Antichrist

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January 6, 2010

Antichrist

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 1
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5
Code: 53-7

We continue this morning in our study of 2 Thessalonians and I would invite you to open your Bible, if you will, to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We're embarking upon a fascinating text of Scripture in this chapter, one that presents to us a man who is known by the title Antichrist. The most fiendish, the most wicked, the most powerfully destructive human ever to walk the earth is a man that the Bible calls Antichrist. He will be the culmination of all those who hate God and all those who hate Jesus Christ. He will be the combination, really, and the culmination of all Satanic false prophets, false teachers, false Christs. He will be all wrapped up in to one all the hypocritical liars who claim to be spokesmen for God but spoke under the energy of seducing spirits, the doctrines of demons. This Antichrist is the theme of Paul's writing.

In verse 3 he introduces him under the title "the man of lawlessness," and then calls him, "the son of destruction." And then down in verse 8 he calls him "that lawless one." And then in verse 9 he calls him, "the coming one in accord with the activity of Satan." The man of lawlessness or the man of sin, the son of destruction or the son of perdition, the lawless one, the coming one who functions in accord with Satan...all these are titles, if you will, of the one we know as Antichrist.

This is a person, a singular person. But the spirit of Antichrist, or the attitude is in the world even now. Every individual in this world who under the power and influence of Satan attempts to thwart the work of God, attempts to thwart the work of Christ, attempts to attack the work of Christ or God, attempts to oppose it or to counterfeit it, has the spirit of Antichrist.

Turn, if you will, to 1 John, here we find the term Antichrist is used. John in his first epistle second chapter and verse 18 says, "Children, it is the last hour," by that he means it is the Messianic era since the coming of Christ. "It is the last hour and just as you have heard that Antichrist is coming..." Now there is the individual Antichrist who is coming. "Even now many antichrists have arisen." So there is a culminating individual but until that individual there will be many who have the spirit of Antichrist.

Go down to verse 22, "Who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, this is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." There he is saying that anyone who would deny the deity of Christ, anyone who would deny the connection between the Father and the Son is Antichrist. Chapter 4 verse 3, "Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, this is the spirit of the Antichrist." The Antichrist is an individual, a God‑denying, Christ‑denying, counterfeit religious leader who while hating Christ, while denying Christ, himself purports to be the Christ. But until he comes there are many like him who have his spirit.

In John's second epistle, 2 John verse 7, he says, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, this is the deceiver and the Antichrist." So you can see here that while there is one ultimate culminating man of sin, man of lawlessness, son of perdition, son of destruction, lawless one, one final culminating coming one in the power of Satan, the final Antichrist, there are many antichrists, many with the spirit of Antichrist throughout the history of the world. The one who comes in final form will be far worse than any other, worse than the worst of men...worse than the abominators, worse than Antiochus Epiphanes who slaughtered a pig in the Holy of Holies in the temple, his way of blaspheming God, worse than Adolph Hitler who mocked God, blasphemed God, operated with mediums and demons, spoke in a voice not even his own and attempted to rub out the Jews, worse than any combination of Antiochus and Hitler will be this final Antichrist. He makes Saddam Hussein pale in comparison.

The term "antichrist" in the Greek, antichristos is obviously a combination word. The word anti is familiar to us in English, we use it as anti, and that's what it means...he is anti‑Christ. He is against Christ. But it also has the idea of "in the place of...in the place of." He is against Christ and puts himself in the place of Christ. He is a usurper. He is a Satanic liar who coming against Christ replaces Christ. Three times Jesus calls him "pseudo‑Christos," false Christ.

Now as I just read you, John said you have heard that Antichrist is coming. That's interesting to me. John is writing to believers and he is saying you have heard this, they already knew Antichrist is coming. This apparently was common knowledge among Christians. Now go back to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and hear what Paul says in verse 5, "Do you not remember that while I was still with you I was telling you these things." What things? These things about the lawless one, the son of perdition, the man of lawlessness. So he is saying to them what John said...you already know about this, you have already heard about this, this is already in your memory bank. They knew Antichrist was coming. And in the meantime, they had been confronted by his agents and his forerunners who proliferated all over the world with their blasphemous attacks against God and Christ and their attempt to substitute themselves for Him. They knew the Antichrist's spirit had been at work and they knew about the future Antichrist because Paul had taught them. So John says you know about it. Paul says you know about it.

This spirit had been working for a long time. The effort to thwart the work of Christ didn't even start when Christ was born, it started long before He was born. For example, Satan's first rather massive effort to corrupt all of mankind and use his demons to create a demon‑human race, recorded in Genesis 6, was in order that there might be people produced who were unredeemable because they were demon/men the God/man would not be able to redeem them. Demons being unredeemable. And God had to drown that whole civilization.

This was followed later by an effort to destroy all of the male children in Israel way back in Exodus. And Satan was endeavoring to destroy all the male children so that he could destroy the Messianic line. Later on Satan in an Antichrist effort tried to break the royal line which would ultimately bring the Messiah and He had to be born in the royal line, he tried to break the royal line of Christ by using Jehoram to kill all his brothers, 2 Chronicles 21. The royal line got reduced to one person and the whole Messianic redemptive saving hope of the world hung with one fragile life. But fortunately that one individual had sons and then 2 Chronicles 22 says the Arabians came to the camp and massacred all the sons except one and again the line hung on one life, the youngest son, Ahaziah and he took the throne. He ruled only one year, being wickedly counselled by his vile mother whose name was Athaliah. He was wounded severely and his life hung in the balance and with his life all Messianic and saving hope, but he lived. He was later killed in a war with Jehu but not until 2 Chronicles 22 says he had had sons. All the sons were killed but one and that one life, that one life had to be hidden in the temple of God for six years so that his own mother wouldn't kill him. And God spared the Messianic line against the Antichrist's spirit operating through the venom and the hatred of these people.

And then there was the Antichrist action taken against the people of God in a foreign culture during the time of Ezra. Ezra tells how the people of Israel were saved by the fact that a pagan king couldn't sleep and because he couldn't sleep a plot to wipe out all the Jews was uncovered. And instead of destroying the line of Christ, the line was preserved. And then there was Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria, who in the intertestimental period tried to wipe out the Jews and failed because of the Maccabean revolution. And then came Herod and Herod in an Antichrist activity tried to destroy all the baby boys in an attempt to kill the Messiah. And then came Satan who tried to thwart the whole effort of Christ by tempting Him. And then came the people of Nazareth who tried to shove Him off a cliff. And then, believe it or not, came Peter who tried to divert Him from the cross...and Jesus said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." And then came the Romans who tried to kill Him and then did kill Him and then tried to seal His tomb so He couldn't rise again. You see, the Antichrist's spirit has been operating for a long long time and you can just take all of that, sum it all up, put it in to one individual and that's Antichrist.

In the last days Antichrist will come...a man who is Satan's final Anti‑Christ. John said you know about him. Paul said you know about him. But I have some more to tell you. Why here? Why in a letter to this church? Why does he tell them this? This little epistle has three chapters. It deals with three issues. The first issue confronting the church at Thessalonica was persecution. When Paul wrote the first epistle, 1 Thessalonians, they were undergoing persecution then and he referred to it. Apparently in the intervening weeks, just a few months between the two letters, the persecution had escalated. And so they were under severe persecution. Chapter 1 is written to comfort them. It is a chapter of consolation. It tells them Jesus is coming, verse 7, to give relief. So chapter 1 is comfort for those in severe persecution.

They had another problem. They had a problem not only with persecution but insubordination. There were some people in the church who weren't being obedient Christians. Chapter 3 tells about them. Verse 6 says they were leading an unruly life. They weren't obeying the tradition received from the Apostles which means the Word of God. They were undisciplined. He says down in verse 11 they were not only undisciplined, they weren't doing any work, they were acting like busybodies, verse 14 they did not obey our instruction, they needed to be disciplined. And he notes that they were even Christian brothers. So you had some insubordination among Christians, disobedience, undisciplined, unruly living. Chapter 3 was written to correct that. Chapter 1 ‑ severe persecution. Chapter 3 ‑ severe insubordination. Chapter 1 ‑ comfort for the persecuted. Chapter 3 ‑ correction for the insubordinate. Then there's chapter 2, what was going on here? Severe confusion...severe confusion. What were they confused about? Eschatology, they were confused about the end times. What particularly was their confusion? They had been told by somebody that they were in the day of the Lord.

Now they knew enough about the day of the Lord to know the day of the Lord was a time of God's final judgment. But as they looked at all the persecution going on and all of the hostility against them, some of them concluded that they were actually in the day of the Lord and had missed the Rapture and got caught up in the day of the Lord. This seems almost unthinkable because in the first letter, just a few weeks before, Paul had explained to them about the Rapture, chapter 4 verses 13 to 18, some of them worried they miss the Rapture, they were worried that some had died and missed the Rapture so he says, "No, when the Rapture comes the dead in Christ rise first, you'll be caught up, so whether you're alive or whether you're dead you're going to go, you can't miss the Rapture." If you're a believer you're either going to go out of the grave or you're going to go from the earth up. So you won't miss the Rapture.

Furthermore, some of them were thinking they were in the day of the Lord so in chapter 5 he says you're not in the day of the Lord, you are not of the darkness, you are not of the night, you are children of the day, the day of the Lord isn't something you're involved in. That is darkness, that is night, that is judgment, not for you. So he already told them...you didn't miss the Rapture, and the Rapture is before the day of the Lord, you're not in the day of the Lord because it never was for you.

You say, "Well now wait a minute, how could they be confused about it a few weeks later if he was that clear?" I'll tell you how, look at verse 2, "That you may not be quickly shaken from your composure, or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you."

You know what had happened? The Antichrist's spirit had infected somebody who had come into that church and told those people they were in the day of the Lord. And in order to substantiate that false teaching, they pulled out a letter purported to have been written by Paul...a counterfeit. And in verse 2 he says, "Don't you be quickly shaken thinking you're in the day of the Lord because some spirit has infected a messenger who has tried to support this message with a letter as if from us saying the day of the Lord has come." Somebody had come and lied to them and deceived them. Somebody who had something to gain from it. And his point is this, you can't be in the day of the Lord, I told you in the first letter you'd be raptured, I told you in the first letter that you're of the day and that's for the people of the night, you don't even belong in the day of the Lord. And now he says, "Let me give you another reason why you can't be in the day of the Lord, the Antichrist hasn't come." The Antichrist hasn't come. The day of the Lord, verse 3, will not come until the apostasy and the man of lawlessness and the son of destruction. You can't be in the day of the Lord. First, you're going to be raptured, you're not going to be there. Secondly, it isn't for you. Thirdly, if you're still stumbling on this issue, the Antichrist hasn't come and he is a precursor to the day of the Lord. So that's why, you see, he deals with the Antichrist here, he wants them to understand the career and the identity of the Antichrist so that they'll understand that that man has to come and do his thing before the day of the Lord starts. In fact, you're going to find out in this passage the Antichrist is really a very important person in actually triggering the day of the Lord.

So, this chapter is written then because there is severe confusion about the day of the Lord and he wants to give them proper instruction. So he teaches them about the Antichrist.

But I remind you of verse 5 again. "You'll remember while I was still with you I was telling you these things." He had already taught them about Antichrist. He's going to teach them more here. By the way, this chapter gives us more specifics about the Antichrist than any other chapter in the New Testament. The ones that come close are in Revelation and we'll look at those in our study of Revelation and we'll refer to them in this study and weeks to come. But he does say a lot here but he's building on what they already know.

Now the question is posed...then what did they already know? What is the background to this personality? Where did they get their information? And for that we have to go to the Old Testament. So as a lead in to this chapter I want you to turn to Daniel chapter 9...Daniel chapter 9...and here is the foundational text for teaching on the Antichrist. And we have to understand this great chapter, particularly looking at verses 24 to 27. Here is the foundation on which Paul taught about Antichrist. Here is surely the foundation on which John taught about Antichrist and any of the Christians would have had exposure to this great text of Daniel 9. You can't understand Antichrist unless you see it in the context of Daniel 9:24 to 27. This will lay the groundwork for our study of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We can assume that both Paul and John began their discussions or their teaching on Antichrist from this section.

