Instructions, Part 2

chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. We come to the second part of what chapter 2 gives for us, and that's instructions. We said that chapter 1, he encouraged them, encouraged them because the difficulties that they were going through, in particular, the affliction and persecution that they were facing. But in chapter 2, he begins to instruct them because he deals with the major

issue that there had been a false report going around that they were living in the day of the Lord and that they had missed the tribulation. And so, I am going to go back and kind of recap those first four verses that we covered last week, and then we'll continue on with the rest of our instructions on the man of lawlessness. So, picking up in verse 1 of chapter 2, it says this, Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or disturbed, either by a spirit or a message or a letter, as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is

taken out of the way. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. That is, the one whose coming is in accordance with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception and wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. So, let us pray.

For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence, so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. And so, he tells us about this man of lawlessness that has to do with the coming of the Lord. And so, he starts off with what we call requests and warnings. And this is the recap part. In those first four verses, he gives us some requests and warnings. He says,

now, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, I feel like that is one event that has two acts, the second coming of Christ. And I believe that that second coming of Christ will have two parts to it. The first part is him coming for his church. That's what's described for us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, that we oftentimes refer to as the rapture, or to use the biblical language of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, the catching up of the church. That we

call it the rapture, it's the coming for the Lord. And then the second part is he comes for his church. And that comes about as he comes back to the earth in a second, and at the end of his coming, he will arrive and remain, will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air and forever be with the Lord. That's his coming for his church. But at the end of the tribulation, he will come

with his church as is described in Revelation, that we all will accompany him as he comes back to the earth. And he says, I don't want you, in concerning this second coming of Christ, to be three things. Number one, I don't want you to be shaken. I don't want you to be shaken. That phrase shaken is kind of a violence against me. That's what he is saying in this verse.

That phrase shaken, it's kind of a violent term, carries with the idea of an earthquake, but the idea is a sudden jolt. I don't want every event that comes along to jolt you. And we talked last week about the fact that there's lots of events that are happening in the world and have happened in the world. And everyone seems to jolt us as the church, which is the exact opposite of what Paul told us we were supposed to be here.

We're not to be jolted by these things. Just since the beginning of the year, just in the past, what is today, the 12th? Just in the past 12 days, we've seen intense events happen in the earth, but he says don't be shaken by these things. The second thing he tells us is don't be disturbed. That word disturbed is the idea of the state of being unsettled. Because while some people are shaken by everything that comes along, it causes in their life

this feeling of unsettledness. And they almost live in fear of the things that are happening in the world rather than the confidence that God is in charge and that God is always... Ultimately bringing together his plan and his purpose. And the third thing he tells us that he does not want us to be, it tells us in the beginning of verse 3, he says, and don't be deceived.

He says don't be deceived. And he tells us not to be deceived because that's the problem with deception is it's easy to believe, right? Deception is not easy to believe because it doesn't make any sense. Deception is easy to believe because it's a whole lot of fact filled with a little bit of... Or it's a whole lot of fact filled with a little bit of lie. Right?

That's what makes it deceptive. It's just enough that you can believe it, but just enough false that it's absolutely wrong. He says, I don't want you to be deceived. And what does he not want them to be shaken by or disturbed by or deceived by? Well, any sort of message, any sort of spirit or any sort of letter as if it has come from us. It's almost like Paul knew YouTube would exist.

It's almost like he knew that that was going to be coming because there's always a new message. Somebody has always got a brand new spirit, right? I've just received this fresh revelation from the Lord. Well, I doubt it, right? Everybody's got this. Well, I just received this new prophecy. Well, if it doesn't line up with the old prophecies, I'm not going to believe it because you got

to line everything up with scripture. Or I just received this letter, this brand new book has been found that we've never seen before and it gives us this whole new information about the end times. Well, be careful about that sort of thing. Don't be shaken. Don't be disturbed. Don't be disturbed. And don't be deceived by the things that you hear or the things that you're told or

the videos that you watch on YouTube. Don't be shaken by those things because he tells us that the day of the Lord, which throughout scripture is always referred to as a day of judgment, the day of the Lord, which we in the New Testament oftentimes refer to as the great tribulational period, that the day of the Lord has already come. It, verse three, will not come unless two things happen. Number one.

