Disclosed is an apparatus for deleting a text message received in a mobile communication terminal including an information detecting unit for detecting deletion time information from the received text message; a time checking unit for checking whether the deletion time arrives; and a deleting unit for deleting the received text message at the deletion time. The deletion time information is generated when the text message is generated by a calling side mobile communication terminal, is transmitted, and then is inserted as a predetermined tag into a CHARi field of a user data subparameter, from among subparameters of the bearer data parameter of the transport layer in the short message service data burst message structure. Otherwise, the deletion time information is included in a validity period subparameter, or is detected in a newly added subparameter. The apparatus may allow a selected message to be automatically deleted, thereby preventing a situation in which other messages are not received due to memory usage by spam message.