Let's look at verse 24, Daniel 9. Now before I get in to this verse, just a brief setting. Children of Israel in Babylonian captivity, getting toward the end, Daniel is praying, starts praying in the first part of the chapter and he's asking God to fulfill his plan for Israel, bring them back from captivity, cleanse them and all of that. It's a long prayer running all the way down to verse 19 or so. And he's praying for God to do His work with Israel. He's pleading for God, "Do Your plan, bring them back, restore them," and all of this. And then he waits for an answer. The answer comes because God sends Gabriel with the answer and God gives to Daniel the answer in the form of this prophecy and He says, "I'll tell you not only what I'm going to do now for Israel but I'm going to give you the whole history." And God gives through Gabriel to Daniel the whole history of His future plan for Israel in these four brief verses. It is monumental.

Verse 24, "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city." That word "decreed" in the Hebrew can be translated "to cut off." God is saying if you looked at history in a continuum, I'm going to cut out seventy weeks and this is the period that I'm going to use to deal with your people, Israel, and your holy city, Jerusalem. And He just takes a cut and pulls out, as it were, a chunk of history and says this is what I'm going to expand into a vision so you can see what I have planned for Israel and Jerusalem. Seventy weeks is the time. These are not weeks of days, these are weeks of years. Seventy units of seven. If you multiply that, seventy times seven, you get 490 years. God says I have planned a 490 year piece of history and in that 490 years I'm going to deal with Israel and I'm going to deal with Jerusalem. I'm just cutting it right out of history.

Now there is a fascinating footnote to this that I need to share with you. Israel was in Babylonian captivity. They were captive in Babylon because they had violated sabbath for the land. Do you remember that every seven years they were required to let the land rest? Do you remember that? They would work it six years and let it rest the seventh, work it six and let it rest the seventh. In 2 Chronicles 36:21 the Bible says that the Jews were removed from the land that the land might rest for the sabbath years it was violated. Do you know why their captivity was seventy years long? Because they had violated how many sabbaths? Seventy. God says for every sabbath year you've violated, I'm going to put you in to captivity and I'm going to let that land rest those 70 years that you didn't allow it to rest.

Now think about this. If they violated 70 sabbath years, how many years span did it take them to do that? Four‑hundred and ninety, 70 times seven. The point is this, you have violated Me for 490 years and now I'm going to take an equal period of time, 490 years, slice it out of human history and use it to deal with you. This is a precise prophecy, perhaps the most precise prophecy in Scripture. God says I'm going to work with you and I'm going to do six things...they're in verse 24...six things‑‑ finish the transgression, that's number one. That is bring sin to its end...bring it under control and restrain it finally. And then He says, "make an end of sin." The idea there is probably judgment. The first point is saying I'm going to bring sin under control and then I'm going to judge it, that's a part of it. The end here is saying bringing sin to its logical end and we know what it is, the wages of sin is death. He's going to bring the final judgment. Then He says, "And to make atonement for iniquity."

All right, He says, I've got a 490‑year period of time, you stole 490 years from Me, you violated it, you're now paying a penalty for that. I'm going to take another 490 years and out of mercy and grace I'm going to provide atonement for you. Isn't that gracious? You violated Me for 490 years, I'm going to take a 490‑year period and offer you gracious salvation. During that time I'm going to bring sin to its final culmination and take control over it, I'm going to judge and I'm going to provide reconciliation to God for iniquity...that's atonement. Now those three, in a sense, refer to getting rid of sin. I'm going to get rid of sin by controlling it, I'm going to get rid of sin by judging all the sinners, and I'm going to get rid of sin by providing atonement and forgiveness. All three of those things were accomplished in the first coming of Jesus Christ. He came to the cross and dealt sin its death blow. He came to the cross and in effect provided the work on the cross, the rejection of which causes sin to be judged eternally. He provided the work on the cross which gives atonement and reconciliation to God. And although sin still is present, it has been dealt its death blow on the cross, is that not true? He finished it. Didn't He say, "It is finished," He made an end of it. He brought transgression to its culmination and took charge over it and He did that act on the cross by which ultimately He gained the right to be the judge of all the sinners and He provided atonement.

Now there are three more things that He does. These three are associated with His Second Coming. First, to bring in everlasting righteousness. And when does everlasting righteousness begin to come in? At the millennial kingdom. It is a kingdom of righteousness. It is ruled in righteousness. Righteousness feels the earth as does wisdom. And so here in the kingdom when Jesus comes back after the judgment of the day of the Lord in which He effects the sentencing, as it were, that was done on the cross, you see the culmination of that in which He judges sin, wraps it up, takes charge. He did the initial work, you might say the verdict was made at the cross, the sentence is executed at the day of the Lord. Then He begins that bringing in of everlasting righteousness which begins in the millennial kingdom and goes on forever and ever in the eternal state. Literally the righteousness of the ages takes over permanently.

Fifthly, or second in the second three, He says to seal up vision and prophecy. To "seal up" in the Hebrew simply means to enclose something so that it is no longer used, it is hidden from view, its function is completed. It would be like taking something you've been using, put it in a box and shove it away somewhere. It is done. He is saying, "I'm going to bring visions, prophecies to an end." Why? Because there is coming a time when you don't need to learn anything. Paul described it in 1 Corinthians 13 with these words, "Then shall you know as you are known." There will be no reason to learn anything more, it will be the end of visions, it will be the end of prophecy, that speaks of the eternal state, I believe, which is the perfect thing where everyone knows as they are known. So at His Second Coming He brings in eternal righteousness. He brings an end to revelation and learning because you will know everything you need to know. And then finally He says, "To anoint the most holy place," or to anoint the Holy of Holies. What is this? I believe it is the holy city of Jerusalem, the jewel of eternity, the capital city of heaven, that city made out of jewels which refract the glorious light of God which dwells in it and scatters sparkling lights out of those jewels throughout all of the infinite universe...that holy holy place, the new Jerusalem.

So here is an unbelievable sweep of prophecy. Daniel is having a prayer time and the angel Gabriel delivers him something which is way beyond anything he might have even hoped for. God says I've got a 490‑year period and in that 490‑year period I'm going to do a work on your people Israel and a work on the city of Jerusalem that is going to involve the finishing of transgression, the judgment of sin, the redemption and atonement for reconciliation to God that is going to involve bringing in eternal righteousness, sealing up vision and prophecy, anointing the final heaven and the holy jewel of the new Jerusalem that occupies it as the very center piece. The first three at the first coming, and the second three at the Second Coming. And all of this is going to happen in 490 years.

You say, "Wait a minute, it's been 490 years. I haven't seen those last three. I haven't even seen the effectiveness of the accomplishment of the first three on the cross take place yet." That's right, but that becomes abundantly clear as you look back at the text, let's follow it. If we want to know when this deal is going to end we've got to know when it what? Starts, good. Verse 25, "So you are to know and discern," now you're supposed to get this, "you're to know and discern from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem." That's when it starts. From the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem..

The book of Ezra indicates three decrees...one by Cyrus, one by Darius, one by Artaxerxes...Ezra 1, Ezra 6, Ezra 7. But all of those focused on the building of the temple, not the city. No authorization in those three is given for rebuilding the city. Only one decree fits rebuilding the city and that's the decree recorded in Nehemiah chapter 2. It came in the month, Nisan, on the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes. Nisan month, Artaxerxes' twentieth year. And he gives a decree that Nehemiah could go back and rebuild the city. The year, 444 B.C. Artaxerxes rose to power in the year 465. You say, "Isn't that 21 years?" No, because in ancient times the accession year or the year that the king took his throne was not counted as a full year of his reign and so though he took the throne in 465, that's his accession year, they don't start counting till 464...20 years from 464 is 444, it's in the month of Nisan, that's when it starts.

Now follow the text. "So from the decree in 444 to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks." You say, "Wait a minute, why split that up, we can add, that's 69? Why does he say there will be seven and sixty two?" Seven weeks would be how many years? Forty‑nine. Forty‑ nine from 444 takes us to 396, we're going backwards in B.C. What happened in those 49? What happened was the city was rebuilt...the city was rebuilt. He says within the first 49 year period the city will be rebuilt, He says it in verse 25, it will be built again, plaza, moat, even in times of distress. And you can read the book of Nehemiah and read the whole story of all the trouble they had in rebuilding it.

So the first seven is the rebuilding. Takes us down to 396 which really marks the end of Malachi, which is the last book in the Old Testament, and it's the sealing up of Old Testament Scripture. So the first seven of these seventy weeks were used for the rebuilding of the city. Now He says..."In addition there will be 62 more weeks for a total of 69 weeks." Seven times 69 makes 483. So He pulls out 69 weeks and says from the decree of Artaxerxes go 483 years...in the first 49 of those years the city will be rebuilt. Then go on to 483 years. And what do you have? He says to restore and rebuild until Messiah the Prince will be 69 weeks. It will be 483 years from the decree...444 B.C....to the Messiah the Prince. Now in ancient times they calculated their years as 360 days...360 days. So in order to find out how long this time period is we've got to multiply 483 times 360, that gives us 173,880 days. So from the decree to rebuild, given by Artaxerxes, to the arrival of Messiah the Prince has to be 173,880 days. Once we know the days then we could calculate it properly. And it's amazing...it's amazing.

The best evidence indicates by converting over the month of Nisan to our calendar back in Artaxerxes' times that the decree was on March 5, 444 B.C. That's converting it over to our calendar. The decree was made March 5, 444. If you go 173,880 days you will end up March 30, A.D.33...the day Jesus marched into the city of Jerusalem. The Messiah, the Prince came and He came exactly 173,880 days just as the prophecy had said. It was Nisan tenth, A.D. 33, the day of the triumphal entry of Jesus. In our calendar, March 30. It goes from March 5, 444 B.C. to March 30, and then He was crucified April 3. What startles me...a lot of things do about that...of course, the accuracy of it doesn't startle me because after all, this is God's Word, right, so we expect God to say it and then God to make history make it happen. What startles me is how the Jews could be waiting for all these 483 years, these Jews would wait 173,880 days for the Messiah to come and when He came...they killed Him. Absolutely inconceivable.

What did it mean when Jesus rode into Jerusalem? It meant that Daniel's prophecy had come to pass, the Messiah had arrived, Messiah the Prince had come. They threw palm branches in His feet, they hailed Him as the King. And so the sixty‑ninth week ended in a triumphal entry.

Now there's something loose dangling here, what is it? One more week and this is why...this is why the 490 hasn't been fulfilled yet, there's one loose week here. And so from the decree to the Messiah is 69 weeks. Look at verse 26 now. "Then after the sixty‑two weeks, added to the seven, so after the sixty‑ninth week is over, the Messiah will be...what?...cut off." What does that mean? Killed. It doesn't say at the end of the sixty‑ninth weeks but after...after. He's killed. The term "cut off" expresses the idea of an execution, putting someone's head on a block and cutting it off. After all that expectation He's executed like a common criminal. That's how deep the apostasy of their hearts was. It says He will be cut off and have nothing. Literally it says, "And there's nothing in it for Him." No honor, no respect...His portion, nothing. Even what He wore, what did they do with it? Took it and gambled for it. He got nothing out of it.

There's another spiritual twist on that, there was nothing in it for Him but there was sure a lot in it for everybody else...namely redemption. He was executed, had nothing. He was executed for nothing He did. He was executed and lost even fellowship with God but His loss was our gain.

