book until the end.  When is that?  What will be the sign?  Travel like no one ever even visualized before, and knowledge like no one ever even understood possible.  Both happening at the same time.  That's when the end time will occur.  Anyone besides me think maybe we're close?

And if that 2500 year old prophecy has come true, what about the rest?  Anyone think maybe there's something to this prophecy stuff in this ancient book.  Maybe, just maybe, there's a God behind this book that can tell the beginning and the end.  

Let's expand that a little further.  Maybe the act of telling, the spoken words themselves are the force that causes the events to unfold.  Not that He foretells and then it happens, but it happens because HE has said it.

In other words, it's not like God is looking down through the long corridor of history and He says, Oh, I see what's going to happen, and then He tells His prophets.  No, it's more like He tells His prophets and His voice sets what will happen in motion.

So confident is Paul in the timed order of events that are prophecied that he actually uses prophecy to refute and correct a problem that the Thessalonians were having.

The persecution against them is so fierce that they have bought into the idea that they have somehow missed the rapture and they're enduring the final judgments of God.  They thought they were in the middle of the tribulation.  And they were like, how did this happen!!  How did we get here??  Did we miss the rapture some how?  

And Paul is going to respond with linear prophecy.  You think you're here on the linear line, but the reason that's impossible is because we know this happens and this happens before the time you think you're living through, and those things definitely have not happened, so no, you didn't miss the rapture and you're not in the middle of the tribulation.

Impossible why?  Because there is a time line in the eschaton.  The last things.  You can't be here on the time line because these things precede where you think you're at, and they haven't happened yet.  So, you err.  That's Paul's argument.

The prophecies themselves are almost secondary to Paul.  He's solving a different problem for them.  You can't be here because this and this haven't even happened yet.  And they precede where you think you're at.  

But to us, 2000 years later, we're not so interested in Paul's solution for the frightened Thessalonians as we are about the prophecies Paul used to make his case.  Secondary to him, but now they are primary to us.

We are firmly established with Paul in the age of grace.  We're still very much in the church age.  Paul was at the beginning end of that age and we feel we're at the very end of that age.  Why?  Because of all of the indicators I've mentioned so far.  

People going to and fro in the earth.  Knowledge increased.  But along with the knowledge, the arrogance and pride of the sinful generation we live in has gotten to a threshold where we believe God is restraining judgement and storing up wrath that MUST be released very soon.

I mean when you take God's rainbow, the very sign of His restraint and promise to never judge the earth with a flood again that kills everyone, and you make His beautiful promise into the symbol of sodomite pride.  Talk about pushing somebody's buttons.  

We sort of know we're at the point where God would either need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah for His definite over-reaction and temper tantrum because the folks now are far worse and there's no fire coming out of heaven.  Something has to give.  Did God over-react at Sodom and Gomorrah, or is He storing up wrath that's going to make what happened to those two cities look like a play date for 5 year olds.

The reason I'm pretty sure it's the latter is because of the large volume of completed prophecies and the crystal clear distinctions of the many many prophecies of the end that haven't happened yet.  I just can't imagine how the world could be riper for picking than it is . . . as we speak.  It's time.

Well, that's our introduction to this very very important section of scripture.  I wanted to lay a foundation for us that prophecy is very real, that it is something that God intended for His elect to know and understand.

It isn't ether that can't be understood.  We can build a pretty good timeline of past prophecies and how they were fulfilled and from the study of completed prophecies we can understand what to expect from the prophetic things in this book that have not yet happened.

Mainly we can understand much of prophecy in a very literal sense.  Until it isn't so literal.  Like beasts with ten heads.  Even things like that have been designed by God so that they can be somewhat confusing to us on this side of the rapture but to the folks who are living when those things unfold it will be just as literal as the rest.  They won't have any problem.  The elect who are alive then will know exactly what those non literal visions represent.

Finally, in our remaining moments this morning, we aren't going to get our teeth into this text this morning apparently, we're just laying ground work for next week, but one more thing to consider this morning.

In the long flow of church history, as error crept in, and the dark ages used up perhaps a thousand years where the Roman errors were in the drivers seat, you come finally in the 1500's to men like Wycliffe and Tyndale who were brilliant, especially Tyndale, who tranlsated the greek new testament into the english language and made it available to the masses that the Catholic church had hidden it from, and within a short time the reformation overtook the catholic church and entire nations became protestant.  Western civilization was born.

