Ron Dunn Podcast - The Second Coming Part 4

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Ron Dunn brings part 4 of his messages on the Second Coming

We'll begin reading with the first verse and read through verse 12. During these messages on the second coming, we are actually taking the prophetic passages from 1st and 2nd Thessalonians and expounding them. 1st and 2nd Thessalonians are probably the earliest written part of the New Testament. One thing that I notice as I read through these two epistles is that Paul keeps referring to how he has already taught them these things when he was with them, and how they already know perfectly about many of these things, which helps us to know that teaching concerning the second coming of Jesus was a large part of the apostolic ministry and message.

And the apostles left the people, or tried to leave the people in no doubt at all, concerning the essential facts concerning the return of the Lord. And in this second chapter, Paul begins to deal with some of the signs of his coming and how we can know that that coming is drawing near. Beginning now in verse 1, and we'll read through the 12th verse. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ

and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of the Lord has already come. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called god or that is worshiped so

that he as god sitteth in the temple of god showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now hindereth will hinder until he be taken out of the way. And 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, even him whose 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 perceived 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 God in his grace always forewarns man of impending judgment and doom. Before God destroyed the world the first time with a flood of waters, he raised up Noah, a man of righteousness,

and allowed Noah to prophesy and warn for a period of 120 years. Before Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed with fire and brimstone from heaven, God allowed Abraham to intercede and even put Lot, a righteous man, inside the city so that Lot, had he been faithful, would have been able to save some of those from that time of judgment. God forewarned the people of Israel that they would be led into a Babylonian captivity for a period of 70 years. When Jesus was here on this earth, he prophesied and forewarned the people that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed and that that temple that they

worshipped in was going to be so completely destroyed that temple that they worshipped in was going to be so completely destroyed that not one stone would be left on top of another. And so God in his mercy and God in his grace never leaves himself without a witness in the world. No matter how godless the situation may be, God never leaves himself without a witness. And God always forewarns man of impending judgment and doom. And it was prophesied centuries before that Jesus would come the first time. And God warned men that Jesus, the Messiah, was coming. And he gave them signs by which they could identify the true Messiah. And yet the people of that day, for the large part, ignored those signs or misinterpreted them and had their own fixed notions of what the Messiah would be like, and so they missed

him. Now, it is no less true with the second coming of Jesus than with his first coming. Jesus has forewarned us of an impending judgment. And as in his first coming, the Bible has given us a number of prophecies and evidences of his second coming. I sometimes have the idea that we're going to do like they did in the Old Testament because we have already our preconceived notions of what all of this is going to be like. I hope that some of us don't miss him when he comes and are not prepared for him when he comes

because we have already got our preconceived ideas about what is going to take place. Let me just say a word about the prophecies concerning his second coming. You know, there is no major doctrine in the Word of God about which there is so much disagreement as the second coming. And I'm not talking now a disagreement between ranked liberals and modernists and fighting fundamentalists.

I'm talking about disagreement among people who believe the Bible, who love the Lord, who are Spirit-filled, and yet even among their ranks there is wide disagreement. And it is the only major doctrine in the New Testament about which there is so much disagreement, even in the ranks of the same groups of people. I'll tell you what I believe. I believe that studying the prophecies of the second coming of Jesus is like working a gigantic jigsaw puzzle with one piece missing. And no matter how you work it, it just doesn't all dovetail and fit together. But if you had that one missing piece, it would all be so clear and obvious.

And it's my speculation, my belief, that the Lord has withheld from us all of the revelations concerning His second coming and so many scriptures that seem to contradict each other and so many things that we cannot understand. If we had that one final piece of the puzzle and we knew what that one last thing was, all of it would just dovetail together. I think God has not revealed to us all of it. You know, when he's first coming, there was a prophet that said he was going to come out of Egypt. And also there was another prophet that said he was going to be a Nazarene. And there was also another prophet that said that he was going to come from somewhere else. And I can just imagine back in the Old Testament days, all of the scribes and the scholars