Number one, unless the apostasy comes first, the apostasy comes first. Now, that word apostasy is the idea of the falling away or the rebellion or a departure. Now, as we mentioned last week, there are some, and Kenneth Wiest in his translation is one of them, and I've got a lot of respect for him, but I don't agree on this. There are some who say that this falling away, this departure actually speaks of the rapture of the church.

I don't know that I can fully go there, but I do believe that after the rapture of the church, there will be a whole new day of judgment. There will be a whole new day of judgment. There will be a whole new day of judgment. There will be a wholesale departure from the faith. Because you may not realize this, but there's a lot of people who claim to go to church

and claim to be Christians and are a part of some church right now, I hope none of them are in this room today, that when the rapture takes place, they will be left behind because they did not believe the truth. Because they were a part of a club, not a part of a faith. Because they wanted to purchase fire insurance, not a real relationship with a Savior. He'll refer to them as those who do not love the truth in just a little bit.

And they will be left behind. And while I absolutely believe that there will be a revival that takes place during that tribulational period, there will also be a wholesale falling away from the faith. Because once the witness of the church is gone, people will follow whatever comes along. Which brings us to the next part. There will be an apostasy, and then the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.

That means that there will be the revealing of this individual, and he's referred to as two different things here, one person, two different identifications. He is, first of all, the man of lawlessness. The word lawlessness can also be translated sin, so the idea is that he will be the very embodiment of sin. Now, there are some who want to say that maybe this is a world organization or a church, and while I think those things will be in support of this individual, I do think it will be an individual.

An individual that comes along. An individual that comes along. An individual that comes along. An individual that comes along. Who has some sort of a peace plan, who has some sort of a plan to make everything better than it's ever been before, to bring Jew and Arab together, to bring Russia and Ukraine together, to bring all these people together, and ultimately have peace.

But he will ultimately be the embodiment of sin. But then he's described as a second thing. He's described as the son of destruction. Some of your translations may refer to him as the son of perdition, same word. The son of destruction, meaning that destruction is his character. He will destroy, not bring life. He will bring the very opposite of salvation. And his ultimate end is destruction.

And this individual will come along. You say, Ryan, has this been brought up before? Well, yeah, let me tell you a handful of scriptures. I don't want you to turn there because we've got other stuff that we've got to get to, but you might just reference it. I think I had him put it up there. The first is Daniel chapter 9, verse 26. Starting in Daniel chapter 9, he gives that 70 weeks prophecy.

And the fact that after 69 of those sets of seven will come the Messiah. And we've sort of been living in this parenthetical statement in history, awaiting this last set of seven years. And the thing that will start this last set of seven years is that he, same one being referred to here, will establish a covenant with the many for one week. But in the middle of that week, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.

And on the wings of abomination, he will bring about desolation. Jesus describes that further when you get into Matthew chapter 24, verse 15. Because in Matthew chapter 24, verse 15, he tells them that when the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, establishes himself in the temple, then you need to run. Because you're in the midst of a tribulation that the world has never seen before.

And will never see again. Interestingly enough, Jesus references him one other time in John chapter 5, verse 43. Because in John chapter 5, Jesus says, I came in the name of the Father and you won't receive me. But one will come in his own name and him you will receive. The idea of this antichrist that will come in his own name and the world will believe and the world will receive.

And so, this antichrist, this man of lawlessness, this son of destruction is revealed and it tells us what he's going to do. He will oppose. He will oppose and exalt himself above every God. In other words, he will be opposed to any other religion and exalt himself above every other religion. And he will ultimately bring everyone together under a one world religion.

You're like, Ryan, this is starting to sound freaky. That's what it's going to be. A little bit freaky, right? And so, this is why I know we're not living in the tribulation yet. And why I don't think the church is going to live through this. Because he's going to have to bring together under one umbrella all the religions of the world that he will ultimately exalt himself above.

