2 Thessalonians 2:1-5

2  Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, ² not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. ³ Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. ⁴ He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. ⁵ Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? ^[1]

In the first chapter of this second letter to the church in Thessalonica Paul addresses the second coming of the Lord. He does so in detail and now in this second chapter we know his reason. While it would appear that there was great confusion about when the Lord would return, we now can see that some false prophets who had infiltrated the camp, bringing a report or letter, caused the confusion saying that the day of the Lord had already come. It is bad enough to have a false report spread through the body that brings confusion, but it is worse still to have that report attributed to the leadership. Paul, of necessity, must now correct the report and remind the body of what he taught them while he was with them.

Paul corrects and alleviates the confusion by focusing on deception (one of the principle tools in the devil’s inventory) and the obligation of the body to guard against it. There are many today claiming to have some fresh prophecy or some newly inspired interpretation that is intended by the enemy of our souls to deceive and lure the body away from the Lord. Remember Jesus taught that the devil’s job is to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Deception is just one powerful tool he uses to accomplish that task. However, we often make the enemy’s job easier by our willingness to accept easy pat answers to hard difficult questions without doing the hard work of study and prayer.

Paul finds it a bit incredulous that the Thessalonians would be deceived by such a report when he had taught them about the coming of the Lord while he as with them. But their deception reminds us that God’s “people perish for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). What we don’t know or cannot remember will always get us into trouble and make us susceptible to the enemy’s devices. Let us covenant today to do two very important things: study for ourselves and remember what we have been taught.

Dear Lord, we confess that we too often look for easy answers and fail to study and pray. There have been times when we have heard things taught that did not sound correct but we had no knowledge by which to judge them. Forgive us for the times we have let our guard down and allowed ourselves to be deceived. Help us to better organize our day so that we can spend time with You reading Your Word, listening to You speak and communing with You. Amen.