would get together and they would discuss these three conflicting statements. And some would rally around one city and some would rally around one scripture. And then there was a group that would come up and say, well, since these scriptures are all contradictory in any way, and since they don't agree with each other, then we just have the right to assume that all of these scriptures are figures of speech and they are merely symbolical. And the other prophecy I

remember now that he was would be born in Bethlehem and so you have the three conflicting prophecies one that be Bethlehem one he'd be a Nazarene the other he would come out of Egypt. No way possible all those all three of those scriptures could be fulfilled literally so they must be symbolical. But I want you to notice what God did he was born in Beth Bethlehem, and then he went to Egypt, and he came out of Egypt. Matthew says that it might be fulfilled, that which was spoken of by the prophet out of Egypt, have I called my son. God warned him in a dream to depart and turn aside and dwell in Nazareth, that it might be prophesied, that fulfilled, that which was prophesied by the

prophet, he shall be called a Nazarene. And so every one of those three conflicting prophecies will fulfill literally and actually. And so what I want to say to you this morning is that as you study the prophecies concerning the second coming, and so many of them seem to be wrapped in mystery and contradict each other, you just trust the Lord and believe them all because God's going to work it out. And they will all be fulfilled literally and actually and physically. And if there is any contradiction, the contradiction is in our understanding of it, not in his fulfillment of it. And so Paul in this passage is beginning now to give us some indications and some signs of how can we know that the coming of the Lord is near. These Christians had had somebody come to them and say, hey, don't you know that you're in the

big middle of it already? You're living in the days of the tribulation right now, all of this persecution and affliction that you're going through. And if you'll study the epistles, you'll discover that they were being afflicted. They were going through a time of intense persecution. And so someone had come and had shaken their minds, had gotten them off balance mentally, and said, listen, the Lord has already come back. The day of the Lord is already upon us, and I'll tell you what's going on, friends.

You're in the flat middle of the Great Tribulation. Well, they were scared to death. They didn't know what was going on, and so they wrote to Paul. They sent a word by Timothy to Paul and said, Listen, we've been told that the second coming of the Lord has already occurred, that the day of the Lord is already at hand. Is this so?

And so Paul says, I beseech you, brethren, in verse 2, that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand. Paul says don't be mentally upset. Don't let anybody get you off guard and don't be shaken and troubled in your mind. That day of the Lord has not come yet because there are three fundamental things that must happen before that day can come. And he mentions them.

First of all, in verse 3, let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come first of all an apostasy, the Greek word apostasy, a falling away first. The day of the Lord cannot come unless first of all there, a falling away first. The day of the Lord cannot come unless, first of all, there is a falling away. Second, or third really, found in verse 3, that the man of sin, the Antichrist, be revealed, the son of perdition. But he goes on to tell us in the following verses that something must happen before the man of sin is revealed.

He says in verse 7, For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now, and in your King James Version it says, Letteth, and that word means to hinder, he who now restrains will continue to restrain until he be taken out of the way, and then shall that wicked be revealed. So, here's what the apostle is saying. The day of the Lord has not come and cannot come until, first of all, there is a great apostasy. Until, secondly, there is a great absence. Someone, something is going to be taken out of the way. Something that is right now restraining is going to be taken, be removed out of the way.

And then thirdly, the great Antichrist will come. The Antichrist, the man of sin, can only be revealed until after there is a falling away. And then that which is now restraining is taken out of the way. So in this second chapter, we have three signs of the second coming of the Lord, the great apostasy, the great absence, and the great Antichrist. This morning, we have time to only discuss number one. Next Sunday morning, we'll take the following two because they go together. But this morning, we're going to discuss and study the great apostasy that must come

and already is coming before the Lord Jesus Christ can come back and the day of the Lord be ushered in. Now the word apostasy is a word that has three ideas behind it. First of all, it means opposition to God. It is used in the scriptures in this sense of being opposed to God. It is used in the scriptures in this sense of being opposed to God. Secondly, it means rebellion against constituted authority, rebellion against constituted authority. And thirdly, it means a falling away or a departing from former loyalties and alliances. These three aspects. It is opposition to God.