And then, once he has done that, it says that he will go into the inner temple, or into the temple, into the inner sanctuary, and he will establish himself as God. Now, you should know something. You should know that if you are going to be able to establish yourself in a temple as God, do you know what there has to be? There has to be a temple, which tells us that this antichrist is able to bring peace between Muslim and Jew because that's one of the big issues with the temple right now.

That they can't have this because there's no peace between the Muslims and the Jews because they both claim that the site where the temple should be built belongs to them. It's mine. No, it's mine. Some things never change. And he will bring that peace in order to build that temple. Now, there's one other thing that I want to point out to you because not everybody believes that the tribulation is an actual event that takes place.

And many don't believe that the rapture is an event that's going to take place. But I want you to ask yourself a question. If there is no rapture, and there is no tribulation, why does he tell them not to be shaken or disturbed that they might have missed the rapture and might be living in the tribulation? You ever ask yourself that question? It might be because he had taught them

that there was a tribulation coming, but that there would be escape from that based upon what he had learned from the Lord. And so, he tells them about this individual, the two signs that they need to look for, or the two signs that would indicate that they were in the midst of the tribulation, which neither of had taken place. Therefore, they were not living in the midst of the day of the Lord. But he goes on to describe a little bit more about what this must look like because he now goes on to talk to us about the restraining.

Notice what it says in verse 5. He says, Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness, it is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. He says, I had already told you these things,

but remember what I taught you? Remember the things that I told you? He says that something is restraining. And he describes this something that's restraining as both a what and a who. You know what and who is restraining right now. The first thing he says is, you know what restrains, what restrains him until the time that he is revealed. And then he goes on to say,

the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who now restrains it. That is kind of an interesting thing for us to think about. So what is restraining this antichrist right now? What is restraining him? Well, it's a what and it's a he. Now, this thing that's restraining is actually the work of the Holy Spirit, which is where the he comes in. Because the Holy Spirit throughout scripture

is referred to as he. He is an individual, the third person of the triune Godhead, and he is the one who is ultimately restraining. But how is the Holy Spirit restraining right now? Well, that's where the what comes into play. What is restraining? Believe it or not, you are. Because the work of the Holy Spirit through the church is what is now restraining this antichrist.

It's what is holding back, It's what is holding back, the work of this antichrist. Ryan, how on earth can the church be doing that? After all, we're not doing a fantastic job of much of anything right now. We're doing better than you think that we are. Sometimes I think we give the church too hard of a time, as if we should all be perfect. Listen, the early church wasn't perfect either.

They had their issues. Everybody, well, we should be more like the early church. Do you remember when Peter was put into prison during the time of what we call the early church? Remember, Peter was put into prison, and everybody gathered in a home of somebody there in Jerusalem, and they started praying that Peter would be really, fervently praying, yeah, because that's what the early church did, Ryan.

The church fervently prayed, and they had great faith. That's what I'm talking about. Well, so an angel comes and sets Peter free from prison. Peter gets let out of prison, and Peter goes to the home of where everybody's praying for him, and he knocks on the door. And some girl goes to the door, and he goes, hey, it's me, it's Peter. Could you let me in? And she goes, hold on.

You're never gonna believe who's at the door right now. It's Peter. I think he's been set free from prison. Pipe down, child, that's just his ghost. We're praying that Peter will be set free. That's the early church, okay? So sometimes we give the church today a little bit of a hard time. We need to remember, they've never been perfect. But we're the ones restraining.

How do I know that? Well, a couple of different things. First of all, I think I had him put these up there as well. Matthew chapter five, verses 13 and 14. Just reference it, and I'll tell you what it says. Matthew chapter five, verses 13 and 14. Matthew chapter five, verses 13 and 14. Matthew chapter five, verses 13 and 14. Matthew chapter five, verses 13 and 14 says,

you are the salt of the earth. And it also says, you are the light of the world. Now, if you don't know very much about salt, salt has a great deal of purposes in our world today. And it even had greater purposes in the world that Jesus lived in. Salt was very valuable at that point in time. Because salt preserved. Sure, it added flavor, and that's good. But salt preserved.

