So verse eight again, then shall
that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the
spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming. The word then, then shall that
wicked be revealed refers to verse seven, where it says that
when the Lord gets good and ready, this will happen. Then when the
Lord has ordained, when he brings it to pass, withholds and allows. And the Lord Jesus gives Satan
here a little bit of chain, and when it serves his purpose, the
Lord takes Satan out of the way when he pleases. That's verse
seven. And that goes for all of those who serve Satan by preaching
the false, freewill, antichrist message. Notice it's with the spirit of
his mouth that Christ will conquer and consume. We've seen the battle
lines drawn, right? It's it's what they say That
deceives and it's what Christ has said that sets free that
Instructs and teaches and is the words of eternal life and
So the spirit of his mouth, the way Antichrist preaching is conquered
in the hearts of sinners even now, is by preaching Christ. It's by the spirit of his mouth
that darkness is dispelled even now. And when the Lord returns,
by the very brightness of his coming, he will destroy all that
is Antichrist. I believe it's Isaiah that refers
to that this way. The Lord alone shall be exalted
in that day. because that's what anti-Christ
religion does. It exalts everybody but the Lord. It exalts the sinner to the place
of sovereignty and reduces the Lord to a pathetic weakling that
wants to and can't. So even now, though, darkness
is dispelled by the spirit of his mouth. Light dispels darkness. And I'm glad about what's gonna
happen when the Lord returns. But right now, the way darkness
is dispelled is also by holding up Christ, the light. Listen
to Matthew 5.14, you are the light of the world. I don't think
we think about that very much. Because we know something by
God's grace about the fact that we're nothing. The Lord doesn't
need us. He may well not use us. He may not use us at all, but
he can if he wants to. And I'll tell you this, if the
Lord saves somebody, he's gonna turn the light off for them,
the light of his truth, his Holy Spirit. And the way he does that, his people, you are the light
of the world. We don't think about that much.
The only one that's gonna be able to tell a sinner about the
Savior is somebody who knows the Savior. So consider that
when you're teaching your children or speaking to anybody who doesn't
know the Lord or even is discouraged by taking their eyes from the
Lord. You are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men
light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick.
And it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before
men that they may see your good works. And a good work is a work
wrought on the Lord. Remember when the alabaster box
of ointment was broken and his feet were anointed with that
And the disciples objected to that. And the Lord said, leave
her alone. She hath wrought a good work on me. She hath done this. It pertains to my death. That's
a good work. It has something to do with Christ
crucified. It's done by faith in Him and
for His glory. But when you do a good work and
men see it, they glorify the Father, not you. That's another
way you can tell. If everybody's bragging on you,
boy, you did such a good job, and this is, boy, you know, how
wonderful you are, how spiritual that person is, then it's not
a good work. That they may see your good works
and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Christ is that light who will
consume and destroy by his brightness. he will destroy the darkness,
he will destroy the error, the Antichrist false religion. But
he also saves now, during this time, before he comes back, call
it the age of grace or whatever you wanna call it, but right
now there's grace for sinners. And he saves sinners by that
same light that destroys the darkness. Because that's what
we need to happen in our hearts, our darkness dispelled. All of
our thoughts of God, all of our thoughts of self, all of our
thoughts about how God saves a sinner needs to be driven from
our heart by the light of the truth of who God really is, who
Christ really is, what you really are, and what Christ did on Calvary
as revealed in his gospel. And so he does that even now.
His light is destructive of the darkness, but life-giving to
the soul. And my prayer is, you know, he
said, you're the light of the world. May he use us to dispel
some darkness even now by his light, for his glory. Now look at verse nine in our
text, please. Even him who's coming is after
the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders,
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that
they might be saved. There's a lot in that. The working
of Satan, whose coming is after the working of Satan. We've seen how this Antichrist
that's spoken of here is not Just like the great whore of
Babylon is not a single woman. It's it's false religion. And
so it is with this Antichrist we talked about how that John
said there are many Antichrists in the world and spoke of the
spirit of Antichrist So it's more than just one person But that person embodies false
religion whose Coming is after the working of Satan It's not
just a little difference in doctrine. It's not just a little difference
of opinion But we interpret it this way and you interpret it
that way Paul said if anybody come preaching any other gospel
than what we've preached to you Let him be accursed Let him be
accursed Gospel is not complicated. It's Christ. It's Christ Sovereignty,
it's Christ's will it's Christ's eternal love for his elect It's
Christ's mercy. It's his power to save It's the
Son of God himself But the working of Satan here false religion
comes after the working of Satan. Their tactics are just like Satan's
always have been. And that's important for us to
recognize and to thank God for the opposite of it. So even though
this is a very negative passage of scripture, talking about destruction
and darkness, but we also have the light here. And we thank
God for, the light that shines in all
of this darkness in this passage, for the mercy that God has on
sinners who deserve this destruction. So the working of Satan is described
here in some detail, and it's good for us to take note of it.