That event is followed by this amazing and accurate statement, "And the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary." What's this? Well, He'll come as Messiah the Prince at the end of the sixty‑ninth week, He did it March 30, 33 A.D., marched in to the city. After that they'll kill Him. And then the people...what people? The people of some prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Who did that? What people did that? Romans, 70 A.D., just decades after Jesus died on the cross the Romans came and destroyed the city and destroyed the temple, massacred over a million Jews. But now wait a minute...the people who came and destroyed the city are associated with somebody called the prince who is to come...that sounds like 2 Thessalonians 2...the coming one...the one who will come. Who is this prince who is to come? This is the Antichrist. And from what group of people, or what part of the world does he come? Who is he associated with? The Romans. If you go back in Daniel's prophecy you will see that the final form of world government will be a revived Roman Empire. And the great beast, the great ruler will rise out of that revived Roman Empire, out of the feet of mixed clay and iron. Daniel has spoken about him before in chapter 7. Daniel has spoken about him in chapter 8. Daniel will speak about him in chapter 11. I wish we had the time to go in to all of that. He is, if you look at chapter 7, he is described in detail from verse 21 and following. He wages war, he's overpowering, he devours the earth, he treads it down. He's a military genius, he has military power, military might. Verse 25, "He wears out the saints of the Most High with his persecution." He brings in a new religion with new morals and new viewpoints. He's a counterfeit of Christ. He deals with injustice and seizure and punishment. In chapter 8 he describes him, in verse 23, as insolent, skilled in his intrigue, he's a master of deception, he has mighty power. He even says he has a fierce face. He can destroy in an extraordinary degree, he is shrewd, he is deceitful, he is destructive, and he opposes the Prince of princes.

So he describes him in 7, he describes him in 8, then he describes him also in chapter 11. He sees him there. We won't go into that but just look at verse 36, he does whatever he wants, he exalts himself, he magnifies himself, he is proud, he is sovereign, he puts himself above God, he speaks monstrous things, verse 36, against the God of gods, he is blasphemous and profane. He may well be a homosexual. He will show no regard for the Gods of his fathers, or for the desire of women. Some say that means he's a homosexual. Some say the desire of women reflects the Jewish desire for the mother of the Messiah to come and therefore every Jewish mother wanted to be the mother of the Messiah and the desire of women was for the Messiah, and it means he had no regard for Messiah. That's possible. Maybe both are possible. He is brilliant in war and he finances war in verse 38 with his gold, silver, costly stones and treasures. And it goes on and on to describe him. So he's called in Daniel the little horn and the willful king and all of that.

This character is here called the prince...the prince who is to come. And he belongs to a people who massacred Jerusalem, a people who desecrate and destroy the holy of holies and the holy place and the temple. He is...he is one of them and I believe he will rise out of the revived Roman Empire, whether he is a political entity rising out of it, or whether he is a religious entity like the Pope, we can't be certain. But he's going to come out of that revived European center. We now see that happening and Europe is more and more becoming the power of the world. People used to ask me where America fits in in the prophecy, and that was when we were a creditor nation, and now that we're a debtor nation and seem to be on the slide morally with a dying culture that may cease to produce genius of much report, it may be that by the time this all happens Europe has become the focal point and power of the whole world. And out of that does he rise because he belongs in that Roman environment. And in the ancient times Rome occupied that part of the world.

And so, we see then that he will belong to a destructive people whose goal will be like the Romans of 70 A.D. to wipe out God and His city and His people. Now verse 27, "And he...who?...the prince, the Antichrist, the willful king, the little horn...he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week." Ah, we finally found the loose week. Here it is. Now the problem is, we don't know when this week starts. That's...we've got this undetermined time gap here between 69 and 70, isn't that the genius of God? He gives you a prophecy that is so exact you get it to the very day? And then gives you a prophecy that is so inexact no man knows the day or the hour? And He ties them together in the same place. It's not for you to know the times and the seasons the Father has put in His own power, even the Son of Man while on earth didn't know those. There's going to be a week and the Antichrist is going to come and he's going to make a firm covenant with Israel? Why? Let me tell you why, because Israel is going to be embattled all the way down to the end. You know, you watch, every time I hear about another summit where the Arabs and the Israelis are going to get together, I chuckle. It will never happen. It never happens. It can't happen. They are at each other's throat incessantly. They leave a summit meeting and go back and shoot each other. It is absolutely pointless. And Israel is going to reach the point where there's going to be a whole proliferation of Saddam Husseins trying to wipe them out and here comes this great European power and this great European leader and he's going to come over and he is going to make a pact with Israel to become their protector. Makes sense, doesn't it? U.S. is going to be out of the picture, in a sense. Once you have a unified Europe, the power of a unified Europe is strategic. You ask yourself why all of a sudden eastern Europe is free from Communism. Don't you think that if Antichrist is going to rule that part of the world it would have to be unified? You couldn't have a free market culture and a communist culture coexisting and have somebody rise to rule that. The death of communism spells the unification of Europe. The unification of Europe looks right down the prophetic tunnel to the coming of Antichrist, and they become the massive world power who can set themselves in unity to protect Israel. The Antichrist does it.

It isn't for economic reasons he does it, he does it for religious reasons. He's got his motives. Some of them may be economic but the heart motive is ultimately he wants to destroy the temple, destroy the worship of God and set himself up as God in Jerusalem. That's how...that's how defiant Satan is. He doesn't ...listen, Satan's ultimate goal is not to set up a false religion in L.A. Satan's ultimate goal is to set up a false religion in Jerusalem. That's God's city and that's the one he wants. And that's where the Antichrist is going to go to do it and he's got to have a good relationship with Israel to get in there and do his blasphemy.

So the Antichrist makes a covenant with them for a week, in the middle of the week, three and a half years in, he puts a stop to sacrifice and grain offering. You know what that tells me? There's going to be a temple cranking up in Jerusalem and the Jews are going to be doing their thing, they're going to be doing their offerings and right in the middle of it they're going to have peace, their religion is restored, that means that the Arabs are going to have to give them a place to do their temple. It's going to be there, they're going to be back doing their offerings. And in the middle of the week when everything looks wonderful, the Antichrist comes in, he blasphemes, he commits what's called the abomination of desolation, he comes in on the wing of abominations, he comes and makes desolate. He comes and makes a complete destruction. And then a complete destruction is made on him until a complete destruction that is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate. He's going to come in, he's going to desecrate that place.

You say, "Well why that place? That...Judaism is not the religion of God today." That place because that is still God's city, that is still where Jesus will return, is it not? That is still the place from which He will rule in His Kingdom. And that is the symbol to Antichrist of the rule of God and he wants to desecrate that place for that reason. And so he goes in there, I don't know what he's going to do but he's going to do similarly to what the Romans did, similarly to what Antiochus Epiphanes did, desecrate, abominate, blaspheme and mock God...right in the middle of it. And then he's going to get it because when he does that he pulls the trigger, as it were, on the day of the Lord. And all hell breaks loose and reigns down on him and everybody who is involved with him. And then the Lord brings the execution of the judgmentwon at the cross, and the beginning of the eternal righteousness that He promised.

So this is a formidable guy. And this is the Antichrist of which Paul spoke and John. And they knew already about him because they knew Daniel. There's something else they knew, one more text, Matthew 24. Matthew 24 verse 15, Jesus preaching a sermon on His own Second Coming, the end of verse 14 He talks about the end coming, the final end. He wants to tell His people how to kind of recognize it, how to know when the end is coming so in verse 15 He says, "When you see the abomination of desolations which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place." When the Antichrist, He says, when the prince of the people that shall come, when he goes in to the temple and does his abomination and makes it desolate and blasphemes God, my friends, let me tell you something, when that happens you better run. That will trigger what the Bible calls the Great Tribulation which culminates in the holocaust known as the day of the Lord. And He says you better hope if you're alive at that time you haven't got a baby to nurse and you better hope it isn't winter and hard to travel and you better hope it isn't the sabbath or some Jew is going to be screaming at you for moving cause they believe you shouldn't move on the sabbath cause you're going to get a Great Tribulation.

The Antichrist is going to create this. He's going to trigger it. What's Paul saying? Look, you people, the day of the Lord hasn't come because Antichrist isn't here yet. Don't be confused. Back in the first letter he said you're going to get raptured first. He said you don't even belong in the day of the Lord, you're not people of the night. And now he says it can't be the day of the Lord, the Antichrist hasn't come. So you use that strong theological indication to thwart that error.

Now this is why Paul is introducing this issue of Antichrist. But having introduced it he goes in to expanding it in such richness that it's going to take us a few weeks to get through 2 Thessalonians 2 and you just keep your hat on, we're going to have a great time doing just that. We're going to move fast and it will be a thrilling ride, believe me. Let's bow in prayer.

Your Word, Father, is so powerful and so accurate. We are...we are thrilled at its accuracy. Who can deny that this is the Word of God when its prophecies are precise? We look at the world as seen around us, it makes so much sense to see some powerful figure rise who can pull Europe together, who can pull all of the disintegrated pieces together, who can rule. It makes so much sense to see that rising Europe and that rising power and that great leader become the protector of Israel. And then to form the false religion in which he desecrates and abominates the holy place and in the place of You sets himself up as Revelation 13 says as the God of the world be worshiped by everyone. It's something that can be done, we see it on the horizon. We're not sure but we look at someone like the Pope and wonder if it couldn't be he that unifies the whole world and becomes the object of worship. Lord, these are fascinating days as we stand as it were on the brink of the end. Help us not to be confused and help us to know what Paul wanted to tell the Thessalonians most of all, even though I'm telling you about the career of Antichrist and about the day of the Lord, I want you to know you're not going to be there. You're going to be caught up in the clouds to meet Me in the air. You'll never know the day of the Lord, that's for sure. So we thank You, Father, for that hope that whatever happens in this world when the holocaust of Your divine judgment breaks loose from heaven we'll be with You and in that hope we live and rejoice. And, Father, we would pray for those who have no such hope, who need to be warned that they will go through the day of the Lord and it will be devastatingly eternally terrifying and terrible, frightening beyond description and leading to a permanent state of alienation, isolation from You and anything good, right, pure, holy and a time of eternal punishment. O Father, may there be no one here who will experience the day of the Lord because as the psalmist said they have hardened their hearts, they have erred and thus shall not enter into rest. For them will be no relief, but only retribution when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven in flaming fire with His mighty angels taking vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do Your work in every heart, for those who know You bring comfort, for those who don't bring conversion and we'll give You the praise in Christ's name. Amen.
The Coming Man of Sin, Part 2
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5
Code: 53-8

It is a sacred trust to have the Word of God in our hands. It is a sacred duty to rightly divide it. And we this morning want to do that, to take the task that the Spirit of God has given us and in which He helps us and unfold the meaning of God's Word.

Our text is 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We embark upon a study of this great chapter. And in so doing focus on a personality by the name of Antichrist. In this very compelling and fascinating portion of Scripture, we are brought face to face with the final blasphemer, the final Antichrist. In verse 3 of 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul calls him the man of lawlessness and the son of destruction. In verse 4 he says he opposes and exalts himself above every so‑called God, or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. In verse 8 he calls him the lawless one. In verse 9 he says his coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish.

This coming man of lawlessness, son of destruction, Antichrist is really the theme of this chapter. He is an amazing person. Satan's final earthly blasphemer who attempts finally and ultimately to oppose Jesus Christ and blaspheme God, who attempts to destroy all who worship God and all worship of God and to obliterate the very name of God and Christ from the earth. He plays a crucial role in the last days around the time of the coming of Jesus Christ.

As we noted last time this man of lawlessness, this Antichrist, will be the culmination of all who hate God, the culmination of all who hate Christ. He will be the culmination of all blasphemers, all false prophets, all false teachers, all pseudo‑Christos, all false Christs, all hypocrites. He will be the ultimate hypocrite, the ultimate liar and the ultimate deceiver and in a sense the embodiment of all the rest. The Antichrist's spirit has been around through all of redemptive history. But it will culminate in this one final individual, he will be the most horrible and composite figure, pulling together all false teachers, prophets, blasphemers, hypocrites, liars and deceivers into one. He again is the theme of this chapter.

But this is not the first time the Thessalonians have heard about him. In verse 5 Paul says, "Do you not remember that while I was still with you I was telling you these things?" He had told them about the coming of the man of lawlessness, he had told them about the ultimate final blasphemer that would come around the time of Christ's return. I noted for you last time that perhaps in the telling originally when he told them and when he taught them, he must have referred to Daniel's prophecy, for Daniel more than any other Old Testament prophet gives us details about this Antichrist. We looked last time at something about him in chapter 9, but I would like you this morning to turn back to Daniel chapter 7 and I want to show you some of the other things that Daniel has to say about the coming Antichrist, the coming blasphemer, the final great superman of Satan, we could call him.

