2 Thessalonians 2:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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2 Thessalonians 2:4

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The aim of the man of sin is to oppose Christ, the Lord. He does not simply despise the Christian message; he opposes it. Back in the sixth and seventh centuries when Rome began to develop, it did not despise the name of God. It twisted the doctrines, it perverted Christianity to its own inventions, it ruined the possibility of salvation for its adherents, but this is different. This would fit scientific humanism. It opposes bitterly and attacks and hates the things of Christ and the church. And it will get worse, worse than we see today. ‘And exalteth himself’ – the supreme height of human arrogance. We are taught on every hand, the children are taught in the schools now, man is not evil. There was a time when people followed teachers like Augustine and his theory of sin. It was not his theory of sin, it was right out of the Bible. He talked about depravity and the fall, man being sinful by nature. Away with all that! Everybody is good at heart. According to the new way, there is no binding moral standards delivered to us by God; it is up to us to write the creed that suits us, that works best in our society. Man exalts himself: ‘I know best. There is nobody above me. I am my own God. I can write my own standards and do it the way I determine and decide. I am not fallen, I am not evil, I have authority, I have knowledge, I have liberty to do what I like.’ He is god in his own eyes. ‘So that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.’ That means literally, man has taken the place of God for himself. We see that being reached in our own times. Man is so domineering. Look at any program on the television which has to do with natural life and the presenters are so evolutionary and anti-God, anti-Creation. Any term to replace God – nature does this, nature does that. You must not mention God; you are against him.

Application

We see the opening salvos now, but we do not see the climax just yet. I read at the end of World War Two when the surrender of the enemy was declared, the prime minister of the day, Winston Churchill, led the entire House of Commons, all the MPs just across the road to St Margaret’s, Westminster, which is technically the church of the House of Commons, for a service of thanksgiving. Can you imagine such a thing today? The name of God is unmentionable today. See how things hurtle downhill. Years ago our politicians would not be ashamed to name God and use religious terms. Then we noticed that was abandoned in our country, while American presidents still ended their speeches with ‘God bless America’. Now the Americans have caught up and increasingly religion and God and Christ is being unmentionable there in the smart circles and the elite circles. Now in our country if you were to mention the name of God, people would begin to bristle in resentment. Nowadays we have to put up with hearing Christianity attacked on every hand, as myth and lies, and now people who stand for moral truth are being increasingly criminalised. We hear a new definition of British values: they are the upholding of the breaking of God’s moral law, enshrined in law and increasingly now enforced.

In our country, for something like three years now, the teaching of Creation or even intelligent design has become illegal in the public schools. Many people have not woken up to that. It is actually illegal, it is an offence to teach these things in our land. All the students at university who this year are reading biological sciences will have their reading lists so carefully screened that they will not read one scholar, not one, who has any objections to the theory of evolution. They do not know it, they are programed to think, ‘Oh I do not believe in religion. I am free of that.’ They do not realise they are actually captive to a highly policed curriculum and agenda in which God is entirely removed.

Not long ago we had Professor Dawkins and his views against holidays for Christians, holiday camps and conferences for children. It was dubbed as brainwashing. It should be made illegal. Well it has not happened yet, but it will, because this is the domineering manner of scientific humanism. They cannot bear the thought that there will be 50, 100 young people gathered together under canvas or somewhere else, and they are having a holiday, and in the course of that holiday somebody is opening the Bible and teaching them about God.

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2 Thessalonians 2:4 Commentary and Bible Study