Someone was teaching false doctrine to the Church by saying that the Lord's 2nd Coming had already taken place. Paul is explaining to the Church at Thessalonica that the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ has not yet taken place. And that before the Lord's return, two major events must happen first: (1) The falling away of the church and (2) The anti-christ must come to power over a one world government.
I believe that the first of these two events 'the falling away of the church' has and is taking place even as I write this blog. The fact that so many people who call themselves Christians and yet live like sinners is evidence that many have already fallen away from Christ. Look at how many church leaders have fallen into scandalous sex sins in our present day. Many pastors don't even believe the Bible anymore about Heaven or Hell! These churches are called 'seeker friendly' churches. They don't preach about the consequences of sin. The falling away is definitely here!
The anti-christ shall be a world political leader who shall exalt himself above God and shall eventually put an image of himself in the Temple of God and demand to be worshipped as God (Rev.13:15; Matt.24:15) Paul explains to the Thessalonians by revelation of the Holy Spirit that satan was already working his plan to bring the anti-christ into the world to be worshipped as Christ. Jesus explained in Matthew 24 that many false christs and false prophets would come in his name (Matt.24:5,11,24; Luke 21:8). And many false christs have already come in his name with there false religions which have become household names long before many of us were born!
I believe that the gathering of the saints (the rapture) is near as well as the revealing of the anti-christ on the world scene!
How can we make sure that we are not caught up in satan's plan of deception to prepare our hearts to receive the anti-christ when he appears. The answer is found in verse (10) of 2Thessalonians: we must receive "the love of the truth". In other words we must repent of our sins and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be saved. And we must grow close to the Lord by loving the truth. This will cause us to become more like Him, lovingly desiring his appearing.
Those who do not receive the love of the truth will be deceived into following the anti-christ when he comes. They will miss the gathering of the saints, receive the mark of the beast (the antichrist), and go into the tribulation before the Lord's physical return to the Earth.
Beloved saints of God, let us draw near to him (Jesus), repenting of sin, cleansing ourselves from the sins of this generation...Preparing ourselves for our Lord's Soon Return!
No comments:
Post a Comment