Hello and welcome to Redemption Church in Plano Texas!  My name is Chris Fluitt and I welcome you all.

Welcome to the 3rd  week of our Spooky Sermon Series – Scary Words

Scary Words

In week 1 we our word was Ichabod which means “the glory has departed.”

In week 2 we told you about the scary word Anapologētos which means “without excuse.”

Turn with me to 2 Thessalonians 2, beginning at verse 9.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-11 (NIV) 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Paul writes a warning about a very scary individual that he calls “the lawless one.”

Anomos – The Lawless One

The Greek word “Anomos” literally means “without law” or transgressor of the law.

“The coming of the Anomos, the lawless one…”  Wait Paul?  Aren’t law breaking sinners already present of the Earth?  Yes!  All of us are Anomos, transgressors of the law.  This would hardly be a revelation Paul.

Paul is talking her about a person coming who will work exactly like Satan works.

Anti-Christ

It is clear that Paul is speaking about the Anti-Christ. In scripture it is prophesied that the devil will come to earth in his own type of incarnation. Scripture says a great deal about this lawless man of sin.

We just read that the Anomos will “use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders.” This Anti-christ will be crowned king of the Earth and people will bow before his image and worship him as god. He will have the power to kill anyone who does not take his mark.

The Anti-chris is indeed a scary subject and word… however it is not our scary word for tonight.

“Pastor, do you mean to tell us there is something scarier than the devil?  There is something more terrifying that a demon walking around in a human body and ruling the world?”

That is exactly what I preaching to you tonight.  One more time let us read the scripture.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-11 (NIV) 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

One of the scariest words in your Bible is found in verse 10. As we read through our scripture, it is likely you moved right past this word without it grabbing your attention

Ou-dechomai: Refused

“They perish because they refused…”

This Greek word is the word “dechomai” which means “receive.” But attached to the word for receive is a negative prefix “ou” which means “no” or “not.”

They did not receive.  They said no to receiving.  They refused to receive and this is why they perished.

They told God “no”

I can’t miss an opportunity to tell you that God is all powerful and sovereign. At just a thought and utterance God created the entire universe, and God could undo all of the universe just as easily.  Nothing compares to the power, majesty, and strength of the 1 God of the universe.

…AND YET. It is possible to tell God no.

God gave you a free will and that is very powerful thing. You have the power to say yes and you have the power to say no.

God called Moses from a burning bush, and Moses did his best to say no. Moses came up with several reasons why God should not want him to be the deliverer. 
-Did God force Moses? Or did God persuade Moses? 
-Did God push a button in Heaven that wireless connects to a robotic circuit in Moses’ head to program moses to say “yes?” Or did God influence Moses to say yes.

Jesus, is that same God in the flesh.  Jesus walks up to 12 men and says “Follow me.”
-Was Jesus giving them an ultimatum or was Jesus giving them and opportunity?
They had the power to say YES and the power to say NO.

 

Nothing could stop God from creating the world.
But you can stop God from creating in you. 

Do you understand the power you have to be able to respond to God freely.

You have already been telling him yes or no today.  Do you realize it? 

Before we dismiss today, you will once again have the chance to look up at the all powerful God of the universe and tell Him “yes” or tell Him “no.”

2 Thessalonians 2:10 (NIV) 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

They refused, ou-dechomai, to love the truth and so be saved.

They refused to love the truth

The famous Greek word for unconditional love is “agape.”  That is the word Paul here.  Love, agape, the truth.

We put so much attention on knowing the truth, it never dawns on us to LOVE the truth.

Very often the church phone will ring and I will pick it up to hear someone desperate for me to tell them they are saved. They want some pastor to them that they are ok.  As awkward as it is, I tell them that none of us are ok, so why not join a church full of “not ok people” who love God and love one another.

On the phone they want to know that they have done the things they need to do to be saved. They have done these very true things when they were very small children… they believed, they prayed to God, they were baptized etc.   Although they have done these things you can hear the desperation in their voice – they do not believe they are saved. They are scared to death.

They know truth facts. At one time they received truthful doctrine. But somehow, they did not receive a LOVE for the truth.

What about us?  Do we love the truth? Do we have a powerful agape love for the truth?

Do we tell Truth no? Ou-dechomai, do we refuse to love the truth?

 

I can walk into any Church in America and say…
-Do we love the Word of God?   The crowd will shout amen!
-Have we read the Word of God this week?  The crowd crawls under the pew and hides.

-Do we love the presence of God and the wonderful name of Jesus?  The congregation will clap and say yes.
-Have we spent time in prayer with God this week? The congregation starts thinking about changing their membership to a less judgmental church.

-Do we love the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  Oh yes! Praise the Lord brother.
-Have we told someone about Jesus this week?  The church is silent.

Do we LOVE the truth… or do we simply believe and profess the truth to one another?

 

At Redemption we have the 3 things we do when we leave…
Connect with God
Connect with other believers
Connect other people to the love of Jesus

We aren’t supposed to just recite these truthful things… we are supposed to LOVE this truth and DO THESE THINGS.