It is rebellion against constituted authority. This word is used of a military uprising. It is used of political anarchy. Rebellion against constituted authority. And thirdly, a departing, a falling away from former allegiances and loyalties. Now, already in the world, there is a great apostasy. Already in the world, there is opposition and hostility towards God. Already in the world, there is a rebellion against constituted authority. I was just studying yesterday how God in the beginning set up human government

and the purpose for which human government was set up was to punish evildoers. And God never considered the rights of evildoers. The only right the evildoer had was to be punished. And from God's point of view, when a man broke the law and became an evildoer, he had forfeited his rights and he was to be punished. And from God's point of view, when a man broke the law and became an evildoer, he had forfeited his rights and he was to be punished. Now, the man of sin, that word literally means the lawless one. Before the lawless one can be revealed, first of all, human government must be

weakened and the law of God must be set aside. And I submit to you that in the hands of our courts and in so many other legislative bodies, the way of the Antichrist is already being prepared for his coming because, well, we are concerned today, it seems, more about the rights of the criminal than we are the rights of the victim. And it's so hard nowadays for the legal arm of the law to operate effectively because we're so concerned about protecting the rights of people. Now, we ought to be concerned about the rights of the people, but we also ought to realize that when a man violates the laws of the land, he forfeits

many of his rights. And his primary right is to be punished by the government which God has given. And when you oppose the government, you are opposing the minister of God. You read Romans chapter 13. Right or wrong, the government is the, and that's the same word we have for deacon. It is the deacon of God. It is the minister of God to administrate the law and the justice of God. Well, we can see how Satan is working in the world. But the apostasy that the Bible has most to say about, and the apostasy I want us to talk about this morning, is the apostasy that is going on in the church, because this is what Paul is referring to, I think,

in the second letter of Thessalonians. There is an apostasy in the world among the unbelieving people, but there is also a great apostasy among professing Christians. Notice I didn't say possessing Christians. I said professing Christians because a true believer will not, cannot apostatize. But it is prophesied that Jesus will be wounded in the house of his friends, and the greatest falling away and the greatest apostasy will take place among those who profess to be his friends and profess to own his name. Now, what kind of apostasy is going on right now, which is preparing the way of the coming of the Lord? First of all, there is an apostasy of belief, an apostasy of belief.

Now, I'm going to read several verses of Scripture, and I want you to listen and follow along as I read. Over in 1 John 2, beginning with verse 18, listen to this prophecy. Little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, Little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time. You see, there is going to come one supreme Antichrist at the last time.

But right now, John says, and he's writing 1900 years ago, right now there are many Antichrists in the world. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But you have an unction from the Holy One and you know all things. It is impossible for a born-again believer to be deceived about the truth of Jesus Christ, because he has an unction. I have not written unto you because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that

denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Now, just as Jesus had his forerunner in the person of John the Baptist, and so when Jesus came, he already had a ready-made congregation in the apostles and disciples of John to receive the Messiah. In the same way, the Antichrist has his forerunners. And when the Antichrist comes on the scene, he will find a ready-made congregation to receive him and to replace Jesus Christ in their lives. Now, before the people can be made ready to receive the, instead of Christ, the Antichrist, first of all, the real Christ must be displaced in their minds and in their hearts.

And the way the devil does this is to send out false teachers among the people to deceive them concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Every false religion, every religion, every denomination, every cult, every sect today that departs from historic Christian faith is a forerunner of the Antichrist. Every religion, every teacher that takes away from the lonely lordship of Jesus Christ and says that Jesus Christ is not, is not the only way to God is a forerunner of the Antichrist. And that's the touchstone of the faith. What does a man say about Jesus? He says, well, I believe that Jesus was God's Son. Yeah, but you believe it just like everybody else is God's Son.

You're Antichrist. You believe that Jesus is one of the ways to heaven, but not the only way to heaven. You're of Antichrist. Who is a liar? He is the liar that denies that Jesus is the Christ, the only Messiah, the only way to approach God. And so that's why you're seeing today such a tremendous revival among these brandexed religions. And why people are being swallowed up by false teachings today.