In the last couple of decades reformed theology which hearkens back to those reformers like Calvin and Luther has had quite a resurgence and I find myself in great sympathy with reformed theology.  Calvin pretty well had it nailed.  

Then came the Puritan theologians from out of the reformation, and some of those men are absolutely amazing.  In England and Scotland, superb theology was enjoyed widely.  Except for one thing.

In the 16 and 1700's eschatology wasn't important.  It was a fog.  Calvin is superb until you get to eschatology.  Last things.  He didn't have a clue.  Nor did he need to have.  He was fighting battles on a far different battle front.  And his eschatology was way off base.  As was most of the puritans who were happy to just sort of go along with Calvin.  Weak eschatology based in a teaching that the church had taken the place of and was the recipient of all of the promises God made to the jewish nation.

Replacement theology.  The church replaces Israel.  We get all of the promises.  They're out.  

Well, ultimately, that makes a hopeless meaningless mess of prophecy.  And to this day, most of the reformed theologians are a-millenial.  They dismiss most of prophecy and nothing is literal.  They almost have to do that to land where they want to land.  None of it means much because Israel is gone and forgotten and the church has replaced Israel, so literal meanings of very clear prophetic language is just gone.  Out to lunch.

Many of my hero's like R. C. Sproul and Alistair Begg are in that camp.  One guy I really enjoy watching his You Tubes, Doug Wilson,  the blog and mablog guy, he's a lot of fun to listen to concerning our current cultural moment, but he's completely out to lunch on literal prophecy.

So we've got a resurgence of excellent Puritan based reformed theology, and that's great, but it's almost like the folks who are in that club don't have any imagination beyond the big stars of the Puritan age.  So whatever John Calvin believed about eschatology has to be good enough for me.  It's almost like hero worship.  John Calvin couldn't possibly have been wrong could he?  

So a lot of really good theologians are useless when it comes to the eschaton.  Last things.  But in the 19th century, beginning in the 1830's, some men started questioning the non literalism forced on them by the Puritans when it came to end times things and Israel.

And about that time, dispensationalism was developed.  C H Spurgeon would be a star of that era perhaps.  C. I. Schofield was a scholar who systemetized the Bible along the lines of a dispensationalism that allowed for literal prophecy interpretations.  J. Dwight Pentecost wrote a much more usable literal theology of prophecy.  Things to Come, by Pentecost.  Schofields notes published in study bibles with his name on them.  I have one.

Now none of these guys got everything quite right either, but it was a leap in the right direction.  At least we had someone systematizing prophecy in a literal understanding type of way.  

I'm somewhere in the middle.  Enough water has gone under those bridges that good people have questioned the whole dispensational argument and moved us back towards a Reformed theology with it's best points and enough dispensationalist ideas that we can understand prophecy as literal truth.  

Israel is not displaced.  We've understood that the church age that we are in was a mystery known only to God until it happened.  That's the dispensation we are in.  The church age.  Like a parenthesis, not seen in prophecy, but with a distinct beginning and end that doesn't preclude all of the promises God made to His chosen people, the Jews.  

In fact the removal of the church, the critical sharp end of that long parenthesis in history, is what begins the clock of final things.  Jewish history re-starts as if there was never a parenthesis in between.  7 years of predicted jewish history for God's chosen people will begin when the church is taken out of the way.

Next week we'll get knee deep in this mud and go back into the book of Daniel that Paul bases his argument that he uses to convince the Thessalonians that; no, they're not in the tribulation.  According to Daniel's prophecy, that would be impossible.

So, look forward to at least a couple of weeks of trying to rightly divide the eschaton.  The Last Things.  It's actually exciting to have that knowledge base, because things are unfolding so fast towards ultimate things at this point, we could almost be like the Thessalonians and be panicked without reason if we don't know ahead of time what to expect.

And in fact, not knowing what this book says will be the basis for the great deception that is going to lead tons of religious folks who don't have a real christianity, into following after the anti-christ.  Folks who love the miracles now are going to get a whole bunch more of them when anti-christ arrives on the scene.  

So a good correct rock solid eschatology is getting more important daily.  Things which were sealed up in the book for the end times are beginning to make perfect sense.  Calvin didn't need to know them in the 1550's.  We do need to know and understand these things in the 21st century at the far end of this age as the final things loom large before our eyes.

So dress for mudding next week and we'll wade right in.  I'm both challenged and excited.  If I were writing a book, I'd dedicate it to Carl.