13 But we ought always to thank God for you,
brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be
saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the
truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel,
that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So
then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you,
whether by word of mouth or by letter. 16 May our Lord Jesus Christ
himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal
encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen
you in every good deed and word.
Paul’s second letter to the
Thessalonians is really a fascinating thing.
Even though it is only three chapters it covers some topics that would
take years to spiritually chew on and really digest. It opens up the box of revelation to show
what will happen in the End Times, and that is why it is so appropriate for
this letter to be read from during these Last Times Sundays.
Paul speaks of a man of lawlessness
who is often called the Antichrist.
Contrary to popular opinion - this is not someone who sets himself up as
an open enemy of Christ - but instead someone who puts himself up IN PLACE OF
Christ. There’s a big difference between
the two. One comes as an enemy and
admits as much, the other calls himself a representative of Christ and tries to
act like one. That’s why this person and
position is one that is able to rise within the church. Paul also writes in 2 Thessalonians 2:9‑10
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, 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. Paul associates his work with
the work of Satan working through him.
Yet he takes it even a step further.
He writes that in verses 11‑12 that it is actually God who “sends them a powerful delusion so that they
will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed
the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” This is a scary picture - a delusion that is
brought into the church through the working of Satan at the commission of God
Himself as a judgment on unbelief. Wow.
Now, try to put yourself in the shoes
of the Thessalonians. Here you are, a small community of believers that doesn’t have a
whole lot of history together or huge numbers.
You’re already undergoing persecution from the enemies of Christ outside
of the church. Some people have already
scared you half to death by telling you that Christ already came and left - and
the reason you’re undergoing persecution is because you were left behind. Now you learn that in the end times God will
even send a delusion from within the church - someone who will claim to have
the authority of God Himself. What would
you be wondering in the face of such predictions? Wouldn’t you be saying to yourself, “why is
God doing this? How in the world am I
going to survive this? How do I know
that I won’t fall prey to this man of lawlessness and fall from the faith? What makes me any different from them or
stronger than them?” The temptation is
to think that since God is allowing all of these things that God may indeed be
a devil - that He has it out for you - that He really
doesn’t want you - or that you aren’t going to be good enough to withhold the
trials coming.
It is in the nature of your sinful
nature to look at threats from a bottle necked personal perspective and to
despair. What I mean by that is we
naturally think in a time of danger, “what am I going to do about it? How am I going to respond? How will I survive this?” The equation comes in a variety of ways. It can be, “me vs. my lust. Me vs. my boss. Me vs. cancer. Me vs. Satan. Me vs. classmates. Me vs. world. Even as with Job - me vs.
God.” When God allows these
things to happen to us we put Him in the camp of the enemy or leave Him as a
faraway bystander that is waiting to see how we will respond.
We forget that this way of approaching
enemies and the end times is sinfully blind and close minded. If you think only in terms of what YOU are
going to do, you are leaving God out of the situation. The angels are treated as weaklings. Christ is regarded as if He were rotting in
the grave back in
The reason is plain. God does not want us to look at ourselves as
under His curse. He wants to think of ourselves as different - set apart. But
we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from
the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the
Spirit and through belief in the truth. The same God who decided to send the delusion
on the unbelieving church has also designed the salvation of the Church - which
includes you. God chose you to be saved from
the beginning. You were in God’s
plans from the start. You are a product
of His design and His making. Even if
you can’t see anything in you that makes you distinguishable from an unbeliever
- if you aren’t any better looking or happpier or nicer - that’s ok. The uglier you are the better. Then maybe you will realize that your
salvation didn’t have anything to do with who you were. It had everything to do with the love of the
Lord. It isn’t based on who you are and
what you have done or how you feel but on who He is
and what He has done. He has chose to
set you apart - to sanctify you - make you holy - to be saved from the
beginning. You are a part of God’s
eternal plan.
But how do you know you are chosen if
you don’t think you feel different or act much differently from other
people. The thing that distinguishes you
is the sanctifying work of the Spirit - the way that He has set you apart. God
chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through
belief in the truth. Throughout
these chapters Paul keeps talking about one thing that distinguished the
Thessalonians and would protect the Thessalonians from any antichrists that
came their way. It’s a simple thing
called “the truth” which Jesus said sets us free. It is distinguished from “the lie.” Notice that he only mentions ONE truth and
ONE lie. Jesus called Himself “the truth.” Everything He spoke was truth, verifying it
by saying, “truly I say unto you.” John
said in John 1:14 The Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One
and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and
truth. Here he equates grace with
truth - as opposed to Moses who brought the law. The main truth that Jesus
proclaimed revolved around who He was and what He came to do.