In Daniel chapter 7 we are introduced to him. He is called there in Daniel 7 verse 8 "a little horn." Among other horns this little horn came up...the idea being that he has some associates, he associates with other world rulers and all of a sudden from a position of being somewhat small, he begins to rise to prominence and becomes larger than all his associates. Toward the end of verse 8 it says he has eyes like the eyes of a man, this speaks of his intelligence. He is no doubt an intellectual genius, clever, shrewd and knowledgeable. It says he has a mouth uttering great things, or great boasts. He is an orator. He is proud. He speaks against God open blasphemy and he is good at what he does in terms of being a skilled speaker.

Over in verse 21 of chapter 7 we read further about this little horn who grows to become the power of the world, the Antichrist. And it says he was waging war with the saints and overpowering them. He obviously is engaged and involved in aggressive hostility against the people of God and seeks to destroy them entirely. He would wipe them from the face of the earth if he could.

In verse 23 to show you the level of his success, his movement devours the whole earth and treads it down and crushes it. He has military power and military genius that is surpassing any before him. Down in verse 25 it says he will speak out against the Most High, and, of course, he is primarily a blasphemer, he is an abominator of God's holiness. And so he speaks against the Most High. He literally wears out the saints of the highest one by injustice, by seizure, by punishment, imprisonment, and by execution. He slaughters the people of God. He will intend, it says, to make alterations in times and in law. What that probably means is he brings in new celebrations. He throws out all the old times, the world celebrates certain times each year, different countries have different celebrations but usually they are associated with religious celebration and he comes in and brings in new ceremonies, new religious observances, new celebrations in the worship of himself. And he also makes alterations in law. He changes the moral and ethical code of the world which for all of the world's life has been founded on God's will and God's purposes and now becomes Satanically inspired. And there will be given into his hand this tremendous power for a time, that's one, times, that would be two, half a time, that's a half, one‑two‑and a half are three and a half. For three and a half years he will have this power over the world.

And then in verse 26 it reminds us, "But the court will sit for judgment and his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever. And the sovereignty and the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one, His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions will serve and obey Him." God will become eternal King, this man only three and a half years.

In chapter 8 we learn a little more about him, down in verse 23. At the end of verse 23 it says he is a king who will arise insolent and skilled in intrigue. The word "insolent" has to do with his being an intimidator. Literally he has a fierce face. He is a fierce individual who intimidates everyone in to submission. He is skilled in intrigue. He is a master of deception. Verse 24, "His power will be mighty, but not by his own power." Revelation 13:2 says Satan will empower him. He will be inspired by and no doubt even indwelt by Satan. And therein lies his great power. Verse 24 says he will destroy to an extraordinary degree. Verse 25 speaks of his shrewdness, his deceit. He will magnify himself in his heart, his pride. He will destroy many while they are at ease. He will kill innocent victims at peace. And he will oppose the Prince of princes, no doubt the Messiah. And then he will be broken without human agency. In other words, no man can destroy him, a stone cut out without hands, Daniel 7, will crush him to death, that no doubt referring to the virgin‑born Messiah.

Chapter 11 tells us a few more things about him. Here he is further described as the king who will do as he pleases, or the Authorized calls him the willful king. Verse 36 of Daniel 11, "He will do exactly what he pleases, he is a total dictator of the world." He is a Satan‑indwelt dictator of the world who does exactly what he wants. And what he wants most of all is to blaspheme God, blaspheme Christ and destroy all who worship them. It says he will exalt and magnify himself above every God, he has absolute power, sovereign power and takes that power and that authority to limits that are unknown up to that point. He speaks monstrous things against the God of gods, the true God. He is, as I said, a blasphemer primarily. And he will prosper. He will be very effective in his profanity until the indignation is finished for that which is decreed will be done. He lasts three and a half years until God's fury is done with him, and then it's over.

Verse 37, a very interesting note, he will show no regard for the gods of his fathers. No doubt he's a Gentile and he is utterly irreligious, he has no concern for traditional religion in his family. Then it adds this, and he has no regard for the desire of women. Two possibilities. One, he could be a homosexual. That's a possibility. He does not have normal desire for women, that does not seem too remote in the world in which we live today. It also could mean he has no regard for the Messiah, Christ, because the Messiah was known by the Jews as the desire of women because every Jewish mother hoped that she would bear the Messiah. Then in verse 37, "He will not show regard for any other God," that is he has no concern for any religion or any other deity, he alone is God. He will magnify himself above them all. He is God, he is Christ, he is all there is. The only God he honors is the God of fortresses, or the God of war, a God whom his fathers didn't know. He will honor him with gold, silver, costly stones and treasures. Apparently he comes out of a people that are not known as militarily powerful, but he comes and he is powerful and he is wealthy so he can finance his wars which he carries on all over the world. He will take action, verse 39, against the strongest of fortresses with the help of a foreign god, or ally, he will give great honor to those who acknowledge him. In other words, he'll elevate and lift up those who agree with him, cause them to rule over the many and parcel out land for a price. He takes control of land and he uses it to make money. He takes control of all authority and puts his people into power. He controls everything.

Verse 45, he will pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas, that's the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, that's right in Jerusalem. And the beautiful holy mountain, he sets himself up right there in the very place where God has set His temple. And he'll come to an end and no one will help him. He will meet his match.

So Daniel had said some very specific things about this blasphemer, this Satan‑inspired intellectual military genius, this great orator, this man who will take power over the world, this man who will destroy everything he can that names the name of God. Daniel had said enough, surely, to fill a few Pauline sermons. And so when Paul said, "I've told you about these things," no doubt much of what he had said came from Daniel. And now in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 he has some more things to say and things to remind them about regarding the man of sin.

But before we look at that, a question comes to mind. And the question is this, when you read about such an individual, you read about him in the book of Daniel and it is indeed a unbelievable description, a man with power like nothing we've ever conceived of, and were you to compare Revelation chapter 13 and read about him there, you would read there that it says he has a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies and he has authority to act for 42 months, that's the same time period, three and a half years. He opens his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is those who dwell in heaven. He makes war with the saints to overcome them, authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him, and all who dwell on the earth will worship him and everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who has been slain, when you read about the tremendous power of this man and you read here that he will do signs and wonders that are deceptive and false and that he comes in the power of Satan, you ask the question...could there be such an individual? Isn't this almost a fictional human being? I mean, we're talking about a man, we're talking about someone in the vernacular who puts his pants on the same way we do, could such a creature actually exist?

We look back in history, we have a little preview of that kind of individual, all the way back around 168 B.C. in the king of Syria by the name of Antiochus. His name was Antiochus. He called himself Antiochus Epiphanes which means the great one. The people called him Antiochus Epimanes, which means the maniac. He was king of Syria. And his goal was to blaspheme God and to eliminate Judaism from the world. He invaded Jerusalem, killed thousands of Jews, sold them into slavery. He made it a crime punishable by death to circumcise a child or own a copy of the law. He erected an altar to Zeus in the temple. And he offered a pig on it, to blaspheme God. He took the temple chambers which were occupied by worshipers and priests and Levites and made them brothels for prostitutes. He was a deliberate desecrator, a cold‑blooded enemy of God attempting to wipe out the Jewish religion, wipe out the worship of God and wipe out the Jews together. He was anti‑God. He was a picture of the one to come. He didn't succeed. God used the Maccabee family to lead a revolt that divested him of his power and spared the people of Israel.

But there's another even more graphic illustration of the kind of man Antichrist will be. And that man's name is Adolph Hitler. Any close look at the life of Hitler will reveal the possibility and the potentiality of such a man as Antichrist. He is perhaps in human history the single greatest model of this man. The effort of Hitler was to rule the world. Hitler hated God and Hitler hated Jesus Christ. Hitler hated the Jews and attempted to wipe them off the face of the earth in a Satanic plot to therefore eliminate the people of God and therefore disallow the promise of God to redeem Israel and give them a kingdom. Hitler was demonic. If ever a man was possessed not by just any demon or demons but Satan himself, it would have had to have been Adolph Hitler. He is the classic historical example of Antichrist.

In a fascinating book called The Morning of the Magicians by Lewis Powells(?) and Jacque Brigerre(??), published by Avon Books in 1969, we learn some background about this unbelievable man. The authors, who by the way are non‑Christians, had nothing to do with Christianity, present their case from the records of the Nuremberg trials, thousands of books and reviews and testimony personally from eyewitnesses. Here's what they say, "It is impossible to understand Hitler's political plans unless one is familiar with his basic beliefs and his conviction that there is a magical relationship between man and the universe."

In fact, in their book they tell how Hitler was fascinated with mysticism and that he was deeply immersed into the ideas of mysticism. He saw rather mystically the miracle of his own destiny as the action of unseen powerful spirit forces. The Aeneids of Plutonius were read in little mystical societies of pro‑German intellectuals, along with ancient Hindu texts, Niche(?) and the writings of Tibetan magicians. The probable explanation they write for Hitler's deeds is the existence of a magical puzzle, a powerful and Satanic mystical covenant. "We shall never be safe from Nazism or rather from certain manifestations of the Satanic which through the Nazis cast its dark shadow over the world until we have roused ourselves to a full understanding of the most fantastic aspects of the Hitlerian adventure."

Another book entitled The Hollow Earth written by Eric Norman in 1972 gives more information. He says that Hitler and his Nazi oriented society was a secret occult society. And the whole story is a macabre tale from the Hollow Earth Cult. The Hollow Earth Cult for centuries has believed that the earth is hollow. And in some place in the hollow earth dwells some advanced beings and they have powers beyond human power. If men on the earth are to be able to exercise that power they have to enter in to league with those beings in the hollow earth. When they enter in to that kind of alliance they become the slaves of the hollow earth powers. Eric Norman writes, "Nazi records seized after the fall of the Third Reich indicate that Hitler and his henchmen launched several expeditions to try to find the hollow earth." Hitler's concept, for example, of using children came from occult writings on the Hollow Earth. From those writings he formed his corps of adolescent werewolves, as he called them, with black uniforms and sinister death's heads on their sleeves.

Hitler's whole Third Reich was wedded to the black occult. One of his greatest generals, one of his most well‑known was a man named Karl Househoffer(??). Househoffer for many years had been a member of The Society Of The Golden Dawn. Now that is a very ancient society of occult involvement. I am somewhat familiar with it because of writings in other fields than just Adolph Hitler. I met a young man in Hollywood on one occasion who had written two rock musicals, both of those rock musicals he said he wrote under total influence by a demon so that he didn't even know what he was writing until he came out of the trance. In the process of writing those rock operas he got involved with mediums and demons and was getting and giving messages coming from demonic sources. In that process he came across some fascinating literature. Through sheer fear and terror he came to Christ out of all of that and brought me some of the books and much of what I read in the books that he had for me was about The Society Of The Golden Dawn. It is an age‑old black magic occult society.

Karl Househoffer was a part of that society and it was he who inspired Hitler to write Mein Kemp(??). He had visited Tibet and China, India, he had adopted Buddhist beliefs and was initiated into secret Buddha societies from which only suicide was an escape. It was said that Househoffer had amazing psychic powers. And most of the people who write about Hitler who know this say that Househoffer was the black magician that controlled Hitler. Even Rudolph Hess said, quote: "Househoffer was the power, the magician behind Hitler and his demonic legions." It was as if Hitler was a medium and Househoffer was the magician. The swastika was no German sign, swastika was a magical symbol in China and Europe, a symbol in the black occult.

By 1925 a group of Tibetan monks had moved to Berlin. All of these Tibetan monks were members of a black order, swearing allegiance to the power of darkness. Supposedly they had contact with the hollow earth spirits. From that time on funds were made available by the Nazis to finance expeditions to Mongolia and expeditions to Tibet to dig deeper into the black occult. When Germany fell several hundred in secret service, S.F.(??) Death head uniforms were found to be Himalayan orientals who had no ID. The whole Third Reich was infested with these monks from the black occult. Rosenberg(?) wrote, "They were the last of the black monks who helped Hitler's dark menacing movement."

