Many people around you likely haven’t made finding truth a central focus of their lives. It can seem to them an impossible task to determine what is ultimately true. With so many conflicting voices, they may despair of ever knowing for sure what to believe.
Does what I believe matter? For someone who takes God’s Word as the standard of truth, it does matter. In 2 Thessalonians 2, it’s those who have a love for truth who are saved. Conversely, those who believe a lie are lost. So it does make an eternal difference.
Jesus made it clear that before He comes again, there will be plenty of deception. Matthew 24 mentions this several times, just as 2 Thess. does. We should have abundant incentive to care about knowing what is true, because truth is where Jesus is, and that’s what the Holy Spirit’s job description includes — guiding us to truth (John 16:13). That’s why it’s a great plan to ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us when we open the Scriptures. Otherwise, our tendency will be to find there just what we are looking for, what agrees with the views we bring to the Bible. No wonder so many people can read the Bible and miss so much of the good news of the gospel.
As the great controversy comes to a conclusion, it makes sense that the devil will be doing his best to misrepresent God, to attempt to lead people to follow the path that leads away from God to death.
As part of that campaign, the devil has developed an ‘alternative’ for everything God says. He tries to steer people to a counterfeit, culminating in the grandest deception of all time — a false coming of Christ (2 Thess. 2). So does it make a difference what I believe? About God? About the Scriptures? About salvation? About the spirit of prophecy? About stewardship? About the state of the dead? About the Sabbath? About the sanctuary? About the Second Coming?
We might label some of these topics significant for Seventh-day Adventists. And we think they might well have significance for everyone in our world today, even though many may not recognize it.
I would encourage you to spend some time reviewing what the Bible teaches about these truths. And please pray regularly for God to put in your heart a love for truth. Your eternal life could depend on it.