Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow
along in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from 2 Thessalonians
in the New Testament, Paul's second epistle, his second letter
to the church in the city of Thessalonica. I've been preaching
through chapter two. And if you'd like to go there,
2 Thessalonians two, I wanna continue, I'm gonna go through
this whole chapter. And it's talking about the events
that will take place over a period of time just prior to the second
coming of Christ. The second coming of the Lord
to come back to gather His church and to judge those who have died
in their sins and died in unbelief. And the title of the message
today is The Great Deception. The Great Deception. I've dealt
with this, and if you haven't heard the prior messages, you
might want to order them, get them, or look at our website,
and you can hear them, or you can order them on DVD or CD.
But I've talked about the day of Christ. That's the day of
His return. That's in verse two. False preachers,
false apostles, had upset this group of believers in Thessalonica,
telling them that the day of Christ is at hand as if in the
sense that they said that Christ was coming back in their day.
And there have been people since the ascension of Christ, since
his death, burial, resurrection, and his ascension into glory,
From that time on up to now, there's always been people in
each generation who have claimed that Christ was coming back in
their day. We've had that in our day. I
mentioned a man who wrote a book. which he entitled it by the date.
I can't remember the exact date, but it was September something,
several years ago. I think it was 1998. And he said
Christ was coming back on this day. Well, it didn't happen.
So he rehashed his facts and come up with another date. And
that didn't happen. So we've always had that. No
one knows the time of the day, the hour. We who believe the
gospel, who are true disciples of Christ. We look into the scriptures,
we see things happening and unfolding, and we know that as time marches
on, we're nearer to the day of his second coming. And that's
gospel truth now. If you don't believe that Christ
is coming again, you don't believe the gospel. So understand that. So the day of Christ is at hand.
Well, people say, well, we're living in the last days, the
last times. Well, if you read the New Testament,
the last days or the last times, that's existed since Christ came
to this earth and did his great work of redemption. And he ascended
unto his father. The New Testament church was
inaugurated at Pentecost. And then the gospel began to
be preached out unto the world, to the Gentiles. And from that
time up to his second coming in the Bible is called the last
days. John said it. We read it last
week in 1 John chapter 2. John said it is the last time. It is the last days. And so that's
the day of Christ. Now we don't know when he's coming,
we live in expectation of his coming if we're believers. And
so he says, the first thing, he says, that day's not going
to come, verse three, let no man deceive you by any means,
for that day shall not come. Now you might notice if you have
a King James version, which I use, that the words that day shall
not come is in italics. And what that means is that the
original translators of the King James Version, they added that
into the manuscript in order to clarify. And to be frank with
you, sometimes they did a good job and sometimes they didn't
do so good. But here you can see this. You could read it like this.
Let no man deceive you by any means, except there come a falling
away. Well, what's he talking about?
He's talking about the day of Christ. That's not coming, except there
come a falling away first. And that's a falling away from
the truth. of falling away. In other words,
here's how it started at Pentecost. Peter and the disciples, the
apostles, they preached the gospel. The New Testament church was
formed. And it was formed on the ground
of the truth of the gospel. How God saves sinners. Now this
is important for today's message. If you're going to understand
the Great Deception, you first have to know what the gospel
is. And you have to know what it
is not, basically. The gospel. The word gospel means
good news. And so what is the gospel? Well,
the Bible tells us, very plainly, there's only one true gospel,
but there are many false gospels. And the Apostle Paul had to contend
with that. Back over in the book of Galatians,
he spoke of that. He talked about in Galatians
chapter one, listen to this, verse six. He said, I marvel
that you are so soon removed from him that called you into
the grace of Christ unto another gospel. Now in the original language,
in the ancient Greek language, when you see that word another,
you might see it several times in the New Testament. And there
are two different Greek words. One word that's translated another
means another of the same kind. For example, when Christ told
His disciples in John chapter 16 that He was going away and
He was going to send another Comforter, and he's talking about the Holy
Spirit. That word there in the book of John chapter 16, I believe
it's verse eight, seven or eight, I can't remember exactly, but
that another comforter is another of the same kind, speaking of
the Holy Spirit, who is by nature the third person of the Godhead,
the same kind as the Son, who is the second person of the Godhead,
the same kind as the Father, Who is the first person of the
Godhead? God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, now not
three gods, but one God in three persons. So he said another comforter,
another of the same kind. But there is another word, if
you will, in the Greek language, translated, quote, another, unquote,
that means another of a different kind. In other words, it's not
the same kind, It's a different kind, and that's the word Paul
uses here in Galatians 1.6. Another gospel. Not another gospel
of the same kind. Another gospel of a different
kind. And that's important because we have so many different views
of Christianity today. We have so many denominations
that preach different things. Actually, Now listen to me, actually
they preach different gospels, but they're not another gospel
of the same kind. They're gospels of a different
kind. And so Paul, and I'll be explaining
that. Well, what's he talking about?
Well, listen on. He says in verse seven, he says,
which is not another, that is not another of the same kind.
