If you don't love the truth, God gives you what you want (and it's not good).
2 Thessalonians 2:10b-12 (NIV)
[People] perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
Canons of Dordt
Point 1 - God's Unconditional Election
6 - God’s Eternal Decision
The fact that
some receive from God the gift of faith within time,
and that others do not,
stems from his eternal decree.
For “all his works are known to God from eternity” (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:11).
In accordance with this decree
God graciously
softens the hearts, however hard, of the elect
and inclines them to believe,
but by a just judgment
God leaves
in their wickedness and hardness of heart
those who have not been chosen.
And in this especially is disclosed to us God’s act
—unfathomable, and as merciful as it is just—
of distinguishing between people equally lost.
This is the well-known decree of election and reprobation revealed in God’s Word.
The wicked, impure, and unstable distort this decree to their own ruin,
but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words.
Summary
People often recoil from the idea of God's sovereignty in salvation because they misunderstand it to mean that people are nothing more than unwitting pawns in the hands of an all powerful God who foreordained who would accept His grace and who would reject it. Paul anticipated this visceral reaction in yesterday's passage when he introduced the rhetorical question that springs to the front of so many minds: Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist His will? (Romans 9:19).
Paul answers this vexing question in today's passage. God blames those who reject Him because they refused to love the truth. As Robert Thomas puts it, "They lack a positive commitment to the gospel. This is just as blamable as indifference or even antagonism toward the truth."
It's true that God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, but notice this divine action comes in response to people's refusal to love the truth. It's for this reason, Paul indicates, that God sends them a powerful delusion. In other words, since people do not love the truth, God gives them exactly what they want.
People will be condemned, Paul writes, not simply because they drew the proverbial short straw before time began, but because they have not believed the truth. This lack of faith doesn't just leave them in some ambivalent gray area, it immediately gives way to them delighting in wickedness. There's no middle ground. You either believe the truth OR delight in wickedness.
Dig Deeper
This passage has profound implications for you and your faith: To love the truth means that it's not enough for you to simply understand the gospel correctly. Robert Thomas writes, "To love the truth denotes a positive dedication to the gospel. One can refuse to love the truth without refusing the truth."
John Calvin helps explain how loving the truth means much more than simply knowing the correct answers. He writes, "faith must always be conjoined with a sweet and voluntary reverence for God, because we do not properly believe the Word of God, unless it is lovely and pleasant to us."
Spend quality time today thinking about that. Can you truly say that the Word of God is lovely and pleasant to you? If not, realize the jeopardy such ambivalence places you in, for your lack of love for the truth leaves you defenseless against the lies of the devil and you'll often find yourself delighting in wickedness.
Do the hard work of determining what factors prevent you from truly loving God's Word - is it a lack of time to read and dwell on it, an inability to understand what you're reading, or maybe even boredom with its content? Once you identify this barrier, you can pray for the Spirit to help you overcome it.
All of us in our hyper-distracted society need to learn to love the truth more. The more you love the truth of God's Word, the more protected you will be from the lies of the evil one as you more and more come to understand that God's grace is stronger than you are.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who sends a powerful delusion upon those who refuse to love the truth;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you can identify things which keep you from more fully loving the truth so that you can pray that God will give you what you need to overcome it;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Acts 11
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