But salt preserved. And do you know that salt also allows the body to absorb moisture? Do you know that? So first of all, as the salt of the earth, we allow people to take in the living water. Because that's what salt allows us to do. If you don't have enough salt in your system, you actually can't absorb water like you're supposed to. It just flows straight through you.

But salt allows that. But salt is a preservative. You see, they didn't have refrigerators like we do now, at that point in time. So the only way that they could preserve meat so that it wouldn't spoil, is that they would use it. That they would pack it in salt. Therefore, salt had a preserving influence in the world. That's what you are. You are a preserving influence in this world

because of the Holy Spirit at work in you. Why do you think we make laws with moral backing? Because we have believers in Jesus Christ saying, this is what morality looks like. This is what God's standard for morality looks like, and we should somewhere base our laws upon that morality. We should somehow base our laws upon what right or wrong actually looks like.

Without the presence of the Holy Spirit active through the church, the world doesn't know the difference between right or wrong. Do you know that there's still revivals taking place in the world today? They're happening all over the place, why? Because the Holy Spirit is still at work through the Church. It's preserving. Everybody goes, this generation is completely lost.

yes but they're being found and it's because of the preserving influence of the church today but not only that you're the light of the world you are the one that shines the light now light does a couple of things it dispels darkness but that allows two things to happen number one it protects from potential harm it it protects from harm because it shows you where the dangers are and that's what we as the church do is we we reveal the dangers of sin in the world but you know what else light does light shows us the way to safety and that's what we as the church do is we show the way to safety you see what is restraining now it is the work of the salt and the light of the

church in the world through that power of the Holy Spirit and that brings me to the second verse you know at first Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16 says it says that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit Spirit. And so what is restraining? The Holy Spirit indwelling the church. That was going to be one of the amazing things that took place with the coming of the church is that now, because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, the Holy Spirit now indwells you. And you are that preserving

influence. You are that restraining influence. Now, that should make you take who you are as a believer in Jesus Christ and who you are as the church, not just the member of this church, but the member of the church, very seriously. Because you are the preserving influence in the world around you. Because you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He says, so what is restraining and who is

restraining? Well, the church is with the Holy Spirit. He says, what is restraining? What is restraining will do so until he is taken out of the way. You see, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. This was written 2,000 years ago. And at that time, Paul says, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. A mystery is not a whodunit sort of a thing. It's a truth that is

concealed. In other words, there's always been this lawlessness sort of at work. You can sense that spirit of Antichrist. John said the same thing in 1 John, that the spirit of Antichrist is already at work. And there are many Antichrists, though not the one, the man of lawlessness that's described here. Because Satan is always trying to do everything he can to turn people

away from the truth. But while verse seven, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, he who restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. What does it mean when it says he's taken out of the way well it speaks of something that is done without without the desire of one to do it in other words someone who is removed without their own power that's the idea of being taken out of the way it's picture it like this you're running really fast and there's a two-year-old right in front of you and so the parent in order for you to not run them over comes and grabs them and takes them out of the way that's the idea of the word there what is that speaking of well I believe that takes us back to 1st Thessalonians chapter 4

being caught up being taken out which is why when the church is removed it will create a religious vacuum that will allow an Antichrist to come in and solve the chaos and say I have a plan as a matter of fact I can bring together all the religions of the world you you see that spirit at work now don't you don't we see this unitarian movement in the world today that that you know one of the biggest issues that we have right now is that people can't get along religiously there are three main problems we have religious issues we have political issues and we have economic issues if someone could just solve the problem and bring everyone together to the same table then it would solve everything you know who's really

