Quakeproof

Quakeproof

Text:  2 Thessalonians 2

            “The end of the world is nigh” scrawled in bold lettering on a sandwich board is worn by a prophet of doom and gloom handing out tracts.  The message is to be prepared for the second coming by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.  Would we walk on dismissing it as mad ranting?  Or would we pause in curiosity to listen to this preacher’s message?  What would we hear? 

            There would be no shortage of disaster stories to bolster the claim that cosmic calamity is immanent.  The War on Terror declared after the collapse of the twin towers has taken a new turn.  The Axis of Evil discretely planted viable mobile detonating bombs in cargo on two planes and so found the soft underbelly of the Coalition.  And what about the economic collapse, the bailing out of banks, and the shift in global relations as the emerging Chinese and Indian economies unsettle Western domination? 

The preacher would point to the frequency of natural disasters as signs of the times.  Look at the tsunami and volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, the colossal flooding in Pakistan, sizzling temperatures and severe drought in Russia, and a crippling earthquake in Haiti compounded by Hurricane Tomas.  Surely the end of the world has arrived.

Dismissing the preacher’s scaremongering is harder than we might think.  We know that there is an ecological crisis which appears to be taking shape in Global Warming.  The media feeds fear:  immigration, violence, crime, terrorism and more.  Bad news stories disturb us.  What is the world coming to?  What if the preacher’s right?  Maybe the end the world is nigh!

Followers of Jesus in Thessalonica didn’t know what to think or who to believe.  They had been taught to expect his coming to ‘gather’ them together in his presence.  But they were being “shaken out of their wits”.[1]  Alarm bells were ringing.  Anxiety levels were high.  They were receiving a message that the ‘day of the Lord’ had already arrived.  There was something quite convincing about what they were being told.  They were accustomed to prophetic pronouncements by the ‘spirit’.  It was expected that by a ‘word’ they would understand what God was saying to them.  They were used to receiving letters instructing them in faith.  But they had received bogus letters forged with the signatures of Paul and his co-workers.  Paul is basically saying, “Don’t buy into the delusion.  Stand firm.  Hang on to what you know is true.”

“Don’t you remember what I told you when I was with you?”  Paul jogs the Thessalonian memory.  The Thessalonians didn’t need Paul to fill in the details of what would happen before the ‘day of the Lord’ arrived.  We, on the other hand, have a lot of questions for Paul that cannot be answered.  It’s like doing a crossword without all the clues or putting together a puzzle that has missing pieces.

 Let’s read this script with its missing stage notes and allow ourselves to be caught up in the drama of truth’s triumph.  There are several characters:  the lawless one, the one who restrains, and Satan and the Lord Jesus.  There are two realities that clash:  delusion and truth.  Delusion is the ‘mystery’ of lawlessness – all opposed to God’s truth and right ways.  Lawlessness is held back by the presence of the one who restrains and will be fully unleashed when the restrainer steps off stage.  Once the restraining one is gone then the lawless one will take centre stage.  The spotlight will be on the lawless one for only one scene.  It is certain that the lawless one will implode in a black hole of destruction. 

The lawless one pushes his way to the top, above all deities dares to take the place of God in his temple.  His arrogance exceeds that of Antiochus Epiphanes who defiled the temple, blaspheming God, and attempting to force people to denounce their faith (Daniel 11:20-39) as well as that of the kings of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:2) and Babylon (Isaiah 14:13).[2]

Once the restraining one withdraws and the lawless one is revealed that the ‘day of the Lord’ will arrive.   Unfettered lawlessness will be blown away by the Lord Jesus.  The rebellion may be impressive but Jesus’ presence will annihilate the lawless one.

There’s no doubt that the lawless one will come.  He is in evidence through the works of Satan.  Satan utilises all power, signs and wonders to deceive and seal the death sentence of those who hate the truth and refuse God’s saving purpose.  God answers persistent pursuit of false reality by compounding the delusion already embraced with an even more powerful delusion.

