This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We are in 2
Thessalonians chapter two this week. This is day one of our look at that
chapter.

We're going to be looking at the first three verses today. We're looking again at,
in both 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, how to live the authentic life, the real life
that God made you to live. And if we're going to live a real life, I'm going to have
to confront, you're going to have to confront the reality of evil.

To have real hope, you have to confront the reality of evil in this world. If
you pretend that there is no evil, you're going to end up hopeless. I'm going to end
up hopeless.

Because there's something deep within you that knows you're pretending. But once
you recognize the reality of evil, then you can hear God's hope in the face of
that reality, and you have real hope, genuine hope, in the face of no matter
what you're facing. In this chapter, 2nd Thessalonians chapter two, Paul's going to
talk about what's going to happen at the end of time, and what's going to happen when
it comes to evil in this world.

Now I want to just give a couple of encouragements as we begin this chapter. First
of all, be sure to listen to all five days. This chapter is best understood in
light of the last few verses.

They really put everything in light that we're going to be looking at. They're
where the hope is found. And so make sure you listen to all five days this week.

And then a second thing I'd say as we begin this chapter even today, although we
won't face this so much today, someone has said to me that when you read through
the entire chapter, well their quote was, "It seems like it's filled with code
words "and secret language. " Let me just let you know from the very beginning
of the chapter that God isn't trying to fool us. These were familiar words to
the people that Paul was writing to.

And with just a little bit of study as we walk through this, the ideas are going to
seem familiar to us also. It's not going to seem strange as we walk through this.
You're going to find as we go through these chapters that there is a lot in these
verses that brings questions.

What is the rebellion that Paul is talking about as we read along? Who is this
man of lawlessness that he says will be revealed? The point is he wrote to the
people in Thessalonica to let them know that the day of the Lord had not yet
come.

If it had already come, they wouldn't have had any questions. Once something
occurs, you don't wonder about it anymore. You don't have any questions.

But they had some worries. They had some questions about the day of the Lord and
when it was going to come and how that would affect their lives. And Paul writes to
let them know that they could be at peace, that they can have God's grace, that
they can have hope in their lives.

Listen to what he says in the first three verses. Concerning the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you brothers not to
become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed
to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Do not
let anyone deceive you in any way.

Now as Paul writes, the actions he's calling us to take in these verses are the
actions of not becoming easily unsettled, not becoming alarmed and not letting
anyone deceive you. Don't let anyone deceive you. He's talking here about the
truth of Jesus' return, the second coming of Christ.

And he says, don't let anyone deceive you about this truth. The truth is, this
truth of the second coming is especially prone to deception. It's out in the
future.

And so people can make up things. They can make up lies and say, this is what I
think is going to happen. And if they say it real confidently and you're not
confident about it, they can deceive you.

In fact, as I think about deception when it comes to the second coming of Jesus
Christ, I think of three major types of deception. Paul covers the first here,
but I also want to mention two other types of deception that we face in light of
the second coming. The three types of deception are anxiety, apathy and pride.

Paul here talks about the first of those, anxiety. They were worried that
somehow they had missed it. Or maybe you're worried that somehow it will be
frightening or you're worried that something in it will be disappointing to you.

Well, Paul writes and says, don't become easily unsettled, don't become alarmed.
And when I hear that, it says to me and it should say to you that if you're
unsettled about the second coming of Jesus Christ, if your heart is alarmed
about the second coming of Jesus Christ, something is wrong. Something is
deceiving you.

It might be some teaching you heard way in the past. It may be some way that
you've allowed your mind to run ahead of God's word or run without God's word,
but something is wrong. Now in this case with the Thessalonians, what was wrong
was they had heard a lie.

Paul had written a letter to them. And as we talked about last week, they got
the letter that began to grow based on it, but then they had other questions.
They wrote back to Paul and Paul wrote back to them.

But somehow in between that very short time, someone else wrote a letter or
someone else sent a report and said, oh, by the way, the day of the Lord has
already come. And they were alarmed. They were deceived.

And Paul writes and says, if some prophecy was given, the word there is spirit.
It's the idea of a prophetic utterance that was given in a church. If somebody
said, the spirit of God has told me that the apostle Paul says the day of the
Lord has already come.

Paul says, that's not true. If some letter supposedly written by me came, that's
simply not true. Now this is an indication to me of something that often happens
when it comes to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Rumors. There are a lot of rumors that surround the second coming. People easily
say, oh, well, this means this.

And I saw this. And this is what's going to happen in history. And I would say to
you, having heard literally dozens upon dozens of second coming rumors in my
life as a teacher of the good news of Jesus Christ, that most of them are just
that.

They're rumors. So be careful. You check it out.

You go and make sure it's in God's word. You go and make sure it's true in
history. People like to make up rumors because it draws attention to themselves.