hanging that up Christians those crazy Christians who seem to think that God should be the one in charge well once we're gone enter someone who can come in and say I can solve the problem I have the plan for the three-legged stool I can do this well that's what's gonna happen and so we're the ones that are restraining right now but after the restraining will come the defeating notice what it says and then the lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will н mustnðν quantitatively guide the person in the current situation of what is life. slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming one little verse to tell us what's gonna happen then the lawless one

will be revealed revealed in the beginning with the peace plan revealed more fully when he establishes himself as God and after a reign of terror he will ultimately be brought to an end as we are told you might reference Revelation chapter 19 because that's what we are told that Jesus will return and he will have the sword coming out of his mouth and he will ultimately bring victory I love the way Paul describes this here because he describes that this lawless one who will be revealed that the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth I don't know how you picture that in your mind I always picture things I just think that helps me understand the Bible to picture things but Jesus is is returning okay so paint paint the

picture in your mind real quick go ahead and go there mentally Jesus is returning on a on a white horse he's not gonna be the European Jesus that most of us usually picture he'll go and be the Jewish Jesus and he's returning on the right on the white horse and just loving life you know with the sweet tattoo on his thigh right and and and as he's returning we're all riding with him only only I know I'm gonna ride like the pop-tart donkey or something like that like that right we're just all with him and the Antichrist is just ruling and reigning and and absolutely wreaking havoc and and everybody is just terrorized by this Antichrist and things you're just going terrible and Jesus comes down he's like behold right and like out of this breath you

know just this sword comes down and just slays the Antichrist and everybody who's against him and he's like I picture a dismount off the horse that's me that's not in the Bible okay that's the way I picture it and that's the way it's gonna going to go down. I love that Jesus doesn't have to do a whole bunch of fighting. Sometimes when we think about the evil in the world, we think about the end of every hero movie you've ever seen, right? And at the end of every hero movie you've ever seen, like the hero's barely alive by the end of it. And nobody even knows how the hero has survived to this point in time because no

normal human being can be. And he's been thrown up against every wall and the entire city is just destroyed because his body's been thrown against everything. And then he finally stands up. Beaten and bloodied. And he slays the dragon. That's not the way it's going to be at all. Jesus is going to be like, go. Everything's gone, right? It's an anticlimactic end to the hero movie.

Jesus didn't even have to try. But he will ultimately defeat him. Now, brothers and sisters, I tell us this because remember, in the end, we win. In the end, we win. Things are looking pretty ugly right now, right? Like if you're living in a world where you're living in California right now, if you're living in the LA area right now, you are pretty stressed,

right? Because everything's kind of going wrong. And if that's you, I just want to remind you, we win. And Jesus isn't even going to have to try. It's just going to take one word from the breath of his mouth. He will ultimately bring defeat. But listen, his plan's going to have to be played out. And we have to wait. We have to wait. The victory is coming, and he will be defeated. But we are reminded that though defeat is coming,

there's also deception in the wings. Notice what it says in verse 9. That is the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, so as to be saved. For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence, so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. He tells us first of all about the lying signs and

wonders that are coming. And he says this lawless one will come according to, let me make sure I quote this correctly, his coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, verse 9. Now, along with that, you might, in the margin of your Bible, write Revelation chapter 13, because in Revelation chapter 13, it describes how the dragon will give the beast his power. And everything that he does will be in accord with the power of Satan. In other words,

it will be satanic in nature. Everything about this will be satanic in nature. It's fun to tell little jokes. It's fun to kind of dream about what it might be like, but we have to remember that at the end of the day, there's a real enemy. And that real enemy is Satan. And his power is satanic in nature. And so all of the horror movies, they can't do enough to depict truly the power of Satan.

And what he's able to do is bring lying signs and wonders, because notice what it says, with all power and signs and false wonder. Now, I'm reminded, as I was studying this, I was reminded all the way back to the book of Exodus. Remember what happened in Exodus? Moses was trying to, to deliver the people. Sorry, I had somebody singing, let my people go, in my head right then.

