“Don’t Worry – He’s on His Way!”

Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
While our passage today is generally seen in connection with “end times”, I believe that it is more accurately a warning and a cry to the Church of today. 2 Thessalonians is a call to be aware of false teaching and false prophecy. It is a call to persevere in the things of earth - the oppressions, the pains and failures, the lies and deceits and to look forward to the day when Christ will return to claim his people. The Christian Church, during the last half of the 1st century, was all wrapped up in great anticipation of the Second Coming. All that Jesus had preached regarding the Last Days seemed to be coming true. There were wars of tyranny and repression against His people, hatred for the Church was becoming more and more a way of life, the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed in 70 BC and not a stone would be left standing – everything pointed toward the fact that Satan was running about unrestrained, and therefore a few interpreted this as a sign that the Day of Judgment was imminent – or at least they hoped that it was! A New Testament scholar by the name of Helmut Koester described this time as one immersed in “apocalyptic fervor”.

Read 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3
The Church at Thessalonica was getting all riled up, and they were neglecting the ministries of the day. Fear was settling in – were they fully prepared to meet the Living Christ? They were getting agitated – do our teachers really know what they’re talking about? They were more focused on how God was going to punish their oppressors than they were on their faithful servanthood in Christ! They were sacrificing their walk with the Lord in favor of the hysteria that the false teachings were creating.

Some were even saying that the Day of the Lord had already come! Of course, there was no evidence of that – if Jesus had already returned, where was He? Why didn’t the entire Church know this? Why wasn’t anyone seeing Him? Talking to Him? Falling at His feet and praising Him?
Paul tells them that they are being deceived with the lies of a few – that Christ won’t be returning until the satanic rebellion occurs and Satan’s own man appears to claim authority.

And today isn’t much different. We hear them all the time. "The End is near!" "Christ’s return is just around the corner!" "The signs of tyranny and hatred and darkness and calamity are all around us – how can you possibly not believe that the time has come?"
While Jesus walked among us, He confessed that even He didn’t even know the time or day – He simply knew that it would be. What makes people, spread all over the past 2,000 years, think they can know something that even Jesus didn’t know? The truth is that we don’t want to even imagine that things are going to get worse than they already are! But before the Antichrist is revealed, they are going to! The loss of personal liberties,
the hatred of the earth toward Church, the dominance of paganistic beliefs
– it will get worse before the “man of lawlessness” comes, and even worse than that, after he returns!

Read 2 Thessalonians 2:4-7

The lawless one – Antichrist – will set himself up as God on earth. He will have the full power and authority of Satan, and will do everything that he can to mislead the people of this planet. But for now, his activity is being curtailed. There is a power that, as Paul describes it, is “holding him back”. But even as Antichrist waits for his time to come, there is still evil at work in the world.

And that seems to be the sticking point. Throughout the years, many people have seen the activity of demons as proof of antichrist. But it isn’t. They experience a mounting sense of anti-Christian activity in society, and believe that it is proof of antichrist. And it isn’t. They see world leaders take power and begin governing in decidedly un-Christian ways, and they are said to be antichrist. They aren’t. As bad a shape as the world is in, it’s nowhere near to being like the days before the End.
Think about the periods in history when life was as bad or worse than it is now. Consider the 200 years of Christian crusades, in which hundreds of thousands of people, including thousands of children, died for a misplaced glory. Consider the hundreds of years and thousands of lives that were brutalized during the period of Inquisitions. And all in the name of Christ! Consider the countless people of Africa, who were torn out of their homes and away from their families, for the sole purpose of lining the pockets of slave traders and slave owners. Consider the millions of Jews and others who died in Nazi concentration camps, in the name of racial purity.
It has been worse in the past than it is today. And yet we still hear of people who claim that Antichrist has already been released into the world.

Read 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12

In God’s time – Kairos vs. Chronos – immeasurable time, vs. a given time – the force that holds Antichrist back, will be removed, and, to use a phrase, all hell will break loose! He will set himself up as God, with the true God being set aside. He will do many miraculous signs through the power of Satan, and many will be deceived into thinking that he really is divine!
And non believers will sink even deeper into the depths of darkness, and the Lord will not be throwing them a life line. The time for second chances, the time for forgiveness, will have passed. Vs. 12 – “… all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” And even worse, The Lord’s words to the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22) tell us “So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
Even those in the church who are coming up short on faith will receive His condemnation. This will not be a pleasant time!
The coming of Antichrist will be unmistakable, and, obviously, the time has not yet arrived. So if we still have time, so what if we haven’t made that commitment to Christ? Why worry? There’s always tomorrow!

The truth is that the time gets closer every moment of every day, and no one has insight into when that Day will be. Suffice it to say that when Antichrist is revealed to the world, it will be too late to choose Jesus. So what are we to do until then?

Our job is evangelism – sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as is humanly possible. We have to let others know that not only is more pain on the way, but salvation and eternal life in the name of Jesus Christ is, too! And He will trump Satan – His way will win out! Even though the earth will be devastated, those who are in Christ will have no need to worry! This is the message for today!
And you’re thinking – “But I could never do that!” But we must, and we can! And we are able to do that, not through our own means, but through the leading of the Holy Spirit. We must show the love of Christ to others in new and unplanned ways. It will require our being the reflection of Jesus Christ in uncomfortable ways. It will necessitate the living of a new kind of life – one that is totally unlike that which other people live. It may even mean that we will have to use scripture to reveal the truth of God in Christ. Now there’s a novel approach!
But regardless of how we convey that message, it means that we no longer have the option to wait. Our salvation can’t wait, and our leading others to Christ can’t wait. A few weeks ago I challenged you to greet others with the phrase “Take a risk for Jesus”. And recently, several have been reminding me of those words (It looks like I need to be very careful about what I tell you from up here! Some of you remember my words very well!) And I think I’m supposed to challenge you once more.

And the challenge is this: Don’t be careful! Don’t hesitate! Don’t worry! Don’t be afraid to take that risk! Reach out to all who are perishing because of the lies of society, and through their embrace of false teaching, and for their failure to surrender to the love of Christ, and through their belief that there is always tomorrow.
Don’t gamble with the Lord’s offer of eternal life. There is only one gift of truth, and that is God’s. And one of His time honored warnings is this –
“Falsehood often comes wrapped in the same garb as truth.”
- New Interpreter Bible
That is what the deception is all about. But Christ’s own have a vision that can see through the falsehoods, and we are each called to share that vision with others – perhaps those in our families, maybe those we work with, possibly a neighbor or someone else who we know very well. Maybe all of these! Let them know that the Body of Christ is for them, and that Jesus is the only one who can destroy our “worry”!
Regardless, share the word that our glorious Lord has handed down to you today. Be a true friend to this hurting world – introduce them to Jesus.

He’s on the way, you know.