2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first… I. IT BEGINS IN A FALLING AWAY — 1. From the power and practice of godliness, though the profession be not changed. (1) Because this disposes to the entertainment of error. When a people that are carried with great zeal for a while, lose their affections to good, and return to a worldly life, then the bias of their hearts easily prevails against the light of their understandings. And so unsanctified men may the sooner be drawn to apostasy; they never felt the quickening virtue of faith, and were never wrought by it to the true love of God or an holy life. (2) Because if a lively Christianity had been kept up, Antichrist had never risen, and it is the way to keep him out still (Matthew 13). A sleepy religion and corruption of manners made way for corruption of doctrine, worship, and order (Song of Solomon 5:2). (3) Because there is such a compliance between the nature of Antichristianism and the temper of a carnal heart; for superstition and profaneness grow both upon the same root. To prevent this falling away from a lively godliness observe two things — (a) Coldness in duties, when the will and affections grow more remiss, and the worship of God, which keepeth up the remembrance of Him, is either omitted or performed in a careless and stupid manner (Jeremiah 2:32; Job 27:10; Isaiah 43:22). When you seldom think or speak of God and do not keep up a delightful communion with Him, there is a falling away. (b) Boldness in sinning. When men lose their tenderness and strictness, and the awe of God is lessened in their hearts, and they do not only sin freely in thought, but in act, have not that hatred of sin and watch fulness they had formerly, but more abandon themselves to a carnal life, they are falling off from God apace (2 Peter 2:20).Consider the cause of it — (a) Want of faith in God (Hebrews 3:12). (b) Want of love to God (Revelation 2:4, 5). (c) Want of a due sense of the world to come (Hebrews 10:39). (d) Love of the present world (2 Timothy 4:10; 6:10; 3:4). 2. From a true religion to a false, which may be done two ways. (1) Out of weakness of mind as those do who were never well grounded in the truth (Ephesians 4:14; 2 Peter 3:16). Therefore we need to be established; but the forsaking of a truth we were bred in usually comes from some falseness of heart. Some errors are so contrary to the new nature, that they discern them by the unction (1 John 2:20). (2) Out of vile affection, when they forsake the truth for the advantages of a fleshly, worldly life, some places to be gotten by it, etc., and as the whore of Babylon hath a golden cup, riches, and pre. ferments, wherewith it inviteth its proselytes. Now these are worse than the former, for they sell the birthright (Hebrews 12:16). O Christians! take heed to yourselves. Apostasy brought Antichrist into the Church. Let it not bring him back again into the land, or into your hearts. II. The next step is THE MAN OF SIN. As the first apostasy of Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, so this great apostasy brought in a deluge of sin into the Church, and defiled the holy society which Christ had gathered out of the world. Idolatry is often called adultery or fornication; spiritual uncleanness disposeth to bodily, and bodily to spiritual. Usually a corrupt state of religion and corrupt manners go together; otherwise the dance and the fiddle would not suit. The world cannot lie quiet in a course of sin, if there be not some libertine, atheistical doctrine, and carnal worship to countenance it (Revelation 11:10). III. The man of sin is also THE SON OF PERDITION. 1. Actively. False religions strangely efferate the mind (Jude 1:11; Hosea 5:2). Men think no cruelty nor dishonesty unlawful which serveth to promote the interests of their sect, and lose all charity to those that are not of their way. 2. Passively, shall be destroyed. Sometimes grievous judgments come in this world for the corruptions of religion; but in the world to come, dreadful is the end of apostates (2 Peter 2:20, 21). (T. Manton, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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; |
    |