March 10, 2008

• Biblical Eschatology Revisited
  
  
  
  Precursors to His Coming: Part 2B -A Closer Look at the Deceivers

  I had planned for this to be only a three part piece but as might
  happen now and again, new insights happen and I always welcome these
  when they are simply there before our eyes and we don’t have to stretch
  things in order to be able to see them and relate the truth to others. 
  What we are going to look at this time is a passage that dwells in the
  shadow of two much more popular passages that people tend to focus on
  instead of this so perhaps this might seem like a new look at an old
  topic…

  So let’s focus our attention on Matthew 24:23-28… and try to draw out the important items that its text communicates to us.
  
  
  Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He
  is,' do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will
  arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if
  possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go
  out, or, 'Behold, He is in the inner rooms,' do not believe them. For
  just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west,
  so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there
  the vultures will gather.   Matthew 24:23-28 (NASB)

  I once heard it said anytime God tells us something in the Bible that
  it should be taken seriously. If He says it more than once that we need
  to pay particular attention to it. At this point, it is clearly obvious
  that this matter of deceivers is a point that Jesus is making is an
  extended effort to make sure the disciples understand that it is
  important. Now we can see that, not only does He take this one subject
  and opens the entire discussion on this matter in verses 4 and 5, He
  repeats His warning in these verses later in the chapter.

  So when we are told these are “false Christs” and “false prophets”, we
  must understand that these will be people who will claim, one way or
  another, that they are the “One” or speak about (or for) the “One”, the
  messiah who will save the nation and the world of its ills and set
  things aright in “righteousness”. Pay attention to this since there are
  those out there looking for that very thing in anyone but Christ
  Himself and there are many who would like for people to believe that
  they are indeed the “One”.  I use the word “One” carefully here since I
  do not mean God here but the one who would claim to be the “One” and
  would have others acclaim him as that and then clinch the deception by
  performing deceiving signs and wonders.

  What is clear is that one of the signs of these deceivers is that they
  do not come as Christ will come. In fact, they will "ask" others to come
  to them and they will have huge followings coming after them like
  buzzards after road kill. In contrast, Christ will come and as we will
  see later on in another post, He will gather His people to Himself. It
  is clear by what Christ says that these deceivers will be asking people
  to “believe” in them.

  Let’s now take a look back at II Thessalonians 2:8-12…

  
  Then that 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 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. II Thessalonians 2:8-12 (NASB)

  So in light of what was said before, this “man of sin” will himself use
  deception, powerful manifestations, and the hearts of those that have
  already rejected Christ to draw in his followers. See Revelation
  13:1-10 and note the comprehensiveness of his affect upon those people
  who were not Christ’s.

  In order to keep this post short, let’s make of list of interesting
  points that we can discover when comparing these passages and also
  looking at this passage in Matthew by itself.

  1.    Note the use of the singular vs. plural: The II Thessalonians
  passage speaks in the singular with regards to who is doing the
  deception using great power and signs and wonders. (one to deceive
  many)  The Matthew 24 passage speaks in the plural with regards to all
  those who would perform great signs and wonders to deceive. (many)

  2.    Note the potential for contemporaneousness: It may be that the
  “man of sin” (lawless one) may be contemporaneous (live and act at the
  same time) as the rest of these deceivers. There may be a link between
  their actions.

  3.    Note that deceptive signs and wonders are used: The Matthew 24
  passage brings out the matter of deceptive “signs and wonders” passage
  for the first time.

  4.    Note that few mass deceptions have occurred historically: There
  does not appear to be a record of such a massive deception having been
  recorded historically. Therefore, such a massive deception appears to
  be a future event even from our perspective.

  5.    Note who the deception works on: It is not hard to see that those
  who have rejected the “love of the truth so as to be saved” would be
  drawn by those who appeared to be able to have “power” to control their
  lives and things around them for themselves and for their benefit.

  6.    Note when the mass deception will work:  From #5 and II
  Thessalonians 2:3, we can reason that the optimum time for these
  deceivers to appear is when there was an abandonment of the faith and
  unreasoning refusal to accept anything as truth except exactly how they
  want to perceive it for themselves.

  7.    Note that God will give them what they have asked for: God
  Himself will oblige the will of these who turn away from the truth and
  allow the deluding influence to have its powerful effect to literally
  “seal” those who reject His truth into that state so that it will be
  impossible to change ones mind after a “certain point”. It is not clear
  at this point when such a thing would happen but would reasonably occur
  when the Lord has determined that “the door to salvation is closed” and
  judgment is to begin.

  8.    Note that God had already made sure that they had heard the
  Gospel:  It is interesting to consider that these people so deceived
  “did not love the truth so as to be saved”, it would mean that they had
  to have been exposed to the Gospel so that they would even be in a
  position to have heard the truth in order to then not “love it”.

  9.    Note the differentiating characteristics of Christ’s Coming: We
  can see the repeating of important aspects of Christ’s coming
        a.    the element of surprise – compared to lightning which occurs when
  we don’t expect it although the storm that brings
               it tells us it might
  happen.
        b.    extreme speed – the flash of lightning gives us an idea of how fast His coming will be
        c.    comprehensive scope – “from the east to the west” often refers to a very wide extent even to the entire world.

  10.    Note the differentiating characteristics between Matt 24”s
  “coming” and Revelation 19’s “coming”: There is a distinct difference
  in the characteristic of His coming in Matthew 24 as compared to the
  His coming in Revelation 19 & 20.
        a.    Matthew 24 – more like “coming and going”
        b.    Revelation 19 & 20 – coming and warring against the lawless one and staying (reigning) for 1,000 years (20:4)

  Who would have thought there was so much packed into these few verses?

  I have some questions for you here… given the sort of clues that we have:

  1.    What sort of things would need to be in place (or are) that could cause a mass deception to work, indeed a worldwide one?
  2.    Beside apostasy, what would the overall desire of those who are
  ripe for being deceived that the “man of sin” might use to
         lure them
  into his deception?
  3.    How could the “man of sin” deceive so many people at once since
  we all know that everyone has different ideas about
         things? Remember
  the old saying, “You can fool some people all the time. You can fool
  all people some of the time.
         However, you cannot fool all the people
  all of the time.” Why wouldn’t someone discover the deceiver’s
  falsehood
         and reveal it?”
  4.    What is our main defenses against such powerfully deluding deceptions?
  5.    How close do you think we are to such a situation?

  Well, for only six verses, we sure did go a long way… until next time.  Mr.Vee

  • 4:35 pm
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