*Title:* A Love of the Truth — Philip Giddings, April 25, 2026

In the spring of 1902, the city of St. Pierre on Martinique sat beneath a volcano that was waking up. Ash fell, livestock died, boiling mud destroyed a sugar refinery, and vipers and centipedes fled into the streets — yet the governor, facing an election, told the newspaper the mountain was safer than ever, produced a commission of experts with no volcanic experience to declare there was no danger, and posted guards to keep people from leaving. The people chose the convenience lie over the life-saving decision to leave, and on May 8, Mount Pelée exploded; in less than three minutes, the Paris of the West Indies was gone. Philip Giddings opens with that story because it is a parable of the last days: the warning signs were all there, but the people believed what they wanted to hear instead of what their own eyes told them.

The sermon’s text is 2 Thessalonians 2:8–12, where Paul describes a counterfeit so close to the truth that, in Ellen White’s words, it will be “impossible to distinguish between them except by the holy scriptures.” The counterfeit’s signs and lying wonders deliberately mirror Christ’s own miracles, wonders, and signs — but its endgame is exposed in verse 10: it works “in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” The perishing are not lost for lack of access to truth. They are lost because they did not love the person of Jesus Christ enough to welcome Him in as a guest. Truth is not an abstract concept; it is who Jesus is, “the way, the truth, and the life,” and to love God is to know Him.

That is why a love of the truth cannot be manufactured in a crisis. Lot told his sons-in-law the exact truth — “Up, get you out of this place” — but they took him as joking, and they stayed; there was no time, in the moment of crisis, to develop the love that would have made them leave. Lot himself had built it beforehand, and he lived the hard promise of Matthew 19:29 literally, leaving family behind. As Satan prepares to appear as an angel of light — the final eruption, after which there is no time to prepare — the sermon’s appeal is to build that love now: to make love of Jesus Christ, and of every word from the mouth of God, the top priority of our lives, because knowing nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified is what ultimately protects us from being deceived.

*Key texts:* 2 Thessalonians 2:8–12; John 14:6; Acts 2:22; 1 John 4:7–8; Matthew 19:29; Luke 17:29–30; Genesis 19; 2 Peter 2:8; 2 Corinthians 11:14; Revelation 18:4 · *Also referenced:* Ellen G. White, *The Great Controversy*, pp. 593, 625, 649

*Watch:* https://youtu.be/aIkdoZhDg84 · *Listen:* https://cloud-1de12d.becdn.net/media/original/ae1051015d2e08731ea46ca22b1549ff.mp3