Bide and Abide

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.  Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. – 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4

From our perspective, the Lord “returned” once to visit destruction upon Jerusalem.  He will return again to collect and judge the saints.  I don’t pay much attention to “Rapture” discussions, because I think it will be pretty obvious when Jesus does touch down.  That’s essentially what Paul is saying here. 

My preferred response to people who want to get into debates about eschatology and the Mark of the Beast, the identity of the Antichrist, when the Great Tribulation is going to start, and all that stuff, is to suggest they read John’s Second Letter:  For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist (2 John 7).   The antichrists are already here.  You probably know one or two personally.

 The “man of lawlessness” would be one who denies Christ, a false Christ, possibly – if indeed this is referring to a single individual.  I think it might be a class or a category – like saying “the man about town” or “the big man on campus”, a type rather than a particular individual.   The number of people who think they are god seems to be ever expanding.  When that comes to be the typical message preached and presented by so-called Christian churches, we will be seeing “the rebellion” – the great apostasy, the great “falling away”.  Sort of like with the man of lawlessness, I don’t think that will necessarily be made manifest in an acute way but rather chronically.  It is happening now and has been happening from way back. 

Our job is not to predict but to practice.  Back to 2 John, verses 8 and 9: 

Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.  Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.   

So even the Bible agrees, to practice Dude-ness, one must abide.

Out of Order

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry -- Psalm 34:15

I was praying about a situation this morning, and I noticed that I was what you might call conflicted about it. Our realities are not neat and clean, walled off from the rest of the cosmos. There are tendrils that run into other areas, often underground like the roots of a tree. A hidden network can tie together seemingly unrelated events or issues.

We may find that our intercession is not ringing true, even in our own ears. Sometimes this is because of an attack of the enemy or because of doubts on our part, but it may also be that the Holy Spirit is challenging us to lift our eyes and look around a little, peek over the hedge and see what we’re really up against.

What I may find is there need to be some changes I am not really that interested in seeing occur. That’s what I realized about the situation this morning. When I looked around I saw that there are some positive aspects to the status quo from my perspective. If my plea for my friend is heard, I may suffer something of a loss – in this case it is only psychological; nevertheless, it was hindering me. It left me, as James says, double-minded. I had to alter my praying for a little while and first deal with my own attitude before I could move on to intercede for the other.

Prayer is the hardest work imaginable. It is literally doing the impossible. Yet it is as simple and natural, as prosaic and pragmatic as breathing. There’s no paradox – as with breathing, it’s a matter of whether my head is above water or below.

The Lord sees and hears the righteous, and righteousness begins with humility. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Can You hear me now?