But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ. Now he's talking about not just
people who stand up and openly deny Christ. These are people
who claim to be Christians. People who claim to be preaching
Christ. People who claim to be preaching
the gospel. And so we need to understand
that these are not just open professions that we do not believe
in Christ. These false preachers who were
preaching another gospel of a different kind claim to be preaching Christ. They perverted the gospel of
Christ. But here's what Paul says in verse 8. Now listen to
this very, very carefully. You have to understand how to
thank biblically. And this is one of those verses
that teaches us that. He says in verse eight, but though
we, now who's the we there? Well, Paul would be referring
to himself as an apostle. Peter, James, John. If we, if
Paul came along, or Peter came along, or James came along, or
an angel from heaven. If an angel from heaven, what
is an angel from heaven? That's a messenger. And he says,
but if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we have preached, which is already preached unto
you, let him be accursed. In other words, he is not a true
minister of God. I don't care if he's the Apostle
Paul. Paul preached the true gospel.
Peter preached the true gospel. But if later on they came along
and preached another gospel of a different kind, you're not
to look at him and say, well, I know he's right because he's
Paul. No, you're not to do that. You're to say, anathema, that's
a curse, that's a false gospel. or if an angel from heaven. What
he's talking about is the two things that probably hinder most
people in seeking the truth. You know what it is? It's respect
of persons. Oh, I know he wouldn't lie to
me. He's brother so-and-so. He's been in this 40 years, you
know. He's a famous preacher. He's got a lot of followers,
huh? Well, it doesn't matter if he
preaches another gospel. Let him be anathema. So respected
persons, and then secondly, impressive outward appearance, an angel
from heaven. Could you imagine seeing an angel
from heaven? I've never seen one. I know people
claim they've seen one. Used to be this TV program, Touched
by an Angel. I watched it a couple of times,
still haven't seen an angel. There are angels. God has attending
angels for his people. His angels appeared in the Old
Testament and did marvelous things. They do marvelous things now
by God's grace and power to his people. But here's the thing. If you did see an angel, but
that angel brought another gospel, let him be anathema. Can you
think like that? That's hard. You know what it
takes for a sinner to think like that? It takes the Spirit of
God in power. What are we to judge by? The
Word of God. Now with that in mind, go back
to 2 Thessalonians 2. He talks about a falling away.
Falling away from the truth. Now here's how the church started.
But over the years, in the last days, in the New Testament days,
over the years there's been a great apostasy of falling away from
the truth. And what that means is he's talking
about those who claim to be Christian, but they deny the doctrine of
Christ. They deny the true gospel. They
preach another gospel. And what's that all about? Well,
that's preaching a message that places salvation at some stage,
to some degree, in some way, upon sinners and not upon Christ
alone. What is the gospel? Well, it's
all through the Bible. The gospel is the good news of
how God saves sinners. By His grace, through the merits
of the obedience unto death, the power of His death, the blood,
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Romans chapter
one, the apostle Paul began that book by talking about the gospel
of God, which concerns a person. And who is that person? He is
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God and man in one person. Now anybody who comes along and
claims to preach the gospel, but who denies either the deity
or the sinless humanity of Christ is preaching another gospel.
There's a whole denomination who calls themselves Christian
and they're very zealous who denies the deity of Christ. They're called Jehovah's Witnesses.
They deny the deity of Christ. Well, Christ claimed to be God.
God-man, the Word made flesh dwelling among us. So to claim
to be his follower and to believe in him, but to deny his deity
is a falling away from the truth. It's another gospel. Now understand
me, I'm not trying to offend anybody. I'm not just picking
on one group. I'm telling you. And there are
people today in other denominations who don't understand that Christ
is both God and man in one person. He is God manifest in the flesh. And then the second thing that
Paul talks about concerning Christ is His death, burial, and resurrection. Not just the historical fact
of it, but what He accomplished in His death, burial, and resurrection.
And what did He accomplish? He didn't try to save everybody.
The Bible doesn't teach that. I know that's offensive to many
people, but I'm sorry. That's not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible teaches that He died, He was buried, He arose again
the third day to save His people from their sins. His name, Matthew
121, His name shall be called Jesus. What does that mean? It means salvation. For He shall
save His people from their sins. His name shall be called Emmanuel,
Matthew 123, which being interpreted is God with us. So Christ is God with us who
saves His people from their sins as the surety of His people,
a people whom God gave Him before the foundation of the world.
That's why He said it. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. He said, This is the will of
Him that sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should
lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. And he
says in Romans 1, 16 and 17, Paul writes, For I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and the Greek also,
Gentiles, Jews and Gentiles, anyone who believes it, and that's
by the power of God. Verse 17, for therein in that
gospel is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith,
that is from the preaching of that gospel to those who believe
it by God-given faith, as it is written, the just, the justified
shall live by faith. How do we live by faith? By looking
to Christ. resting in Christ, who He is
and what He did. What is the righteousness of
God? It's the entire merit, worth, value, power of the obedience
unto death of Christ as the surety of His people. Christ went to
the cross for the sins of His people. They were imputed, charged,
accounted to Him. He was made sin in that sense,
a sin offering, a sin bearer. And He didn't do that for all
without exception. He did it for His people. He
said, I laid down my life for the sheep. And He went to the
cross and He substituted Himself in His holy humanity. God in
human flesh went to that cross and died to pay the sin debt
of his people." What is the debt? When we fell in Adam into sin
and death, what is the debt that must be paid? The wages of sin
is death. He had to die as the substitute
and the surety of his people and what he accomplished was
their redemption. He bought them back, and they
shall be saved. And the righteousness of God
is His righteousness, which God has imputed, charged, accounted
to them. And His righteousness, as evidenced
by His resurrection, is the source and the power of spiritual life
and glory. They'll be born again. They will
be saved. This is how God saves sinners.