Satan is said to have power in this earth. You see that? The
working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.
Satan has power in this earth. Where'd it come from came from
God? God gives him the power that he has and that's that's
comforting to the believer if it were possible Satan and his
Those who come after the working of Satan would deceive the very
elect But God doesn't give them that power not that power They
have power, but they don't have that power Just like when Job
We have a clear illustration of the government of the power
of Satan in Job. Satan's power is governed by
God. Satan is called the prince of
the power of the air for a reason, because he is given power. And you just look at this world
of evil and the hatred of God, intense. Hatred of God in this
world and you see the power of Satan That's executed in this
world Everything that even has anything to do with God even
even people talking Telling lies about God or hated by by the
world in many cases Even just the thought the idea
of God is despicable to this world. So you see Satan's power,
and you see it in individuals, don't you? I know people, I love
people, that Satan is wringing them out. He is wringing them
out. And they're not innocent victims
of Satan. He's able to do that because
they hate God already by nature. And so I'm not saying they're
innocent victims, but is there anybody that you love that Satan's
just turning them every which way but loose? Just tearing them
apart? That's horrible. That's horrible. We see the power of Satan in
some of our loved ones. So that word power is significant
here. God's given Satan great power
to deceive. He says they'll be blinded, they'll
be given over to a reprobate mind, to believe a lie, and the
great liar is Satan himself. And as I said, though, Satan
had to ask permission to have any power over Job. He came before the Lord, and
the Lord said, have you considered my servant Job? In other words,
he had. He was wanting Job. permission to To tear it tear
Job apart and the Lord gave it to him up to a point You see
the power of that you do this this and this you do what you
want except this That's who's in charge right there That's
who's in charge But we see that in Job Satan did his worst to
Job and He did his worst to him. I mean, imagine what all he did
to Job. Job lost everything, even his
health. He couldn't even be comfortable about all of his losses, in all
of his losses. But God gave Satan power over
Job with one stipulation, not to take his life. And God
sustained Job in all of it. Sustained him. I mean gave him
the gave him the grace to say The Lord gave and the Lord had
taken away blessed be the name of the Lord He knew that he knew
who was behind it all he knew who was on the throne And that couldn't be taken away
from him I Know that my Redeemer live it that can't be taken away
from us from a one of God's sheep He doesn't allow it. We know
why it can't be taken away. It's not because of the strength
of our spirits, because God said, hitherto shalt thou come and
no further. But Satan had no more that he
could do when God said enough, enough. And that's the way it
is in all of this world. Satan has power to appoint, by
permission of God, He does what he's allowed to
do by God until God is finished with him. So power for now, yes, as our
text says. And by that power, he deceives,
he distracts, he does everything he can to keep sinners from Christ. Don't have any illusions about
what Satan is up to. Look what he did in the garden.
He, just as in the garden, souls are his desired target. He wants
to ruin your soul. He wants to keep your soul from
the Savior. And his goal, Satan's goal is
not to make you drunk, a drunk, or make you a drug addict or
a, Profligate animal some kind that
many are He does all of those things to keep you from Christ.
That's the end goal Those are just different ways that he does
it and you know the biggest way that That Satan is able to keep
sinners from Christ and this is from the scriptures I could
turn we could do a study on Satan, but it's not what we want to
do But you know how Satan works, how he's always worked. You know
his biggest tactic, his most successful tactic to keep you
from Christ is to make you religious. He'll preach to you. He'll talk
to you about God and heaven and hell and what you need to do for your own best interests. That's why he's not called anti-decency. He's called anti-Christ. He's
not called anti-good works. He's called anti-Christ. If you being religious will keep
you from Christ better than you being a prostitute, then Satan
will tempt you with false religion. He'll tell you that you have
a free will just like he did in the garden, and he will puff
you up tell you that it's all up to you. False religion is
always a part of it. Even if he turns you into a drunk,
or a prostitute, or a drug addict, or the male equivalent of a prostitute. Even a pimp or a prostitute will
wear a cross around their neck, False religion always has something
to do with it. And that's the point of it. That's
the point of it. He will use all of his power
to keep you from the Savior. And then it says that he uses
signs and lying wonders. You remember Pharaoh's magicians? They were able to imitate the
miracles that God sent Moses to perform before Pharaoh. He
said, well, my magicians can do that. And they did do something
like it. They were impressive, but they were lying wonders. They didn't come from God. They
made it look like they did. Man can't do these miraculous
things. It was a magic show. It was trickery. It was false. It was an imitation.
And religion loves all of that. They love everything that looks
like a miracle to the flesh. You know, that cloud looks like
Jesus. How precious, you know. That statue bled, you know, and
that crippled man was healed in our special healing service.