John 3:14‑17 Just as Moses lifted
up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone
who believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but to save the world through him.
John 5:24‑26 “I tell you the truth,
whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will
not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth,
a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son
of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has
life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
The
truth assumes that people need to be saved - that we are slaves of Satan and
sin. It assumes that people need a
Savior - that they can’t save themselves. It states that we need to be born again to
enter the
It is a simple truth that bears
repeating. Salvation is not a tricky
thing and faith is not complicated when you get down to it. It is a simple truth. You were born a sinner on the way to
hell. However, Christ paid for your sin
on the cross. The Holy Spirit bathed you
in his blood at your baptism. You were
brought to faith to believe that in Jesus you have forgiveness and
righteousness and salvation. When you
simply confess to God, “I am nothing but a sinner, but you Jesus are my
righteousness. Your cross and
resurrection is my salvation.”, when you can say that - you have the
truth. Then in God’s eyes you are
“sanctified” - which means set apart as holy in God’s eyes. It isn’t a matter of how you look or how you
act, but whether you have faith in Christ.
Paul wrote the Thessalonians, He
called you to this through our gospel.
If you wonder whether you are chosen - it isn’t really that tricky. Just ask yourself if you as a sinner trust in
the gospel of salvation in Christ. This
is what distinguishes you from the world and assures you of God’s choice - it’s
the robe of righteousness that God has put on you through faith in Christ.
The big picture and message to the
Thessalonians seems to be this, “Are you wondering whether you are going to
survive this oncoming evil within the church?
Does God really have your best interest in mind if he has allowed
suffering to come into your lives? Are
you going to be able to stand against this antichrist within the church? The answer is to remember who God is and what
He has already done for you. You were on
your way to hell and destined for despair, but God chose to give you the truth
of who YOU are and who JESUS is. He sent His Spirit into your heart and made
you holy through faith. He already
designed it so you would believe in Christ.
He has your best interest in mind.
If you’re wondering whether you will survive, remember who Christ is and
what He has done for you thus far.”
Then - after you remember what God has
done for you - stick with it. There are
some within the realm of Christianity who have a name for such teachings and
such believers, and it’s not a good name.
They call people who believe such things as “the frozen chosen.” What they mean with this term is that
Christians who believe they are chosen by God for salvation - that they have
the right teaching - the truth, as it were - will sit around and do
nothing. They will look down on all of
the rest of the un-chosen world and simply be satisfied to hear more doctrine
while doing nothing to act on their faith.
With such terms, the contrast will be made between those who sit in the
pew and those who get “really active.”
They will try to differentiate themselves from the “frozen chosen”
because theirs is an “authentic Christianity”; one which really acts and does
things that “make a difference” in people’s lives. They’ll say, “we
will feed the poor. We will have prayer
meetings. We will share our faith. We will be active in our communities, unlike
those dirty ‘frozen chosen’ pew sitters who sit in fear of being proven wrong
in their faith or being put in an awkward situation. They assume that just because they’ve been
baptized as babies and come to church every Sunday that they’ll automatically
be saved!”
Such accusations make us look around
the congregation and wonder, “hmm, maybe we really aren’t authentic. After all, we aren’t as active as THAT
church. Our people aren’t as ‘on fire’
as their people are. We don’t have as
many programs. We don’t have as many
people coming to Bible classes. When a
volunteer opportunity comes up, the same people do most of the work most of the
time. Perhaps we need a better
teaching, a better system, a better church. Maybe we really aren’t alive at all. Maybe we are frozen!” Why do we come to such conclusions? Because we don’t seem to be
as active as other churches.
Ultimately the questions come up because we don’t seem to meet up to
other Christians. They come up because
we are looking at who we are and what we do.
So how do we respond? Do we accept the accusation? Do we repent of our own sins? Could you be more active? Are you trying to grow? Are you “frozen”? Of course, all of us need to repent because
we’re never as active as we could be or should be. We are, after all, still sinners. We are, after all, still saved by grace even
as Christians. Should it surprise us
when we look at our church and find believers still being lazy? Not completely. They are still sinners who still need
forgiveness until the day they die.