Did you know where Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons and all of these get most of their converts? Do you know where they get them? They get them from Baptists and Methodists who have never been saved, and so they will believe a lie. There is an apostasy of belief going on in the churches today. And you will be amazed, don't be amazed, don't be surprised as the time grows nearer to the end that more preachers and more teachers

stand in the pulpits and behind the desks in seminaries and colleges and take away from the lonely lordship of Jesus Christ. There is an apostasy of belief. This is what I was talking about Wednesday night. You are playing into the hands of Satan when you foolishly listen to all the false teaching that goes around. And we do it under the guise of pseudo-intellectualism and tolerance and trying to be broad-minded. And we just welcome and listen to anything that goes under the name of scholarly teaching. And Paul said, when I heard about these people who drew away from Jesus, he said, I wept. They are enemies of the cross. And God's people need to be aware.

Now listen, any time a member of MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church says, I have renounced my faith, I don't believe like I used to believe, I don't believe that Jesus is the only way, I believe that there are other ways, and I believe that there's some good in this, and I don't believe that he's the only unique Son of God, I believe there are others who, I want you to know that person has never been saved.

It is impossible for one who has the Spirit of God dwelling in them to believe, to believe and embrace a lie about Jesus Christ. They can be deceived about a great many things, but he says, you have an unction from the Holy One and you know the truth. You know the truth. So unsaved Baptists and unsaved Methodists and unsaved Protestants are jamming the buildings today of false religions in

preparation for the coming of Antichrist. And you make certain that there's going to be an even greater increase of false religion and false teaching in the coming days. But not only is there an apostasy of unbelief, there is also an apostasy of behavior going on in the church today. Now, you know, it's interesting to notice how these two always go together. False teaching and false living always go together. Listen to what he says in 2 Peter 3, knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers,

that means cynics, denying the truth, there shall come scoffers walking after their own lusts and say, where is the promise of his coming? Now I want you to notice these two things. First of all, they're scoffers. That means they are laughing and mocking and denying the word of God. But notice something else about them. They're walking after their own lust. They're slaves to their own evil desires.

Those two are Siamese twins. They always go together. A person who is a scoffer, a person who denies the truth of the word of God, always walks hand in hand with a person who is the slave to his own unholy desires. You know what the psalmist said? The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. The Hebrew word fool there means a moral fool, not an intellectual fool, but a man who is living like a fool.

As far as his morals are concerned, he's a fool. And so he denies there is a God. Why? Because if he acknowledges there is a God, he must acknowledge there is a hereafter, he must acknowledge there is a God. Why? Because if he acknowledges there is a God, he must acknowledge there is a hereafter, he must acknowledge there is a judgment, and he must acknowledge that he is going to be damned for his foolishness. And so he must either do one of two things.

He must either repent or rationalize. You know, sometimes college students come back from college and they come to see the pastor. And they say, Pastor, I don't believe it anymore. I just don't believe it anymore. I had a professor here and I had a professor there and I have intellectual doubts about the Word of God.

And I'm telling you honestly this morning after I investigate and probe into them a little bit, I find that 99 times out of 100 what has happened is they've gone off to college and they've fallen into sin. And they must do one of two things. They must either repent or rationalize. I've talked to 100 people, college kids, that have doubts about the Word of God. And when you get down to it, and when they confess their sin, and they have a spiritual catharsis and they bring all of their sins up out and confess them, suddenly their doubts, their intellectual questions are no longer existent. There is an apostasy of belief and hand in hand with that there is an apostasy of behavior.

Now listen to Jude verse 4. For there are certain men crept in unawares. Now that word crept in unawares means to slide in sideways. It's a picture of a burglar coming through your window. They're inside the church. You don't know they're there. You don't know they're lost because they crept in unawares. You just look at them. They profess to be saved. They believe all the right things. But notice, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus

Christ. And he goes on to describe them in the epistle of Jude. He doesn't say a thing about false teaching. They're not false teachers. They are false believers. And what they've done, they've come into the church and they've said, I believe in the grace of God. I believe in one saved, always saved.

And I believe that no matter what I do, I'm going to heaven when I die. And after all, the most important thing is what you believe. And we live in a sophisticated, educated age. Don't get so uptight. Don't be so puritanical about your beliefs. Just live any way you want to, and they are of Antichrist. And they're lost.