In March of 1946 Househoffer killed his wife and then before a Buddhist altar killed himself and his son said he knew his father was the magician behind Adolph Hitler. The seven founders of Nazism were all deep in the occult. Powells and Brigerre wrote, "One cannot help but think of him as a medium...that is Hitler...most of the time mediums were ordinary insignificant people. Suddenly they're endowed with what seems to be supernatural powers. It was in this way beyond any doubt Hitler was possessed by forces beyond himself, demoniacal forces which the individual named Hitler was only the temporary vehicle for." They said when he got up front of the crowds to speak, the voice that they heard was not his voice. It was an unearthly voice, not at all like the voice they heard him use in conversation.

So here was a man possessed by Satan. One eyewitness said this, "A person close to Hitler told me that he wakes up in the night screaming and in convulsions. He calls for help and appears to be half paralyzed. He is seized with a panic that makes him tremble until the bed shakes. He utters confused and unintelligible sounds, gasping as if on the point of suffocation. Hitler was standing in his room swaying and looking all around as if he were lost. `It's he...it's he...it's he, he's come for me,' he groaned. His lips were white, he was sweating profusely. Suddenly he uttered a string a meaningless figures. Then words and scraps of sentences. It was terrifying. Then suddenly he screamed...`There...there, over in the corner, he's there.' All the time stamping his feet and screaming."

This is Hitler. This is a man totally possessed by Satan, attempting to take over the whole world, blaspheme Christ, blaspheme God and wipe out the Jews. This is a preview of Antichrist. Hitler said, quote: "There is another species of humanity which doesn't deserve the name, left as a relic of some baser form of life, created along with hideous crawling creatures, namely gypsies, Negroes and Jews. They are," he said, "as far removed from us as animals are from humans. I do not mean I look on Jews as animals, they are much further removed from animals than we are. They are creatures outside nature," end quote.

He butchered six million and wanted to kill every Jew on the face of the earth. The man Hitler...a vehicle for a Satanic plot to wipe out the people of God and destroy God's plan and God's kingdom. Could such a man exist? Yes. We've seen some previews. Antichrist will be a hundred Hitlers rolled into one, a man to be Satan's tool to destroy Israel, to kill the saints, to blaspheme God, to blaspheme Christ, to destroy all religion except the worship of himself and lead the world to hell. It is this man of whom Paul speaks.

Now the question immediately comes...why does Paul bring the subject up? This is a little letter, isn't it? Three chapters, to a relatively young church. Why does he bring it up? Why does he spend a whole chapter dealing with this? Well the answer is very simple, they had three problems in that little church, one was persecution and so he wrote chapter 1 to comfort them in the midst of it. Two was insubordination, or disobedience, so he wrote chapter 3 to call them to obedience. And the third problem was confusion and so he wrote chapter 2 to straighten them out. They were confused over what? Over matters regarding the return of the Lord. They were confused over matters regarding the return of the Lord and Paul in order to help make his point brings the Antichrist into the discussion. And we'll see how that unfolds.

It's a very simple thing to understand. Look at verses 1 and 2. "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or by a message or by a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come."

Now here's a very simple issue. They have become convinced that the day of the Lord...what?...has come. That's pretty clear. They have become convinced that the day of the Lord has come. They're in it. Well, why would they ever believe such a thing? Well they're undergoing tremendous persecution, severe persecution, including perhaps martyrdom. And somebody has told them this is the indication you are in the day of the Lord.

What is the day of the Lord? And why would they be so shocked to be in it? The day of the Lord is a very technical term. It refers to the time of God's ultimate judgment. The term "day of the Lord" appears four times in the New Testament. Many other times it is described or even given different names. The term "day of the Lord" appears 19 times in the Old Testament. It always refers to a specific final period of divine wrath. It's easily described by just a few Old Testament passages.

Isaiah 13:9, "Behold the day of the Lord comes cruel with both wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate." Jeremiah 46:10, "For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance that He may avenge Himself on His adversaries." Joel 1:15, "For the day of the Lord is at hand, it shall come as destruction from the almighty." Joel 2:11, "For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible." Joel 2:31, "The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." Amos 5:20, "Is not the day of the Lord darkness?" Malachi 4:5, "The coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Zephaniah 1:14, "The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter." And then Zephaniah 1:15, "The day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness."

When you see the day of the Lord you see wrath and fierce anger and desolation and vengeance and destruction and terror and darkness and dread and gloom and distress and trouble. It's judgment. Six times it is referred to as the day of doom. Four times it is called the day of vengeance. Revelation 6:17 calls it THE great day of His wrath. It always refers to the ultimate severest cataclysmic judgments of God on the wicked. It is the culmination of God's fury, God's wrath. It is climactic. The New Testament calls it His day, the day of wrath, the day of wrath and revelation, the great day of God Almighty. So this is a terrorizing period of judgment, the final judgment.

We are warned in the Bible the day of the Lord is near, the day of the Lord is at hand. It's always sort of coming out there in the final time when God pours out His fury. Jesus in the parables of Matthew 13 described it as a time of fire, burning. In Matthew 24 and 25 as He preached on His Second Coming He described it as a time when the angels come with flaming fire. Peter describes it as a time when the elements melt with fervent heat and men are consumed in eschatological fire.

Now think of it. Here's a little church. Here's a little group of Christians who have been convinced that they're in this and they're saying to themselves, "How did this happen? How did we get in this deal? We're not supposed to be here."

You say, "Well, what made them think that?" Go back to 1 Thessalonians. First Thessalonians chapter 5, in the first letter he wrote to them he told them this, verse 2, "You yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come." You know about it. You read the Old Testament. You know what Jesus taught. You know what I've told you. "The day of the Lord will come and it will come like a thief in the night." What does that mean? Unexpectedly, quickly, unannounced and harmfully. Just like a thief, they come unexpectedly, unannounced when you don't expect...when you're not ready and they do harm. While they...not we...but while they in the world are saying peace and safety, everything is fine, then destruction comes on them suddenly like birth pangs on a woman with child. They'll not escape. Notice they...they...they...not us...not us...not you. Verse 4, "But you, brethren, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief, for you are all sons of light and sons of day, we're not of night nor of darkness."

In other words, his point is this, this isn't for you, but you, brethren, the day is not going to catch you. You say, "Well what's going to happen to us?" Well he already told you. Go back to chapter 4 verse 16, "The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel, with a trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words." This is the we and the us part. The Lord's going to come and take us to heaven. We're not going to be here for the day of the Lord. We're not in the darkness. The day won't overtake us. We're sons of light and sons of day, not sons of night and sons of darkness. That's for the ungodly. That's clear in the Old Testament. That's clear in the New Testament. That's not for the godly. That's the ultimate culminating judgment of God as He fires His wrath on those who don't know Him. That was further described, wasn't it, in the first chapter of 2 Thessalonians as God's righteous judgment, retribution on those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

So, you see, what they had been told was the day of the Lord is an event you're not going to be at because the Lord is going to take you to be with Him. The dead in Christ are going to rise first. The living are going to get caught up, we're going to meet the Lord in the air, we're going to go and be with the Lord. We're going to be rescued out before the fury falls.

They had the same kind of anxiety that the dear people in the time of Malachi had. Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament in the order of the books are given. And in that little prophecy Malachi says, "God's going to judge...God's going to judge...God's going to judge." And a little group of believers get together at the end of chapter 3 and they start talking to each other and saying, "I wonder if God remembers us. We could get caught in this deal. When the fury falls we might get it." And Malachi says, "The Lord heard them talking to each other and the Lord said, Don't you worry, don't you worry, you'll be Mine in the day that I make up My jewels and I know how to distinguish between the wicked and the righteous. Don't you worry, you're not going to get caught in that."

It has always been the hope of the people of God that the Lord would deliver them out of judgment, that those who are in Christ Jesus will not know that condemnation fury. But here are these believers and somebody has convinced them they're in the day of the Lord and the obvious reaction is...what happened to the Rapture? We're supposed to be out of here before this deal starts. And now they're really confused. Panic sets in because they think they're in the day of the Lord.

Let's look then closely at these first two verses and see how Paul faces this issue. "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him." Stop right there.

Paul says, "I want to...I want to request of you that you begin to properly understand this matter of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him. I've got to straighten you out." The word "now," de in the Greek marks the move to a new subject. It's a transition from the beautiful prayer in verses 11 and 12, now to the real heart of the letter, the real doctrinal heart, this matter of the Second Coming. He calls them brethren, it's a gentle humble approach to the situation that emphasizes their equality as brothers in Christ. And he comes with a tenderness. He doesn't come and say to them, "You blockheads, I've already written you one letter and explained all this stuff." He's a very gentle Apostle at this point and because they are so perturbed and upset, he wants to deal with them kindly. And you should remember that throughout this notoriously difficult passage, Paul is motivated by a pastoral purpose. He's not out to gratify some unlawful curiosity about the end times, he limits his instruction to what is necessary to correct their error and get back the comfort they should be enjoying in the hope of the Rapture. So he speaks gently to them in pastoral terms. "And we request you," is a verb that basically means what it says...we plead with you. There's a gentleness. There's a kind dignity to this. He avoids being pontifical or authoritarian or intolerant or overbearing, but wants to be very gentle and very tender with them. It's the very same phrase he used back in the first letter, chapter 5 and verse 12.

Now what is it that he wants to persuade them about? With regard, or in behalf of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him. The Greek construction here in the Greek language forces us to conclude that he has one event in mind...one event. It is not the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's one...and our gathering together to Him, that's two. It is one event. There is a single definite article and it ties them together. It could read, "With regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, specifically our gathering together to Him." When you say parousia, the word for coming, you're talking about a lot of things. There are epochs and times within the coming of Christ. He comes for His Church. He comes with His church. He comes to judge. He comes to set up His Kingdom. He comes to rule in His Kingdom. And then to establish the new heaven and the new earth. There are many events in the coming of Christ. So he narrows it down. I want to talk to you with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus and our gathering to Him. That's a perfect description of the Rapture, isn't it? Doesn't the Lord come and then aren't we gathered to meet Him...where?...in the air. He says I want to talk to you about the Rapture.

Now why would he be discussing the Rapture? Because that was the problem. They can't figure out how they got in the day of the Lord. They're not supposed to be there by what they've understood. Furthermore the little personal pronoun "our" lends at least to me, anyway, a friendly tone to this aspect of the Lord's coming. I think if he was talking about the Lord's coming in the judgment sense, I think he would have used the Lord rather than our Lord which seems to be a friendly way of making it a hopeful aspect of that event. So with regard to the coming of our Lord and our gathering to meet Him, which is a perfect description of both sides of the Rapture, he says, "I've got to straighten you out." Coming is parousia, the general term but obviously he's relating it to our gathering together to Him which is a description of the Rapture, episunagoge. Sunagoge is the word from which you get synagogue, a gathering place. Epi is intensifying it, the place of our collecting together. So here we have a concern on their part about the event in which we are gathered together with the Lord.

Some of the old commentators called it the muster of the saints. This word, episunagoge, is only used one other place in the New Testament, Hebrews 10:25 where it says, "Forsake not the assembling together." And that's the idea of the word. So they were worried about our coming to be with the Lord, our gathering to Him. Paul had described it for them in the first letter. Jesus had said it this way, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid," right? You don't need to worry about whether you're going to lose Me permanently. In John 14 He said, "I'm going to go away and if I go I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again to receive you unto Myself that where I am there you may be also." That's the gathering together. In fact, there are some who believe that the term, episunagoge, the gathering together, was a technical term used in the early church to speak of that event. And we might be just as well to call that event the gathering together as to call it the Rapture.