Then again, what kind of arrogance is
it to claim that you are authentic because you have more programs - because you
invite more people to church - because your group does more than our
group? Does that mean that we are
frozen? Does that mean that our
teachings are making us frozen? Think
about those assumptions for a minute. I
have a hard time insinuating that a mom who is busy watching her kids at home
and doesn’t take the time to come to a women’s meeting at church is frozen. Is it right to insinuate that just because
we aren’t building homes as a church body for unbelievers that we are a frozen
church body? Does that mean that we
aren’t individually helping our elderly neighbors when they need help? Is it somehow more righteous if we study the
Bible at church than if we study it at home?
If we don’t have a kids program or a day care does that mean we aren’t
teaching our children God’s Word at home or inviting their friends to church on
an individual basis? What is it that
makes Christianity “authentic”? Is it
the actions of the body or the connection to the Head? Should we in fact leave the body because we
don’t feel it is active enough?
These accusations seem to be
strikingly similar to the man who would be raised within the church - who would
try to convince the Christians of Thessalonica that what they had really wasn’t
good enough or authentic enough; that they needed to be circumcised; or
re-baptized; or rededicate their lives to Christ and really prove they were
Christians by what they did - all of course according to his edicts - like
living in the middle of a desert or putting on uncomfortable clothing or giving
up all your money to live by yourself and pray for the world.
How would the Thessalonians be able to
fight such accusations? So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to
the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. Paul tells them to “stand firm and hold on to
the teachings we taught you.” Don’t let
anybody convince you that there is anything wrong with the Gospel you’ve been
given. Instead, stand firm in it and
gain better mastery over it. Think about
it. Abraham believed in the coming
Christ, yet Abraham had a child with his slave.
He tried to pass his wife off two separate times as his sister. Did that make their faith or their beliefs
wrong or unauthentic? If in fact there
are people in our church that are lazy or inactive, does that mean that what we
believe is wrong? If there are some who
have been baptized as infants who have fallen from the faith, does that mean
that infant baptism is wrong? Does that
mean that for 1500 years all of those people who were only baptized as infants
were not really baptized and not really believers? Or shouldn’t we rather take comfort in the
fact that God promises us that Abraham was forgiven and saved? If faith in Christ was good enough to save
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Paul, Peter and all these sinful Christians
throughout the Bible, why wouldn’t it be good enough to save us? If the gospel and the Christ of all times
still covered their sin and brought them to heaven, then maybe it is still
sufficient in spite of our sinfulness.
Then maybe we should just stand firm in what Paul has taught us.
The thing is, that when we stick to
God’s Word and continue in it, instead of freezing us
from doing anything it frees us to do many things. How so?
Paul prayed, “May our Lord Jesus
Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us
eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and
strengthen you in every good deed and word.” As Christians who have been brought up in the
grace and love of our Savior, we recognize that whether we fail or succeed in
life we have eternal heaven waiting for us because of Christ’s sacrifice for
us. When we know that
God has chosen us and covered us in His blood. When we know that we are forgiven and already
holy in God’s sight, we are less afraid to fail. We are more able to live. We are more willing to live and not give up,
no matter what the obstacle or the hardship because God has promised us in
Christ that He is eternally committed to us.
If you are a “frozen” person, it doesn’t mean that you need to try and
find a different gospel. It means that
you need to dig deeper into the gospel you once had.
Think of Abraham. He was not always strong in his faith. But the more times God rescued Sarah from the
harems, and when God gave him Isaac in spite of his sin with Ishmael, he grew
to realize and trust that God knew what He was doing. As he lived, God proved Himself
faithful and faithful, and Abraham learned to live trusting in Him more and
more. He didn’t change to another God
because of his own failures or lack of faith.
God reiterated His promises, and Abraham was encouraged. As a result, he grew so strong in faith that
he was willing to even sacrifice Isaac when God told him to - believing that
God would raise Isaac from the dead. He
was strengthened in every good deed and word.
This is what God’s Word and promises do for us when we stick with
it. It strengthens us and makes us
stronger - enabling us to fight against men of lawlessness who promise us so
much more but give us so much less.
Just like the Thessalonians, you and I
are living in the End Times. The man of
lawlessness and many men of lawlessness are still at work within the
church. They offers
a better Christianity, a more authentic Christianity, if we only follow what
they tell us to. They make us feel as if
our Christ is not as good as theirs.
They use all sorts of things; promises, miracles, healing, and even
salvation if we just follow their ways.
In the meantime, Paul calls us back to what he has been preaching all
along. It’s nothing flashy. It’s nothing new. It’s just a simple message of sin and grace,
law and gospel, damnation and salvation.
Instead of pointing you to you, he points you to Christ crucified and
says, “HE is your salvation. HE is your
eternity. Do not leave Him. Do not abandon Him. Trust in Him and be saved.” Amen.