|
Paul told the Thessalonians that before the Messiah returned,
there would be a “ falling away” (apostasy, “departure from truth”).
This departure from the truth would then open the door for something
called “The man of lawlessness” to come forth. This “coming of
the lawless one” would be accompanied by “all kinds of counterfeit
miracles, signs and wonders” which would “deceive those who are
perishing.”
“They perish because they refused to love the truth and be saved,”
Paul writes. “For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion
so that they will believe the lie.” In preparation for the Return
of the Messiah, God is also sending powerful revelation to graciously
expose the ancient lie, so that those who love the truth can depart
from error and be freed from the bewitching influence of the spirit
of lawlessness.
In 1989, Ted Turner of CNN declared the Ten Commandments obsolete
and offered his own “Ten Voluntary Initiatives” as an alternative
to God’s outdated laws. No one should take Turner seriously, of
course, but he did make one comment that deserves our attention.
“Nobody around likes to be commanded,” he said. “Commandments
are out.”8
Christians may scoff at Turner’s idea of replacing God’s Laws
with human ideas, yet is this not the very thing the Church has
done with some of God’s Commandments? We have replaced the 24-hour,
seventh-day Sabbath with an hour or two of Sunday morning worship;
we have replaced the Biblical holy days with holidays of pagan
origin; we have replaced God’s dietary guidelines with our own
ideas about what we should eat.
After a person has been forgiven and justified by faith, where
should he look for moral instruction? Should he look to God’s
Commandments to tell him how to live the Christian life, or should
he ignore God’s Commandments and live according to man’s suggestions?
Even Scofield, in spite of all his anti-law bias and nomophobia,
concedes that the Old Testament commandments “are used in the
distinctively Christian Scriptures as an instruction in righteousness.”9
8
Turner''s Commandments, ""Peoria Journal Star, 27 Oct., 1989, section
D, p.22.
9 The Scofield Reference Bible, ed. C.I.Scofield (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1917), p.1245.
|
 |