There is an apostasy in the church today of behavior. Now today, there is a widespread movement that everybody calls the Jesus Movement. I resent that a little bit because I've been in the Jesus Movement ever since I was nine years old. Someone said, the Jesus Revolution has come to a certain town. I said, man, we've got a Jesus Revolution every Sunday in our church. But you know the thing that worries me most about this? It's that Jesus is becoming mighty popular.

And friends, the only way that Jesus can ever be popular is if you compromise him and present him in a wrong light. You cannot read the Word of God and come away believing that Jesus can ever be popular with the masses of people. And as Jesus becomes more and more and more popular, I want you to notice there is going to be more and more lasciviousness and ungodly living among those who are high on Jesus. Quote, quote. I find a missing note today. You know what that missing note is?

Repentance. I hear people preach. I hear people talk about Jesus, Jesus' revolution. Everybody's high on Jesus. Turn on to Jesus. I find a missing element, repentance. Are you willing to turn from your sin and forsake it? If you're not, you don't need to come to Jesus.

You know what we're doing? We're so eager to have everybody love Jesus, we want to make him unrejectable. We want to make Christianity compatible to people. And so what we're doing today is de-emphasizing the sinfulness of man, and we are leaving out the message of repentance, and we're saying, listen, Jesus is where it's at. If you want to get high, a high that'll never leave you low, you come to Jesus, and we don't say anything about, listen, you've got to leave your sins. And if you're not willing to turn from your sins, you cannot be saved.

And so what's happening in the churches today is that there are people living in the churches who are living ungodly lives secretly. And yet if you were to ask them, are you saved? They would say, sure I'm saved because after all I believe the right thing. I have the right belief. I have the right orthodoxy. I have the right doctrines. I'm saved.

There is an apostasy of behavior, a lowering of moral standards within the church. Within the church. Well now why does God permit this apostasy to take place? Why does God permit an apostasy of belief and an apostasy of behavior within his church? Listen to this verse, 1 Corinthians 11, 19, For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. Let me read that again. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest

among you. Why does God allow heresy in the church? Why is God allowing this great apostasy in the church? In order to make it obvious who's saved and who isn't. Listen again to 1 John 2, verse 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us." Now notice this, "...but they went out," why? In order that they might be made obvious that they were not all of us.

As the time of the coming of Jesus draws nearer, listen, it's going to be more and more obvious who is saved and who is lost in MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church. As we get closer to that coming of the Lord and as the apostasy begins to creep in all over our cities and in our churches, it's going to be more and more obvious who's lost and who's really saved. Have you noticed that lately? Have you noticed that lately,

how all of a sudden it just becomes harder and harder to fake it? It's going to get harder and harder, friend. And perhaps some of you sitting here this morning listening to this message in the near future will apostatize and you'll leave this church and maybe go into some false teaching, false religion, or just a none at all, just so you can live like you want to live. And when that happens,

it will be because the Lord wanted it to be obvious who was with us and who wasn't. I praise God for it. I thank God for it. Because he said that the wheat and the tares must grow up together until the Lord comes back. And it's not my job or anybody else's job to go sifting out the wheat from the tares. I might make a mistake. He said, you leave that for me. I'll handle that. But as the time grows nearer and as the Spirit of God becomes more intense in his working in

the lives of yielded and spirit-filled believers, it's going to be harder and harder for some of you to stand it and take it. And you'll either have to repent or rationalize and say, there's nothing to it, and leave and go somewhere else. That's why the Lord allows apostasy. Because in the final analysis, Jesus wants only those who really mean business and who are really willing to own him as absolute unrivaled Lord. Are you willing to do that this morning? Is Jesus Lord in your life? Is he unrivaled, Lord, in your life? Have you ever come to that moment in the history of your own existence

where you have recognized your sinfulness and your lostness and you've called upon the name of the Lord for salvation? If you haven't, you need to do that. You need to do that. And you can do it this morning. Let's pray together. The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, need to do that. And you can do it this morning. Let's pray together. Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.