So they weren't worried about the coming of the Lord with regard to the fate of the wicked. They were concerned about the gathering of the saved because if they were in the day of the Lord they must have concluded that something went wrong. Go back to 1 Thessalonians 1...1 Thessalonians 1:10, he says to them, "I know you have turned to God," verse 9, "from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." They weren't expecting any of God's fury. And that's a very general statement there but I don't believe they were expecting eternal wrath or any other kind of wrath. They were waiting for the Son who would deliver them out of that. The Son would come and they would be gathered together in a great congregation to Him and they would go to the place He prepared for them and then would come the day of the Lord. They expected to be taken to glory before the day of the Lord ever began. And they had been promised, 2 Thessalonians 1:7, rest or relief. They had been promised, 2 Thessalonians 1:10, glory. So they weren't expecting wrath and fury, but rest and glory. In fact, chapter 5 verse 9 of 1 Thessalonians, Paul even reminded them God has not destined us for wrath.

So the only way you can understand this passage from my viewpoint is to understand that they thought they were in the day of the Lord and therefore they missed the Rapture. If this was the day of the Lord, maybe God forgot them. They were supposed to be resting in the Lord's presence, but they were in the day of the Lord?

The effect is in verse 2. "That you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or by a message or by a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come." Listen, they were a wreck. They were shaken. They had lost their composure. They were severely disturbed because through a spirit, a message and a letter purported to have come from Paul and Silas and Timothy, they had been told the day of the Lord had come. "How did we get here?" they're saying. "What are we doing here? What happened to the Rapture? Was Paul wrong? Did God forget us? This is serious stuff."

Let's go backward through verse 2. The last part says, "To the effect the day of the Lord has come." There is no way that you can translate that verb "has come" any other way than the way it's translated. Enistecon(?), it means has come. Some commentators do cartwheels around trying to make it mean something else. It cannot. It simply means they believe that it had come, had arrived, therefore was there present actually. They were in the day of the Lord. It had arrived and they were in it.

You say, "Well why would they even think that?" Because of the persecution which perhaps included martyrdom. And more than that, because they had been told they were in it. You say, "How were they told?" By a spirit, a message and a letter. Three avenues, it's a triple use of dia, the word by or through, indicates three distinct means. What does it mean by a spirit? Well prophetic utterance, divine revelation from the Holy Spirit. They had been told that the Holy Spirit revealed it, that it came by the Spirit, direct revelation from God. And then they got it not only by a spirit but by a message, that's logos, a speech, a sermon. And thirdly, a letter, a written letter. And listen to this, then this little phrase, "As if from us." And that little phrase relates to all three.

Here's the scenario. Somebody comes to town. They say, "We have a word from Paul for you." Oh? Paul? "Yes." Now only months have passed since he had written the first letter, just a few. And they were, no doubt, eager to hear because their hearts were fresh and their love for Paul was great. "A word from Paul. Here's the word, you're in the day of the Lord." What? "He got it by revelation, it came through the Spirit, and he is preaching it by word, by message. And not only that, he has written it, here is a letter." And they had a forgery.

You see, in order to convince them that they were going to have to live through the day of the Lord, they had to get apostolic authority. They had to get some apostolic credentials. And so they said this came as a revelation to Paul, that Paul preached it and they said that he had even written it and here's a letter. It hints, doesn't it, at the existence of counterfeit apostolic documents very very very early in the life of the church, from the very outset Satan was counterfeiting stuff. All kinds of counterfeit documents were running all over the place within a matter of a few years. And the church had to distinguish between the authentic and the spurious.

They said this was all from Paul. By the way, Paul didn't like letters being attributed to him that he didn't write. He has a little word that may relate to that, look at the end of chapter 3 verse 17, it's an interesting note. As he closes the letter he says, "I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter, this is the way I write." What do you think he's saying there? If you've got something else and it doesn't look like this, I didn't write it. He had a way to do his signature that nobody could duplicate, I think. But see, this young group of believers got this and it supposedly came from Paul, that they were in the day of the Lord, that believers are going to go through the day of the Lord and maybe get delivered afterwards.

And what did it do to them? In verse 2 at the very beginning, they had been quickly shaken from their composure and disturbed. Very strong terminology here, it is very graphic terminology. The first verb...first you see the word quickly, hastily, rashly shaken. "From your composure," the word composure in the Greek is mind. Shaken means to be broken loose. It can be used of a rocking motion that shakes a ship, tossing it on the stormy waves. It can be used of a building that disintegrates under an earthquake. It can be used of a ship that is tied to a mooring and it breaks loose and begins to be tossed by the surf. To put it in the vernacular, you've lost your mind, you've gotten cut loose from your moorings. You're flipping and flopping all over everywhere. You're falling apart, tossed wildly. You've lost your mental balance over this. You're running amuck, you're operating on emotion, anxiety and fear. Pretty severe condition.

And then he adds the verb "be disturbed," means to be alarmed out of fear, frightened. Hey, if they were in the day of the Lord, fear. Now think this one through. If they had thought that the Rapture came at the end of the day of the Lord, they wouldn't be in fear, would they? They'd be happy. They'd be saying, "Hey, we're near the end, we're near the end, we're near the end." The very fact that they think they shouldn't be there tells us that they had been taught they weren't going to be there. So, the word "disturb" means...has the idea of clamor, tumult, fear, crying aloud. I don't know what was going on when they met for church but it might have been interesting, moaning, groaning, anxiety‑filled people thinking they were in the day of the Lord and trying to figure out how they missed the Rapture or how the Rapture didn't happen, or God forgot them or Paul was wrong, and then where are we? If he's wrong about that, what else is he wrong about? State of nervous excitement that ends up in panic. They were having a continuous panic attack as a whole church. They were then defying a basic principle of Christian living and that is not to be controlled by emotion but by truth. They lost their sense, they lost their composure.

So obviously they...they had been told that they would be escaping the day of the Lord. If they had been taught a view that they were going to go through the day of the Lord and then be taken to glory, they would have been saying, "Well it's difficult but we're excited cause this means Jesus will be here soon." No. They had expected Rapture and gathering together and then day of the Lord for the ungodly. So what were they doing in it?

So they needed an authentic word and that's why Paul writes this chapter. And he uses Antichrist as the focal point. You know why? Because it is Antichrist who really triggers the events that bring the day of the Lord. So what his point here is this, you can't be in the day of the Lord because the one who comes to start the events of the day of the Lord hasn't even come yet. And he uses Antichrist because Antichrist is an already revealed individual, so he can build his case on Daniel and he can build his case on the teaching of Jesus. And that's why he deals with the Antichrist. And in verse 3 he says, "Don't let anybody deceive you, it won't come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed." You can't be in the day of the Lord. There are some things that have to happen first that trigger that event and they haven't happened.

Some things are going to happen before the day of the Lord kicks in. We've been promised we'll have no part in those things.

Well, no sense in living in fear then, is there? If you want to title verses 3 to 17 just title it this, "How to avoid fear regarding the Lord's return...How to avoid fear regarding the Lord's return." There are five reasons you shouldn't be afraid. And if you come back next week, I'll give them to you. And if you don't...you can just be afraid. Let's bow together in prayer.

Father, thank You for the power of Your Word and its great clarity. Thank You for the instruction that Your Spirit gave us this morning. Lord, this is such a horrible thing to see as we look to the future and recognize what's going to happen in the world as Satan sends his man and as You and his reign of terror with the holocaust of the day of the Lord, our hearts grieve over the ungodly who will perish in that incredible time. Lord, we would only ask humbly that You would bring many to righteousness in the days before that hour. We thank You that there is promise in Your Word that Israel will be saved before the day of the Lord, that there is promise that people from every tongue and tribe and nation on the earth will form a great multitude of people who will sing glory to the Lamb before that day breaks. We can only ask, Lord, that You would save many before the terrible time and then we thank You for saving us so that we can look to Your coming without fear, not dreading, not frightened by the day of the Lord, but comforted in our gathering together to Jesus. Thank You for that hope in the Savior's name. Amen.
The Coming Man of Sin, Part 3
2 Thessalonians 2:3-5
Code: 53-9

In my first year of college I was living in a dorm in a Christian college, and we had a young guy in the dorm who came in that year who...who had for some reason an inordinate fear that he might miss the Rapture. And...in fact, he made a big issue out of this in a number of conversations that he was afraid as he had been raised in a situation where his preacher preached a lot on prophecy and described all the horrors that were to come in the end time and all of the very difficult things that were going to be in the wrap up of history. And his great fear was that he might miss the Rapture, that he might get left.

Well that planted a thought in the minds of some of us and so we decided to create a Rapture. And we went to some great extent to do this. We got a large piece of sheet metal which is used to simulate thunder and can be very effective when it's hit with some kind of an object. And then we got a graphlex camera with a huge flash and then we got a guy with a radio voice who sounded like an archangel. And we planned a simulated Rapture. We had all the rooms surrounding his room, he happened to be in my room, a roommate. And we had all the rooms surrounding, make sure that everybody in the middle of the night got out and tucked all their bedding in and put a little kind of cave in the pillow so it looked like they just went through the covers. And we made sure that...there was no distress, no sound going on. Everybody on the entire third floor vacated their rooms in that fashion. While he was sound asleep we went into the room and with the sheet metal hit that thing which was a thunderous and echoing sound in that concrete room and the moment that sound went, of course, he jolted up and right up into a camera we set the flash off which exploded about three inches from his face in a blaze of light. And then a guy standing with his hands cupped in the hall said..."Come." And then we all in the chaos of him trying to come out of this thing, we all disappeared.

And he, of course, eventually, fearing the worse got out of bed and began to feel the beds and sure enough...no one was there, covers were all tucked in. And then we watched from a hidden place down the hall as he went from room to room...and the same reality, finally coming out of about the third room at the top of his voice he said, "I'm left...I'm left." And his worst fear had become a reality in his own mind.

Now we were very happy at the appropriate moment to jump out and say, "Surprise!" To which his response was, "Oh, you got left, too." (Laughter)

Well we were actually trying to do a little, you know, role playing to help him with his problem. Now we laugh at the ridiculous silliness of that kind of a situation. We chuckle at a guy with that kind of an inordinate fear. But may I submit to you that that young man's concern about missing the Rapture was not unlike what the Thessalonians were experiencing as Paul wrote them 2 Thessalonians. So open your Bible to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 and 2 where we have been examining God's Word, now finding our way in to chapter 2. And remind yourself that Paul has been talking in these two chapters about the coming of Christ. This was a big issue with the Thessalonians and, in fact, the major issue facing them right now was the fear that they had missed the Rapture. Or, that a Rapture wasn't going to happen because they had come to believe that they were in the day of the Lord. They were in the day of the Lord.

Now the day of the Lord, as I've explained to you, is a technical term for the final period of God's judgment at the end of the age. It is a technical term. We also know from the first letter to the Thessalonians that the church will be raptured, caught out of the world before the day of the Lord. The day will not overtake us, we are not of the darkness, we are children of the day and children of the light and the day will not overtake us. The day of the Lord is not a time for the punishment of believers. It is clear in the Scriptures that the day of the Lord is a time of final ultimate devastating judgment on the ungodly.

And in writing the first letter to them he had told them, "You will be raptured...chapter 4 verses 13 to 17...caught up to meet the Lord in the air," and then in chapter 5 he described what would happen after that, namely the day of the Lord. So they knew that they were to be raptured and then the day of the Lord would come. Christians would be caught out of the world to meet the Lord in the air and they would go to heaven to be in the place where He is now preparing their home. And He will take them to be with Him where He now is in heaven. So they knew that.

But somebody had come along, some false teacher, and told them..."No, that's not right, you're not going to be raptured out of this, you're going to go into the day of the Lord. In fact, you're in it right now."

Now what would make them believe that? Well the answer is they were being persecuted severely, some of them maybe even losing their life for the cause of Christ. It did seem like a very formidable persecution, a very difficult time of suffering and death. And so because of that there was at least the possibility that they might believe they were in the day of the Lord if someone could show them some convincing reasons. They did. Verse 2, "They were quickly shaken from their composure and disturbed by a Spirit, a message and a letter as if from us."

Now remember what I told you about that last time. Somebody had come along and said, "Look, you're in the day of the Lord." No doubt they said, "Wait a minute, we're supposed to be raptured before the final judgment hits."