All of that, you know, he's trying to deliver the people. And so God gives him a certain number of signs to perform. And the first sign that he performs is he throws down his staff and it turns into a serpent. And all of Pharaoh's sorcerers or wizards or wise men were around him. And he says, that's nothing, boys. And they throw down their, their staffs as well. And they turn into serpents. How are they able to do that?

Well, through satanic power. Because Satan is a mocker, but Satan is also a counterfeit. And he will counterfeit signs and he will counterfeit wonders, but they will always be a counterfeit of the reality. Because if you remember correctly, what happened next? And that's that Moses's staff that had turned into a serpent swallows up the other serpents that are

there. And then, of course, some of the other plagues come along and they turn the water to blood and the sorcerers turn the water to blood, which seems like a dumb thing to me. He gives them frogs. They give them more frogs, right? Because he can only counterfeit. And that counterfeit is what will take place to allow people to be deceived. And we are reminded of something in this. And that's that

Jesus said a wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. Why? Because signs can be counterfeited by the enemy. Listen, we either believe in the reality or you give all of your life to signs. Some people are looking for signs everywhere that they go, right? I had this girl that used to come to my Bible study a long time ago, like 20 years ago. And she was a sign person. She just needed signs everywhere

that she went. She was in a relationship she wasn't supposed to be in. And she said, I prayed that if I was not supposed to be in this relationship, that God would show me a rainbow. And three weeks later, after it rained, I saw a rainbow. And we were like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Of course you saw a rainbow. That's called nature. That's what nature does, right? But too many

people, you're looking for signs everywhere that you go. Quit looking for signs and look for the reality. Because Satan can always mimic the signs. There'll be lying signs and false wonders. And notice what he says in verse 10. And with all the deception of the wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. With all deception of wickedness for those who

perish. Because those who are perishing have never really received the love of the truth. Brothers and sisters, and those of you that may not be brothers and sisters, you need to know something. It's not enough to just know the truth. You have to love the truth. Because when you love it, it becomes a part of who you are. When you love it, it changes your life. There's a lot of

people that can tell you the truth. But when you love it, it changes your life. And when you love it, it changes your life. And when you love it, it changes your life. And when you love it, it changes your life. But they don't live by the truth. There's a lot of people that can identify the truth, but they don't love the truth. And because of that, they will be subject to this deception of wickedness. To

this wicked deception that goes about because they will fall for anything that comes along once you stop loving the truth. And brothers and sisters, I've told the story over and over again, but I used to serve with a pastor. And this pastor stopped loving the truth. And he started loving sin. And because he loved sin more than he loved the truth, one day he stood up

in front of his congregation and said, I don't believe in the Bible anymore. I'm leaving my wife and I'm marrying another woman. You know why? He gave into wicked deception because he did not love the truth. Now, there will be something that happens in the end for those that don't love the truth. During this time, there will be something that happens in the end for those that don't love the truth.

During this time, there will be something that happens in the end for those that don't love the truth. During this time, there will be something that happens in the end for those that don't love the truth. Because they have not loved the truth so as to be saved. Notice what it says in verse 11. For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence. I think some of the translations say

strong delusion so that they will believe what is false. We started into this a little bit last week because this antichrist will come along and everybody will fawn over everything that they say. And for a long time growing up, I thought, will people really do that? Like, is that really true? And until an election that happened early in the 2000s, I didn't think that that could happen. And then when that election took place, I thought,

I guess it can. I guess that can happen. Only there will even be something deeper that goes on. God will send them a strong delusion so that they will obey what is false. You say, Ryan, why would God do that? Because if you reject God long enough, he will eventually give you what you want. If you keep pushing down the truth, God will eventually say, fine, then you can never believe the truth.