This is how God justifies, forgives, and declares righteous the ungodly. It's not based on our works or
our decision. It's not based on our believing. If Christ died for us, I'm going
to preach on this later on. If Christ died for my sins, then
at some point in time, the time which God has appointed, he's
gonna bring me under the gospel and he's going to birth me again
spiritually from above and give me faith to believe and repentance
of dead works. He's gonna cause me to persevere
in the faith. That's salvation. Now, in order
to understand what I'm talking about in these messages on the
great deception That gospel has to be the rule, the measure that
is laid down in order for us to know the difference between
what the Bible calls good, which is the gospel of Christ, the
gospel of God's grace, and evil, which is any other message. So
he says, now let's go back to 2 Thessalonians 2. There's going
to come a great falling away, And that's a falling away from
the truth. And he says that man of sin must be revealed, the
son of perdition, the son of destruction. I talked about that
last week. The man of sin, that's antichrist. And many people are convinced
that's one man who arises on the political scene or the religious
scene and then fools everybody. I believe it's not one man. I
believe it's a succession of false preachers and false religious
leaders. But here's the thing about it.
Don't get your mind set on believing it's one man or even whatever.
The key to understanding this man of sin, the son of perdition,
is what is his message? What does he preach? And the
issue has to do with salvation now. It doesn't have to do with
politics. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever. Libertarian, whatever. The man
of sin, his message. And I showed you every place
where the term Antichrist is used in the New Testament. And
it was never referring to one man, but it was always referring
to a spirit that pervades the religion of false professors,
those who have fallen away. And I believe that's what it
is, and I believe that's what it'll be until Christ returns. But
the key to understanding this man of sin is what is his message? And if you look at verse four,
this son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all
that is called God, or all that is of God, or that is worshiped,
So that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God. Claiming that he is God. Now
you say, well, now that's just gonna be a guy who comes along
and has a great following in the world and he's gonna claim
to be God. Well, I don't believe that's what it's talking about,
but okay. Now think about this. This is the great deception.
I'm gonna preach on this next week too. So I'm gonna go back
into these things in more detail and show you. First of all, what
is the temple of God? Now most people will look, or
a lot of people rather, will look towards a physical building
that they're going to rebuild in Jerusalem. In the New Testament,
the temple of God is the church. The church of the living God.
And as we read the Bible, we understand that there are churches,
that is local bodies of believers, scattered about the world, and
collectively, now the true churches are those who preach the gospel.
You're going to a church maybe, okay? A local body. How do you
know it's a true church? Or are you being deceived? Well,
what gospel do they preach? And as I told you, now, I've
laid out the gospel, wherein the righteousness of God, wherein
it tells us how God justifies, that is, forgives and declares
righteous sinners, okay? And it's salvation conditioned
totally, exclusively on Christ. who fulfilled those conditions
as God in human flesh, the surety, the substitute, the redeemer
of His people, it's salvation totally conditioned on Christ,
who Himself, by Himself, for His people, fulfilled all the
requirements to save them from their sins and secure their salvation
under glory. Now that's a true church. But
now a false church, a false Christianity, a false gospel is any message
of salvation that is conditioned in some way, to some degree,
at some stage on sinners. It's up to you. You make the
difference. That's basically what it is. We could talk about
details on a lot of these churches, but any church that preaches
that the only way you can be saved is by you doing something,
you making the difference, whether it's believing, repenting, baptism,
or whatever, that's a false church. Does that mean that God's people
are not to believe? No. We are to believe. Believing
is required, but not as a condition in order to attain or maintain
salvation. Christ did that. We don't believe
that our believing is a condition we meet in order to be saved.
We believe in Christ who fulfilled all conditions. Now you may say
I'm splitting hairs there, but I'm telling you, This deception
is so close. Remember I read in Matthew chapter
24 in the last couple of weeks how Christ said that some would
be so close that if it were possible, they could deceive the very elect,
the elect of God. But thank God that the elect
will not, they start out deceived, but they won't remain deceived.
God's gonna bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ. So here's
this great deception. And I want to go into more detail
about it next week. But listen, here's this son of
perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself among all that is God.
Well, what does he oppose? Well, he opposes the gospel.
He preaches another gospel. Whether he's one man or whether
he's a succession of men or a spirit. He inspires, he condones, he
promotes another gospel. And remember what Paul said,
though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we preach, let him be anathema. Don't be
deceived in the great deception. I'll pick up here next week.
I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.