They love lying wonders. Even the very miracles that Christ
did, they stumbled at them. They wanted a free meal instead
of eternal life that was illustrated by those miracles and showed
that Christ was the one who gives it. And that's what people think
heaven is all about. We get all free meals all the
time. We get a mansion on a hilltop. Angels are peeling grapes for
us. Everything's wonderful. Every time our Lord Jesus performed
a true miracle, it was a declaration that salvation is of the Lord. The man with the withered hand
showed our impotence. The leper showed that we're full
of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores by nature in our wretched,
sinful disease before God. A blind man showed our inability
to see God. Unless you're born from above,
you can't see the kingdom of God. A dead man shows that we're
dead in trespasses and sins and the Lord Jesus performed these
miracles showing that no matter how dead you are or how diseased
or how blind or how wretched, you're not too wretched for the
Savior to forgive you. You're not too dead for the Savior
to give you life. You're not too blind for him
to open your eyes, but he's got to do it. He's got to do it. So religion imitates that, not
only in the miraculous things, but in the message that they
preach. They imitate the gospel. They have a form of godliness.
Like those serpents were in the same form, the magicians made
a serpent too, just like it looked a lot like the one that Moses' staff turned into.
But the fake imitations of the Lord's miracles that are done
now, it's just a magic show. As the text says, it's a lie. It's a wonder, everybody wonders
at it, but it's a lying. Wonder and in like manner what
they call a gospel is an imitation. They call it the gospel, but
it's not the gospel the greatest miracle of Christ That all miracles
were only a shadow of is the saving of a sinner by the power
of God through the preaching of the truth All the other miracles
that our Lord did just pictured that one the miracle of salvation
of grace and the power of grace and That miracle is imitated
by the lying wonders of false religions, preaching of Antichrist,
free will doctrine that coaxes sinners to make professions of
faith and walk aisles and make decisions and get religious,
all of which is damning to the soul. It's a great spectacle
to the flesh. They call it getting saved, but
that's not how God has declared that he will save sinners. It's an imitation. It's a lying
wonder. And like Pharaoh's magicians, the imitation looks like the
real thing and could be mistaken for the real miracle. But as
the serpent that Moses' staff turned into swallowed up the
serpent that the magicians produced, so shall it ultimately be with
the false gospel. That's what our text is saying.
With the brightness of his coming, he will dispel all of that. He
will expose all of that. And the true gospel of Christ,
as our text says, just like that true miracle, swallowed up the
fake one. Now many are deceived, but not
forever. Not forever. And then it's described
here as deceivableness of unrighteousness. Now this is interesting because there's nothing deceptive in
the general sense about unrighteousness. We are born with a conscience
that tells us right from wrong. We know right from wrong, even
by our depraved nature. Now, our understanding of that
is depraved, but there will be guilt when we do something wrong. And we know the truth enough
to hate him, don't we? Even by nature, men know, when
they knew God, they refused to glorify him as God. Their problem
wasn't ignorance, but rebellion. Now, there is an ignorance in
the sense that God has to reveal himself as he truly is, but to
reject God as he truly is, is a willful sinfulness of man. Not just a lack of knowledge,
it's a lack of, it's a lack of life and submission to the truth. So deceivableness of unrighteousness,
we're told that that's according to the working of Satan too,
and it's how this Antichrist will come with the working of
Satan, which is deceivableness of unrighteousness. The gospel
concerns righteousness. The righteousness that God requires,
that's essential to the gospel. You need to understand that God
requires you to be perfect. He has every right for you to
worship Him perfectly, to not only obey His law, but to love
it. You have no excuse before God not to be righteous in His
sight. The righteousness God requires,
the perfect righteousness that we can't produce. We're taught
about righteousness as opposed to works. That by works of righteousness,
which we have done, no sinner can be saved. The perfect righteousness
that Christ is, we're taught of that, that's the gospel. The futility and soul damning
practice of sinners going about to establish their own righteousness. The gospel in every aspect concerns
righteousness and the deception of Satan in the false gospel
is to set sinners about the task of working for righteousness,
trying to produce righteousness rather than submitting to Christ
as all of our righteousness before God. And this is the deceivableness
of unrighteousness. He deceives you into thinking
that your unrighteousness is righteousness, that what you
do can please God when what you do is sin. Works religion is Satan's workshop. Listen to the word of God regarding
that. And Romans 9, 11, listen to this.
For the children being not yet born, neither having done any
good or evil that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. If you had any doubt as to why
God particularly pointed out that he loved Jacob and hated
Esau when neither one of them were born yet, we have the answer
to that question here. Why did he deliberately and specifically
point that out, that neither one were born or had done anything?
To show that it's not according to works. The love of God has
nothing to do with your works. He bestows it freely. I will
love them freely. I will love them without a cause
in them. And yet what does religion do?