This story of truth’s triumph over deceit explodes the myths of those pedalling lies about the arrival of the day of the Lord.  Yes, the mystery of lawlessness is at work.  These false preachers and letter writers can point to plenty of disaster in the world and say, “See the day of the Lord has arrived.  Jesus has come again.”  But the Thessalonians need to strengthen their grip on the truth.  The lawless one - pure evil - the agent of Satan has not yet been revealed. 

This account of truth prevailing over delusion quakeproofs the Thessalonians against the seismic claims of the pretenders.  “Don’t believe their story.  Believe our story.”  The drama of God’s grace towards them is a reason for thankfulness.  It’s a drama of God’s choosing.  The Thessalonians are the first fruits of God’s saving purposes, set apart through the Spirit and through their belief in the truth.  It’s a drama of God’s calling them through the preaching of the good news.  The trajectory of this drama is sharing in the glory and honour of Jesus.  It’s a drama of our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father loving and gracing us with the hope of eternal life.  This drama invites us to step on stage and act and speak the good news out of hearts comforted and strengthened by that same good news. 

So the preacher on the street corner declares the end of the world is near.  He points to all the evidence to support his assertion.  Do these words to the Thessalonians give us any resources to choose the truth instead of the lie?  The story of rebellion, the lawless one and the one who restrains is so remote from us.  Even the language of salvation, sanctification and glory has the ring of a foreign language. 

So what do we say to the preacher on his soap box?  “It’s true that the world seems to be falling apart.  But all the bad news stories are shaped by the good news story.  Yes, there is evil.  Yes, there is an unravelling into lawlessness where life in all its forms is violated.  Yet even in the darkest places something is keeping lawlessness from extinguishing the truth.  I know that I live in a world created by God’s love and shaped by his grace.  I know that even when every shaft of light is extinguished and Satan declares ‘I’ve won’, there is hope.  This hope is grounded in the truth that Jesus will destroy all that seeks to disorder and destroy the life of God.  We are chosen and called by God to live by the truth in the direction of sharing the glory of Jesus.” 

Last week we travelled by train to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow.  I found Sonya sitting on a bench and watching a monitor.  I sat next to her and we shared the experience of listening to stories of Jewish holocaust survivors who came to settle in Glasgow.  One video clip was of Rabbi Eugene Levy speaking to a classroom of young children.  He delicately described the horrors of existence in the concentration camps.  In the midst of the hell he told of how he took an anti-Semitic poster from the wall.  He rolled it into a funnel.  This impromptu trumpet made of hate propaganda produced what he described as the most exquisite music. 

Another video clip was of Marianne Grant.  Like Rabbi Levy she described the terrors of the concentration camps.  Because Marianne was a talented artist, she was given the grim job of painting for SS doctor Josef Mengele, nicknamed the ‘Angel of Death’ by prisoners.  Marianne spoke compellingly and said that her art had saved her life.  It was the fact that she could draw and paint that kept her from the crematoria.  When she was eighty one she wrote a book entitled, “I Knew I Was Painting for My Life.”  It was only as we were listening to her story that I became aware of her artwork hanging on the walls around us.  Paintings of dead bodies somehow depicted beautifully through her gift. 

Atrocity is not limited to the holocaust.  Evil put the small city of Dunblane on the map on the 13 March 1996.  John Drane tells of this harrowing day being with people after the lives of sixteen children and their teacher were ended by a raging gunman.  He describes his encounter with a group of 17-20 year olds who had created a circle of candles, sixteen small candles for the children and a larger one for the teacher.  He watched as they lit them with burning cigarettes.  They identified John as a minister and invited him to say something.  He says he can’t remember what he said but it unleashed simple prayers from the young people:  “What kind of world is this?”  “Is there any hope?”  “I wish I could trust God.”  Finally one prayed:  “I’ll need to change” and stepped forward and looked over his should to check that the police on guard weren’t looking, digging out a knife from his pocket.  He bent down on his knees and laid down the weapon with the words, “I’ll not be needing this now,” shoving the knife under a bouquet of flowers.  This inspired another young person to relinquish something resembling a bicycle chain.  There was silence.  They dispersed.[3]

Will we confront delusion with the truth?  Will we receive God’s love and grace, living with hope in our hearts?  Will you open your hearts to this God-given comfort and be empowered to do and speak the good?