"No, I got new word for you. A Spirit or a revelation came and now it is being preached and here it is written, and it is from Paul and Silas and Timothy." That's what it means when it says "as if from us." Paul got a revelation and he's now preaching and he's even written this to you that this is the day of the Lord and you're in it and there isn't going to be any Rapture to take you out. Their worst fears were reality. You see, they had been told in the first letter, chapter 1 verse 10, that they were not destined for wrath. Chapter 5 verse 9, they were not destined for wrath. In fact, chapter 1 verse 10, they were waiting for the Son, they were waiting for the Rapture. They were waiting, as it says in verse 1 here, for our gathering together to Him. But now they had been confused. So Paul says in verses 1 and 2, "I have to request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, particularly our gathering together to Him," that is the Rapture, "that you not be so anxious, that you not be so knocked off your pins, that you not be so disconnected from your moorings so wildly tossed around like a ship in the sea and disturbed because somebody has told you you are in the day of the Lord and tried to affirm that with some kind of apostolic authority, as if it's come from us."

I've got to straighten you out, he says. You did not miss the Rapture and you are not in the day of the Lord. This is the heart of this little three‑chapter epistle. Paul wants to remind them that what he told them stands. Whatever they may have heard from whoever may have said it, it isn't the truth.

Now there is one thing obvious in this text and that is that the people expected to be gathered together to Christ in the Rapture before the day of the Lord. That's why when they thought they were in the day of the Lord they were so shaken and they were so disturbed because they weren't suppose to be there. They weren't suppose to be in the day of the Lord at all. And that's why they were so shook. What had gone wrong? What is happening here?

To solve their confusion and to end their fear, Paul has to clarify the truth and give them an authentic word with regard to the false teaching that has been attributed to him and his companions. And his answer is, "You're not in the day of the Lord, that's impossible. You can't be in the day of the Lord." Why? Because there are certain features that have to happen before the day of the Lord can come and they haven't happened. That's his simple thought here...his simple thought. Some things have to happen before the day of the Lord, they haven't happened. You can't be in the day of the Lord.

And starting in verse 3 he lays that out all the way down through verse 17. And the whole point of verses 3 to 17 is to waylay their fears, is to remove their anxiety, is to take away their shakenness, is to get back their composure, is to eliminate their being disturbed, to get them back calm, collected, cool, comfortable and hopeful.

Now if I were to divide up verses 3 to 7 I would simply say Paul has a few hooks that he hangs his thought on. If you want to eliminate fear about the coming of Christ, if you don't want to be like my roommate and live in the fear that something might go wrong and you might get missed, then there's some things you need to avoid, okay? And he gives five of them. And this is the way that this text flows. First he says don't be deceived, then he says don't be forgetful. Then he says don't be ignorant. Then he says don't be doubtful. Then he says don't be weak. What leads to confusion and being shaken and disturbed and afraid and anxious as you look at the coming of Christ is deception, forgetfulness, ignorance, doubt, and weakness. So he takes those five things and simply points out...you must avoid them. Don't be deceived, don't be forgetful, don't be ignorant, don't be doubtful, don't be weak. And as we move through the passage over the next couple of weeks we will see those points unfold. For this morning we're just going to look at the first two and to do that is going to be a major accomplishment because of the fact there's so much here.

The first one is somewhat brief. Now if you want to eliminate your shakenness and eliminate you're being disturbed and get your composure back and live in joy and hope and anticipation...one, don't be deceived. Verse 3, "Let no one in any way deceive you." That's pretty simple. Deception will create anxiety. Deception will create certain fear. The cause of their being shaken and losing their composure, the cause of their being disturbed and distressed was that somebody had come along and deceived them. What does that mean? They told them something was true that was not true.

Now this is a common thing when it comes to end times. I doubt that a week goes by in my life when I don't get across my desk another book or another letter or another pamphlet or another paper offering some other viewpoint about the end of the world. There is a massive amount of deception floating around on this issue. That's why Jesus said, it's recorded in Matthew 24:4 and Mark 13:5, "When it comes to My return, Jesus said, see to it that no one misleads you." There's so much misleading, so much deception. And our Lord was speaking there about deception regarding the time of His return.

There is always in the church the imminent danger of deception because Satan is disguised as an angel of light, he goes around attempting to deceive...that is he sells lies as if they were true. That's his major work. And his ministers are disguised as angels of light. They are endeavoring to do what Satan wants to do and that's to devour you with confusion, to devour you with error and deception. That's why you can no longer be children, Ephesians 4:14 says, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the cunning craftiness and deception of Satan. You have to be on the alert for ministers, 2 Corinthians 4:2 says, that come along and are corruptors, or mishandlers of the Word of God. You have to realize that evil men will grow worse and worse deceiving and being deceived, 2 Timothy 3:13. Many deceivers are in the world, John said, many deceivers are in the world, 2 John 7. And he says the deceiver is the spirit of Antichrist. So some deceivers had come in to the Thessalonian church. They found an audience and they were ready to accept it because their circumstances looked so bad that it sounded believable. And then when they popped up an supposed apostolic letter, they bought into it. So Paul's retort is a very strong prohibition..."Let no one deceive you." It's a compound verb, exapatao, it means to deceive successfully, or to deceive completely, to delude, to lead you right in to error. Don't let anybody do that. And then he adds that little phrase, "in any way," that is through any means, whether it's a revelation, or whether it's a prophecy, or whether it's a sermon, or whether it's a book, a letter, whatever it is, written, spoken, whatever....don't let anybody by any means or any method lead you in to any deception.

Obviously Satan is a deceiver and a liar. And you can't be so gullible as just to buy anything. The point is, you check it with what you know to be true. Don't just gullibly buy in to something based upon an interpretation of circumstance. And admittedly the letter that was supposedly attributed to Paul would be a very formidable thing in making the case. But certainly they would have known that Paul wasn't going to counter his teaching and wasn't going to contradict the doctrine that he got from the Lord which he had previously taught them. It's obvious they had been taught about the Rapture. It's obvious they had been taught about the day of the Lord. Obviously they thought the Rapture would come and then the day of the Lord. They knew Paul taught it and they knew he taught it because God gave it to him. There really was no reason to be deceived. They were being deceived as an emotional reaction to the stress of their circumstances. Don't allow that to happen. Let your theology rise above your circumstances. You don't buy in to something because it fits the way you assess your personal problems.

Now Paul says you can't be deceived about this, it's a bad thing to be deceived about. Let me just give you a simple reason why. You need to understand the truth about the coming of Jesus Christ for two reasons...one, for the reason of accountability. In other words, when I know Jesus is coming and His reward is with Him to give to every man according to his work shall be...I'm waiting for Jesus to come and reward me. I'm waiting because when He comes the Bible says He's going to bring His reward with Him for me. And He's going to take me to heaven to my eternal home and there I'm going to dwell with Him. And when I go to meet Him in the air, Jesus Himself will meet me and John says I'll become like Him. As I realize He's coming with a reward to give to me, to take me to glory to dwell in a house He's prepared for me or a place in the Father's house, and to make me immediately like Jesus Christ, that, John says, is a purifying hope. Whoever has this hope purifies himself. I need to be clear about the return of Christ and His coming to gather His people because that is a purging hope.

Secondly, I need to be clear about it in order that I might not only have purity but that I might have joy. If I am confused about the return of Christ, if like my roommate I think I'm going to miss the Rapture and end up in a holocaust, if I'm like the Thessalonians thinking that there isn't going to be any deliverance, I'm not going to be delivered from the wrath to come, I'm going to wind up caught in this thing, if I believe that then I lose the joy of my hope. So for the sake of accountability and obedience and purity and the sake of hope and joy, I need to be clear about the return. Paul says I don't want you to be deceived about this, it steals your purity, it steals your joy.

So the first thing he says is if you don't want to have anxiety about the return of Christ then don't be deceived. Second point, don't be forgetful. Don't be forgetful, verses 3 to 5, don't let anybody deceive you, he says, "For it will not come," that means the day of the Lord, refers back to the day of the Lord at the end of verse 2, that time of final judgment when man's day is over and the day of the Lord comes as He judges the wicked of the world, so he says the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction or perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every so‑called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God displaying himself as being God...now watch verse 5, "Do you not remember that while I was still with you I was telling you these things?"

He's saying to them don't be forgetful, I told you all of this. I told you all of this. And this, of course, is tied very closely to the first point about not being deceived because you hold on to what you've been taught. Here he says remember it, don't forget it. What it reminds us is that all this is not new information. See that little phrase "these things I was telling you these things," what things? Rapture truth, truth about the day of the Lord, truth about the apostasy, truth about the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, I was telling you all of that. By the way, "I was telling," it's an imperfect tense verb which means past continuous action...I was continually telling you...not I told you once, not I dropped a hint, not I gave you one lecture on this...I was continually telling you this about the Rapture, the day of the Lord, the apostasy and the man of lawlessness. It was a...it was a continual theme in my teaching.

And that is why there's not more detail here. There's just enough detail to try to restore their weak memories to the more full treatment that Paul had given to them when he was there. He says you just need to remember what I told you. If you were remembering you would not be anxious. You wouldn't be afraid of the coming of Christ. Some people are, you know? That young man in my room wasn't the only one, there are many people and I meet them from time to time who have very inordinate fear about the coming of Christ. He says if you weren't deceived you wouldn't have that fear and if you weren't forgetful you wouldn't have that fear because I've told you what you need to know to waylay that fear.

Let me give you a footnote here just so that you put this in your file somewhere. This church in Thessalonica is only months old in the Lord. I mean, these are baby Christians. Paul, you know, had gone there and stayed just a few weeks, the church was born. After traveling for a few more weeks he writes a letter. AFter traveling a few more weeks he writes another letter. This is only a few months old, this church, these are baby Christians. And it ought to be filed somewhere in your mind that prophetic teaching about the Rapture, the day of the Lord, the apostasy and the man of sin Paul felt was essential to the foundation of a new Christian. Obviously it is not something that you wait for, it is something that you put in the foundation. Why? Because it has such a tremendous impact on the matter of purity and the matter of joy that believers need to know it from the beginning. And so Paul must have laid it out, unrolled his apostolic eschatological chart and took them through it.

It is important for all of us to understand the return of Jesus Christ. We're waiting for the Son from heaven like they were. We're waiting for the gathering together. We're waiting for the twinkling of an eye in which we leave this world with those that are dead in Christ and are gathered to meet the Lord in the air, we're waiting to go to the place He's prepared for us in heaven. We need that holy hope, we need that joy. And so he is saying, "Don't you remember what I told you? I told you all these things. I told you Rapture would come and you'd be caught up and the gathering together would take place, I told you you were not children of the darkness or the night. I told you the day would not overtake you like a thief. Something has to come first," he says. It can't be the day of the Lord, for it will not come...back to verse 3...until the apostasy comes first. He must have already told them that, but here he reminds them.

Now this is his main point. This is a very important point, now don't miss this. Paul's saying, "Look, you can't be in the day of the Lord. The reason you can't be in the day of the Lord is because the apostasy hasn't come. It comes first, then the day of the Lord comes." Pretty clear. In other words, he's saying the day of the Lord can't just show up at any time, there's some things that have to happen before the day of the Lord comes. He could have chosen a number of things...he really could have. He could have chosen any of a handful of precursors to the day of the Lord. For example, listen to Joel chapter 2 verse 31, "The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes." Now can it be more clear? If the day of the Lord is here, look up. Is the moon blood and has the sun gone out? Right? That's what it says. That has to happen before.

He could have gone to Joel 3:14, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision, the sun and moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness." Is the moon blood? Has the sun gone out? Are the stars gone? Are multitudes from all over the world collected in a valley near Jerusalem to be judged by God? Has that happened?

Well how about Zechariah...he could have gone to Zechariah chapter 12 verse 10, "I will pour out on the house of David on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication so they will look on Me whom they've pierced, mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. There will be great mourning." And then he says, "A fountain will be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and impurity," chapter 13 verse 1. In other words, all Israel is going to be saved. There's going to be salvation for them. Then verse 1 of chapter 14, "A day is coming for the Lord and He'll gather the nations against Jerusalem and battle will take place." Has that all happened? Has Israel been converted? Have the nations gone to battle against Jerusalem? Are multitudes in this valley?