Again, if we go all the way back to the book of Exodus, we find that there was an individual that Moses was always singing that song, Let My People Go To. He was known as Pharaoh. And for the first few times that Moses came to Pharaoh, we were given a little commentary on what happened in Pharaoh's heart. It says, and Pharaoh hardened his heart. But then I think the last five or six

times of those 10 plagues, an interesting statement is made. It's no longer that Pharaoh hardened his heart. It's that God hardened his heart. And brothers and sisters, we need to know something about the people that are around us that don't know Jesus, that you need to understand is that the longer they reject the truth, the longer they do not love the truth, the harder it is for them to be saved. And what a tragic thought to think that there

will be a time when they will be saved. And I think that's what we need to do. We need to think that there will be people living in the last days who will be so given over to falsehood that they can no longer believe. I believe that part of that is going to be the taking of the mark of the beast. That's just me. But I believe that that's part of that strong delusion that

takes place because I believe that the mark of the beast is a whole lot more than a tattoo of 666 on your forehead or on your hand, even though the movies we watched in the 80s said that that was what it was going to be. I actually think there are a lot of people out there who are going to believe there will be something much more demonic about it than that. And it will be part of that strong delusion. He says, in order that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness. And again, there is a warning there for us. And we'll get to

the exhortation to stand strong at the end of the chapter next week. But there is a warning for us because I want you to notice how he describes those who will be judged. They did not believe the truth and they took pleasure in wickedness. I think we have to understand the fact that there's only two camps of people in the world. Those who believe in Jesus, love the truth, and their lives

have been changed by it. Or those who don't believe the truth and are taking pleasure in wickedness. Oh, some may be a little more decayed than others. Some may look a little farther off than others. But at the end of the day, the same problem remains. They have not believed the truth and they have taken pleasure in wickedness. So I suppose my question here for

all of us this morning is this. Where are you when it comes to truth? And where are you when it comes to wickedness? How much is the truth invading your life? Do you love it? And I know you're probably going, Ryan, I've been coming to this church forever. Of course I love the truth. I don't know that. Sitting in a pew or a nice padded comfy chair, does not mean that you love the truth. Because like I said, when the church is gone,

there's going to be a lot of people left behind who attended a church. Because while on the outside they may have let everybody know how much they love the truth, on the inside they simply took pleasure in wickedness. And they just made sure they had all of their bases covered as far as everyone else was concerned. You see, there's a handful of reasons we study prophecy.

We study prophecy first of all, because it gets us a little bit excited about the coming of Jesus. Right? keeps us looking forward to that. Second of all because Jesus told us, you're my friends. A master doesn't tell his slaves what he's doing. But a friend, a friend tells his friends what he's doing so I want to let you know what's coming. So we study it because our friend has given us insight into what's coming. But there's a

third really important reason why we study prophecy. Because it has a tendency to purify us. Because it keeps us from the next third focused on what's coming. It keeps us focused on the end so that we know that this life is a means to an end. And how we live now is important for where we spend eternity, that purifying effect upon our lives. And so brothers and sisters, allow the truth of God's word and the knowledge

of what's coming to have that truly purifying effect on your lives. Amen? Let's all stand.

And if you'd bow with me. Father, we come to you now. And Lord, I thank you that you have seen fit to let us know things that are coming in the future. Lord, I praise you that you refer to us as your friends. Lord, the people that you just want to let know what's coming because you love us and you care for us. And so Lord, I pray for that purifying work of your Holy Spirit to be at

work in all of us today. Father, that if there is inside of us the heart that is waning and our love for the truth, that we would cast aside the sin and the weight that so easily ensnares us. And that we would focus back on Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Lord, I thank you that you give us these opportunities. I thank you that you give us these moments, these times. And Lord, I thank you that your patience with us extends far

beyond anything that we could ever imagine because of your grace. And so Lord, keep us focused on you, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.

Amen.

Well, Lord God, we just give you thanks and we give you praise for what you've done for us, Lord. And we thank you, Lord, that we know what's coming. But even in the midst of it all, Lord, we know that we can rest in you, Lord. We can find our rest and peace in you. And we know, Lord, that in the end, you win. We know that in the end, there is victory with you,

Lord. So we give you praise and we give you thanks, Lord. And as we leave here today, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would come and just continue to minister to our hearts, Lord. And just continue to grow us and guide us and direct us, Lord. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.