You know the truth, but do you love the truth?

Proverbs 23:23 says “Buy the truth and sell it not.”
Always invest in truth, and never sell it. Truth is always worth more than what could line your pockets. When you love the truth, how could you ever part with it.

2 Thessalonians 2:10 (NIV) 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

They perish because the refused to love the truth and so be saved.

They refused to be saved

Do you understand that God does not send people to Hell? The message of the Bible is NOT that God just does not like certain kind of people, so he kicks them into hell.

God sent His only begotten son into the world to save the world.
John the Baptist calls Jesus “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Everything needed for eternal salvation has been provided by Jesus Christ. There is no missing ingredient. You and I forget to pick up milk, but Jesus has not forgotten to purchase everything required for our salvation.

Everyone should be saved! The most quoted scripture of all time is John 3:16 and it literally says this.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

The reason people will not be saved is because the say no to Jesus.
The reason people will go to hell is because they say no to the presence of God.

THEY REFUSED TO BE SAVED.  They said NO!

As powerful as God is, He has given you the ability to tell Him “no.”

Ou-dechomai: Refused

You have the power to refuse or to receive today. What will you do?

When you refuse God, He does not force you to receive. God does something very scary… He lets you refuse Him.

2 Thessalonians 2:10-11 (NIV) …They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie

God loves you and wants you to be saved…. BUT there is a scary place in God where He allows you to refuse

-God will reason with you.
-God will try to influence you.
-God will send you witnesses to testify to you.
-God will reach for you.

But there is a place where God stops sending truth, and instead sends a lie.

God sends a lie

This happens several places in scripture. (Judges 9:23, 2 Chronicles 18:20-22, 1 Kings 22:21-23, 1 Samuel 16:15–16, 23; 18:10; 19:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:11)

Now wait? God does not lie! (Titus 1:2) How does God send a lie?

When we say “no” to truth, we say yes to a lie.  When we refuse God’s truth, he will allow us to believe a lie.

God does not chase you down and force you to believe His truth, but He will allow you to believe the lie.  Even more, He will allow a spiritual deception to overtake you so that you believe the lie.

Saying “no” in anyway to Truth is dangerous.

THE COLOR BLUE

The truth is that this is the color blue.  It would be basically impossible to believe that this color is not blue.

Can anyone make themselves believe that this color is orange? I am not able to believe this color is orange.

Yet when we say “no” to God’s truth… we say I refuse your truth… God allows a spiritual deceiver, a powerful delusion so that we will believe the lie.

Would it be scary if a demonic force confused you into believing something that is not true?

Now this is just the color blue… but what if this was not about colors but…

-God’s love. If you refuse to love the truth, you could receive a lying spirit that makes you believe God does not love you or other people.

-Jesus is God and the only way to God. I have seen people who once believed the truth become so deceived that even when they read the Bible they twist it against the truth of Christ.

-God’s Word is true. I have seen people who devoted their lives to God’s Word, fall pray to a powerful delusion where they no longer believe the scripture.

The devil’s weapon is a lie

We see angels with weapons in scripture. The Angels outside the entrance to the garden of Eden have flaming swords (Genesis 3:24).  An Angel with a sword in hand stood in the way of the prophet Balaam (Numbers 22:23). Revelation has many angelic warriors…

Although Angels have access to weapons, we never see the evil one, satan with a weapon in hand.

I believe that God does not allow satan a sword, but that satan attacks through the lie.

John 8:44 (NLT) 44For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.

He murders from the beginning with lies. There is no truth in him.  He has always hated the truth.

Satan hates the truth…
If we do not love the truth we will fall into the deception of the father lies.

Ou-dechomai: Refused

They refused to love the truth.
They refused to be saved.

I am reminded of when Jesus said these words while weeping…

Matthew 23:37 (NIV) “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

Although the TRUTH stood in the city, they believed the lies of the pharisees. How do we avoid the deception of lies?

Be aware! The one who hears this sermon and is not moved in their heart, they may be deceived already.

Remember, the word “dechomai” means receive. It is the negative prefix “ou” that makes it mean refused to receive.

Receive (Again)

You avoid the lies of the enemy by receiving the truth of God. Receive what God is telling you today.

Do you often tell God no? Will you tell him yes today?

Are you in love with God’s Truth?

 

I want to share a final scripture with you today. It  is found in Revelation 2 where John is disctating a letter from Jesus to the church in Ephesus.

Revelation 2:3 (NIV) You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

That is praiseworthy, but the word of Jesus continues.

Revelation 2:4-5 (NIV) 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.

Church, you used to love Jesus more. Do you remember the love you had for Jesus at the first?

That love you had for His truth…
His presence…
His Gospel…
the love you once had for Jesus.

Redemption Church, are you still loved by God’s love?
Do you still stay yes to God, or do you refuse?
Pay attention to these next commands of Jesus.

5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

Repent and do the things you did at first.

Repent and return to that love you used to have.
Repent and worship like you used to worship.
Repent and cry like you used to be moved upon emotionally.
Repent and return to that love for the truth.

Do not refuse the Lord today.