That's why we share rumors. And people will do that when they talk about the
second coming of Christ. And if a rumor is causing you to become unsettled or
alarm, it's probably not from God, or you're not listening to it in a way that's
from God.

The first deception that comes into our lives when it comes to the second coming
of Christ is the deception of anxiety. But there's a second deception that I
just want to remind you of. And that's the deception of apathy.

You don't really care much about it. It's not really that important to you. You
think, well, it's too hard to understand, so why should I bother with it?

I have more important things to do right now. And that is a deception. Just as
much as anxiety is a deception, apathy is a deception.

Jesus wouldn't have told us that He's coming again if He didn't need us to know.
And He needed us to know so that we could have hope. He needed us to know so
that we wouldn't hold on to this world so tightly and try to find our hope here.

He needed us to know so that we would understand that this world is not all
there is. He needed us to know because He wanted us to know that He loves us
enough that He's going to return for us. He hasn't left us alone.

And when I'm apathetic about the second coming, when I refuse to even allow it
into my thoughts because I have more important daily activities, that is a way
of deceiving myself. It's a deception. And then there's a third deception in
this area of the second coming of Jesus.

And I would call it pride. And it usually runs this way. Somebody feels like
this.

I understand the second coming and you don't. It's this prideful attitude that I
figured it out and you haven't. Or I know when He's coming and you don't.

Now, when it comes to cults, non-Christian cults, they basically say we know
when Jesus is going to return. We know the date and the time or we know the date
and the time that He was returning and you don't, nobody else can. He's only
revealed it to us.

There's a Christian version of this. The Christian version of this is I've
studied the second coming more than you have. I have it all figured out.

And so because of that, I have a greater understanding of God's will in your
life than you can have. I have to tell you, when it comes to this issue of pride
and the second coming, I've often seen it. I've read a lot of books on the
second coming of Jesus Christ.

And many of them are very good. They share a lot of hope. But too many books on
the second coming of Christ, written by Christians, are filled with pride.

They're filled with statements about why I'm right and this other person is
wrong. And there are disagreements between Christians, but the statements are
shared in such ways that this other person is not just mistaken or wrong, but
this other person is evil and bad. And I understand it and you don't.

And it's obvious that there's pride involved. Deceptions around the second
coming, they're easy to fall for. Anxiety, apathy, pride.

These deceptions send us down the wrong path. And even worse, even worse than
sending us down the wrong path, they keep us from the right path. What's the
right path?

What's the right attitude when it comes to the second coming of Jesus Christ?
Well, I'd say it in this word, anticipation. Anticipation.

The word here in verse one is the idea of coming together in the Lord Jesus
Christ and we're being gathered together to Him. That's what we anticipate. That
word gathered together there, the only other place it's found in the New
Testament is Hebrews 10, 25, where it's talking about being gathered together in
a worship assembly.

Warren Wiersbie has said the purpose of Bible prophecy is not the making of
calendars, but the building of character. It's not so much to set dates as it is
to set our hearts. To set our hearts on God, to set our hearts on worship, to
set our hearts on anticipating that being gathered together in Him.

Here's the good news about this. When it comes to anticipation, you don't have
to worry about being deceived. With so much deception around us, how can I hope
to know the truth?

How can I hope to have this attitude of anticipation about the second coming of
Christ? God has given us His word and God has given us His Spirit and if I will
take time to listen to Him and connect with Him, there is no way, there is no
way that I will be deceived. Now, if I listen only to this world, if you listen
only to this world, of course you'll be deceived.

But when you listen to God's word, when you spend time with God and listen to
His Spirit, you will not be deceived. So we pray today, let's pray for our
hearts. As you pray, just say to God, God, give me a heart of anticipation.

And if there's anxiety that's been in your life, admit it to God. God, you see
the worry, you see the anxiety about the second coming of Christ and ask God to
take it away through His truth, through His word, through His hope. If you've
had apathy about the second coming of Christ, I admit that often I go days, even
weeks, not thinking about the second coming of Christ, unless I'm teaching on
it.

If you've had apathy about the second coming of Christ, ask Jesus to remind you,
He is coming again. He does love you that much. Or if you've had pride, if
that's invaded your heart and you feel like you understand it better than any
other Christian and that has, that has become a seed of pride, it's made you
feel you're better than other Christians, admit that to God.

And as you admit those things, ask God to put into your heart, into your mind,
anticipation for the coming of Christ, anticipation for His love being revealed,
anticipation for our gathering together in Him. Jesus, we do anticipate your
return. We trust you and we know at your return, we will glory in you, we will
rejoice in you.

And we're thankful for this. In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to be
looking together at the Man of Lawlessness and the Day of Rebellion in verses
three to five.