What does Satan do through those who come by his working? Walk an aisle, repeat this prayer,
make a decision, live the Christian life. Count these beads, wear
that cross, confess those sins. Ephesians 2.8, for by grace are
you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Why do
people work in order to go to heaven? I can think of so many
songs, you know, Working hard to get to heaven, that country
song. It's just ingrained in man's nature. Why do they do
that? Why do they do that? Work, try to do something in
order to be safe. When the scriptures say over
and over, it's not of works. It's not of him that worketh.
Not according to works of righteousness, which we have done, but according
to his mercy, he saved us. Because it's Satan's tactic.
They think that's their righteousness. They're going about Romans 10
to establish their own righteousness. The deceivableness of unrighteousness
is that you're deceived into thinking that your unrighteousness
is your righteousness before God. Titus 3.5, not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, But according to his mercy, he saved us. Does
that fit with the narrative of Romans nine that we've seen so
far? I will have mercy. I loved Jacob before he did anything
to show that it's not according to works. According to his mercy,
he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of
the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ, our Savior. that being justified by his grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Christ is our righteousness.
Romans 11 five, listen to this one. Even so then at this present
time also, there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. And if by grace, then it is no
more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. Grace plus works is not grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. They can't be mixed. And so what is Satan's false
gospel? Again, make a decision, walking
out, pray a prayer, live the Christian life, rededicate your
life. Tithe, read your Bible through
in a year. Count these beads. It's all the same. Bow to this
statue. All of that's the same thing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. That's how simple it is. Believing
on Christ is renouncing your own works. To follow the Lord, he said,
you got to take up your cross and follow me. The thing about
crosses is people die on them. Paul said, when the law in its
reality, revealing my sinfulness before God came, sin revived,
I realized what sin was and I died. The old me died. The one that
trusted himself died. The one who boasted of his own
works died. That's Satan's gospel. Do this,
do that, do this other thing, unrighteousness. All of it's
unrighteousness before God. What Christ did is our righteousness.
That's the deceivableness of unrighteousness. Everything we do is unrighteousness. Even the so-called good stuff
that we do. Our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags, Isaiah 64.6. That's Satan's gospel. the deceivableness
of unrighteousness. He convinces sinners that their
unrighteousnesses are their righteousness. And they will not submit to Christ
who is the sinner's only righteousness. And here in this text is the
simple, clear diagnosis. This is the problem. They receive
not the love of the truth. A lot of people agree with the
truth without loving the truth. They love their superior knowledge. They love boasting of their knowledge. They love looking down on others
and showing how much more they know than other people, but they
don't know They don't love the truth that they know. To love Christ's truth is to
love Christ. He said, I am the truth, and
that's the truth. And when people are deceived,
just like we were in the garden, when they're deceived now, the
reason is the same. What happened in the garden?
We loved ourselves and not Christ. We chose ourselves and not Christ.
We chose our own will, not his. We chose our own way, not his.
Our free will is more sacred to us than the Son of God. What was the working of Satan
in the Garden of Eden? He added one thing that overturned the authority
of God and the truth of God, the word of God. He added one
thing to the mix that overturned God himself and what he said.
One thing, he added one thing, free will. Here's what God said. God Almighty, here's what he
said, but it's really up to you. It's really up to you. You can obey that or you can
not obey that. And did he even really mean that? Didn't he question that? Hath
God said? You know, that's still how he
works. You can sit there and read to somebody that God elected
a people. You have not chosen me, but I
have chosen you. And they'll say, it don't mean
that. Hath God said that he's sovereign?
Hath God said, I will have mercy? Hath God said, it's up to me
and not you? Yes, he has. Yes, he has. Just like what he said in the
garden was clear. The truth is always clear. One
thing is added, it's up to you. God said what he said, but it's
really up to you. According to Satan's false freewill
Antichrist religion, it's still up to you. God's word is God's word, but
you have a decision to make. Really, when God speaks, when God speaks, listen to, let's read these three
verses and make one more comment this morning with our text. and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for
this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should
believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed
not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Now the correct
response to that passage of scripture is not, hmm, I guess I have a
decision to make. The correct response to that
passage and all of God's word is God be merciful to me, the
sinner. And when I say response, I'm
not just talking about words, I'm talking about the response
of the heart the response of your heart to the truth. When
God's truth is you don't deserve my mercy, it would be wrong for
me to give it to you, and I ought to throw you in hell. The response
of your heart is truth, Lord. Have mercy on me. That's how God saves a sinner. And next time, Lord willing,
we're gonna see how that God gets all the glory in the saving
of a sinner. Look at verse 13. But we are
bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. We have God to thank for saving
you. Hath God said? Yes. That's exactly
what he said. It's not unclear. It's not complicated. But the working of Satan is,
hath God said? Does that really mean that? Yes. May God give us grace to believe and live.