Check It Out

Read II Thessalonians 2:1-17

“Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that
the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe
them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual
vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from
us. Don’t be fooled by what they say.”
(II Thessalonians 2:2-3)

Thoughts… Paul is speaking specifically about the coming of the Lord, warning his readers not to be alarmed and misled by the constant and “creative” barrage of new information coming to them about the end times.

Of course, what Paul teaches specifically has a general application as well. Not only are we hit from time to time with supposed “new teachings” regarding the Lord’s coming, i.e., “88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in ’88,” (I’m fairly certain the author of that one was off a bit), there seems to be a wide variety of new doctrinal teachings du jour that we’re forced to sort through.

Paul’s advice—and mine: Check it out in the Word. Whenever you hear of some new revelation, a “word” from the Lord, a new practice or spiritual phenomenon, go to the Bible to see if it lines up with the clear teaching of Scripture. If it doesn’t, don’t buy into it.

That’s what the Berean Christians of Acts 18 did. Verse 11 of that chapter says, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

Apparently the Thessalonian believers were easily swayed by every wind of doctrine. Not the Bereans. They filtered everything through the Word of God, and if it didn’t line up with orthodox doctrine, they tossed it into the spiritual trash heap.

Let me encourage you to be Berean-like in your faith. Know the Word of God and test everything you hear against it. It you will do that, you will not be misled as false teachings increase in these last times.

Prayer… I will keep your Word, O Lord, as a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway. I will read and meditate upon it daily. I will seek to live out its precepts fully. I will measure every sermon I preach and every sermon I hear against it—it will be the plumb line by which everything gets measured. Mostly Lord, I will honor your Word supremely in my life.

One More Thing… “The Holy Scriptures tell us what we could never learn any other way: they tell us what we are, who we are, how we got here, why we are here and what we are required to do while we remain here.” —A. W. Tozer