He could have gone to Malachi. He could have gone to Malachi chapter 4, "Behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." Had Elijah come? Had he restored the hearts of the fathers? Had there been a revival led by Elijah? He could have picked any of that. He could have said you can't be in the day of the Lord, the moon isn't blood, the sun isn't out, the stars aren't gone, the nations of the world haven't fought against Jerusalem, they're not collected into a valley for judgment, Elijah hasn't come, Israel hasn't been saved, the hearts of the fathers haven't been restored, this is not the day of the Lord.

But he didn't choose any of those. What did he choose? Something else, look at verse 3, he said, "It will not come unless the apostasy comes first." He picked this called the apostasy. The day of the Lord will not arrive...by the way, there's an ellipsis there that's filled in by words in italics that are very accurate...it will not come...you see that in italics. Paul is so excited here his grammar fails a bit. And it's kind of an ellipsis, you know, like three dots, something's left out and filling it in is appropriate. The day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first.

Now let me add a footnote here please. Paul is not discussing the time of the Rapture. He says nothing about the time of the Rapture. He simply says the day of the Lord is preceded by the apostasy. He doesn't say whether his readers will see the apostasy, whether any believers will see the apostasy or not see the apostasy. The time of the Rapture is not a discussion here. He doesn't even deal with it. All he says is that there is coming the apostasy and then after that comes the day of the Lord. He doesn't say anymore than that. So we cannot read into this text some specific timing for the Rapture. We only know it will be before the day of the Lord. For sure he is wanting the Thessalonians to comprehend that but in this text he is simply saying the day of the Lord can't come until this event takes place. And that event is called the apostasy. The apostasy comes first.

Now very quickly follow my thought, I want to show you what this means. The apostasy, apostasia, short definition...revolt, rebellion..revolt, rebellion. It is used in Joshua 22:22 that's in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, of rebellion against God. A long definition...a deliberate abandonment of a formerly professed religious position...a deliberate abandonment of a formerly professed religious position. In other words, you're associated with a certain religious view, you profess it and then you revolt against it. That's apostasy. Revolting, rebelling against a position you once professed. This is defection, religious defection.

Now what's he talking about here? If he wants to say...now follow this...if he wants to say you can't be in the day of the Lord, you cannot be in the day of the Lord because the apostasy hasn't come, what does he mean?

Is he talking about apostasy in some general sense? No. Because if he were talking about it in some sort of general sense we always have it around, right? So it wouldn't signify anything. It wouldn't signal anything. There will be, for example, apostasy in the church all the time. There will be defectors in the church from the very start. We're studying Revelation 2 and 3, right? We've read the letters to the seven churches. Five of the seven churches have defecting Christians, don't they? Falling into sin? Several of the seven, at least two, have a large contingent of non‑Christians who have totally rejected the faith and one, Laodicea is a whole church full of apostates, people who have defected from the true faith. So that's been around a long time.

So if he's talking about the apostasy in some generic sense like the Laodicean type church that has left the true faith but continues to be religious, he can't be speaking of that. He's not just talking about that general reality that was in Laodicea. There have been Laodicean churches throughout the history of the church for the last two thousand years. We have Laodicean churches today. You can't identify that as some particular event. That's just general.

Furthermore, there's another apostasy. You say he might be thinking about not just the general apostasy that happens all the time as the church defects, all through history it's done that...the Roman Catholic Church, cults and isms and chisms and spasms and all the stuff that comes off the church, all the cults and occults and all that other stuff, there's always that. That's...that can't be what he's talking about...liberals and neoorthodox and whatever other stuff. You say, "Well maybe he's talking about that sort of end time apostasy, that sort of escalated apostasy, that sort of final culminating apostasy. You know, 1 Timothy chapter 4 the Apostle Paul says that in the later times some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits, doctrines of demons. Is he talking about that, that sort of final escalated apostasy of 1 Timothy or even the 2 Timothy 3 when it says dangerous seasons will come and there will be a departure and it will grow worse and worse? Or maybe the 2 Peter 2 passage where it says that in the latter times, in the end times there will come false teachers and they will secretly bring in destructive heresies and they will deny the Master that bought them? That's apostasy. They will defect from having once named Christ." That's end time stuff. Or the scoffers in chapter 3 of 2 Peter, "Where is the promise of His coming?" Or the people that Jude talks about in the end time who come along and they mock, they mock the truth, they are worldly people who follow after their own ungodly lusts. "Is he talking about that, that sort of last days final form of apostasy?" No, he's not speaking of that.

It isn't just the general apostasy that goes on all the time through all the history of the church. It isn't that sort of final accumulated apostasy at the end of the church age. There's another possibility. Even during the hour of testing, Daniel's seventieth week, that seven year period that we often call the Tribulation, there will be some apostasy there, too. There will definitely be some defection among some people there. It says in Matthew 24 that our Lord says, "Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many and because lawlessness has increased most people's love will grow cold and only those who endure to the end are going to be saved." So there are going to be defections even in the period that we call the Tribulation. There are defections all through church history. There will be a sort of an accumulated large kind of spiritual apostasy at the end of the church age and there will be apostasy in the time we call the Tribulation or the hour of testing. Is he talking about this? No. He's not talking about those. What is he talking about?

Look back at verse 3. He doesn't say it will not come until apostasy comes first, but until...what?...THE apostasy. In this case that article is very definitive, THE apostasy. This is an event. This is not a general spirit or a general flow or a trend, this is an event...specific, identifiable, unique, this is the consummate apostasy, the ultimate apostasy. This is as you would have it the final act in the course that was set in motion in Romans chapter 1. The is the event of final evil blasphemous magnitude.

You say, "But how are we to know what it is?" Well he tells you by introducing the main character. "The day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first." And what is that? "It's the man of lawlessness who is revealed." The apostasy, beloved, is associated with the revealing of the man of lawlessness. Whatever this event is it involves someone called the man of lawlessness. If you know the key person, you can find the key event. The key person is the man of lawlessness. Some manuscripts say "the man of sin," that's why I called the series "The coming man of sin," that's the more familiar name of this guy. But the better manuscripts here would use the word "lawlessness," and that also fits with verses 7 and 8 where lawlessness and lawless is used as well. This is...lawlessness is anomia, without law. This is the person who lives without any regard for God's law, okay? A man who has no regard for the law of God, no regard for the will of God, the rule of God at all. First John 3:4 says sin is lawlessness, and of course it is. But this is then the consummate lawless one, the consummate sinner. There have been millions of lawless, there have been millions of blasphemers, there have been millions of God‑rejecters, Christ‑ haters, millions of people throughout human history, billions even, who have blasphemed God. There have been millions who have hypocritically outwardly professed to worship God and to worship Christ, so defectors, apostates, rebels, revolters, they've been around a long time. The lawless, the godless who refuse the law of God, the will of God, the Word of God, the rule of God, there have been billions. But this is the ultimate one. This is THE man of lawlessness. This is the ultimate composite wicked blasphemous human being. And at the apostasy, please note verse 3, he is revealed.

Whatever this apostasy is it is an event in which the man of lawlessness is revealed. The verb, by the way, "revealed," stands in the emphatic position in the aorist tense, for those of you who care, which points to a definite time when he's revealed. And it would read like this...the apostasy comes first revealed is the man of lawlessness. It is at the apostasy that the revelation of the man of lawlessness takes place.

Now the fact that he is revealed also indicates that he had previous existence. It doesn't say he's born. It says he's revealed. He is taken out from the secret place where he's been. What has been hidden is now fully disclosed. His true identity will be made manifest. He's already around. In fact, you want to know something? Before he pulls off the apostasy he's already the ruler of the world...the whole world. They just don't know who he is. They don't know he is a 100 Judases rolled in to one.But they're going to find it out in one moment, in one great event, in one blasphemous cataclysm, the epitome of evil pulls the epitome of apostasy.

Now who is this man of lawlessness? Some commentators say, "Oh, it's Antiochus Epiphanes." It can't be him, can't be him because three and a half years after he does this the day of the Lord comes, then comes the Millennium and then the eternal state. And I've got news, we aren't in the eternal state. Couldn't be Antiochus or the day of the Lord would have been passed thousands of years ago.

Some say Caligula. Couldn't be him either. Some say Nero. Couldn't be him. Some say Pompey, couldn't be him. Some say Satan, couldn't be Satan because it says in verse 9 that he works in accord with Satan. Some say it's just a principle of evil. It doesn't say a principle, it says it's a man. Must be the Antichrist.

So the Antichrist is going to come and he's going to do something that is the ultimate act of apostasy. He is further called "the son of destruction, or perdition." That's a quite graphic name. The Hebrews used this expression "the son of" to point up something very simple. If a person belonged to something so inextricably they would want to say that he had the nature of that thing. This man is so totally associated with destruction that he can be called a son of destruction. We would say the son of a father bears the father's nature. And that's what they're saying. A son of destruction bears the very nature of destruction. He is in his inmost being destruction. He is in his inmost being perdition just as the Son of God is in His in most being, Godlike. It is to say he belongs to hell. He belongs to perdition. He belongs to torment. He belongs to punishment. He belongs to judgment. He belongs to apoleia, is the word ruin. He is human trash for the dump of hell, ruination. One other person in the New Testament is called a son of perdition, who is it? Judas, John 17:12, same title. Only two people in the Bible are given that title but there are many more who are capable of bearing that title. In fact, all unbelievers would but there's a sense in which this title is reserved for the worst of the worst. Who can think of a worst person in human history until the Antichrist than Judas? Who can think of a more fierce apostasy than the apostasy of Judas? Who can imagine a man who could live for three years in the presence of God Himself in human form, who could be with Him, walk with Him, talk with Him, eat with Him, who could do every little duty of life alongside of Him, who could hear His words and see His life and feel His love and know His wisdom and who could turn his back and sell Him? That is an apostasy of monstrous proportions. And certainly the hottest hell is reserved for that kind of apostate, that is a son of destruction.

But the Antichrist is a hundred Judases, the ultimate blasphemer. Judas simply went to the temple and threw the money down. The Antichrist goes in the Holy of Holies and pronounces himself God. Both men were controlled by Satan. John 13:2 says of Judas, "Satan entered into him." Revelation 13 says of the Antichrist that Satan controlled him in the vision that John saw. He's destined to be destroyed.

This Antichrist, as you remember I showed you, was described, remember in Daniel 7, Daniel 8, Daniel 9, Daniel 11? Daniel laid out a very clear description of him. Zechariah adds to that, "For behold I'm going to raise up a shepherd," this is God talking, "I'm going to raise a shepherd up in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken or sustain the one standing, but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hooves." God says I'm going to raise up a shepherd...so you want to know something? Antichrist is under the control of whom? God. He doesn't do what shepherds are supposed to do, he doesn't care for the perishing, those that have been cut off, literally those who are dying. He doesn't seek the scattered. He doesn't heal the broken, sustain the one standing. That could refer to one about to give birth. He just devours the fat sheep, tears off their hooves. And then in verse 17, "Woe to that worthless shepherd." That word "worthless," ruined, useless, pointless, trash for the dump of hell, this is the Antichrist. The little horn, Daniel called him, that rises out of the other nations. He starts out not being very powerful and soon controls the world. He is the king, Daniel says, who does what he pleases, the willful king. He is the insolent king. He is the man of lawlessness and he is a son of destruction.

Now what is the apostasy that he does? Verse 4 describes it. "Who opposes and exalts himself above every so‑called God or object of worship." Stop at that point. Apparently he's been the friend of religion. He has risen to world power. And when I say he has risen to world power, friends, I mean he has risen to world power. Look at Revelation 13...Revelation 13 verse 1, John sees this beast and this is a visionary symbolic picture of the Antichrist. He has ten horns, seven heads, on his horns were ten crowns. Now we don't want to go in to the detail on that, those pictures of this beast suffice it to say lead us to understand the tremendous breadth of his power. Horns mean power, heads can mean intelligence, crowns mean dominion and authority. He is a massively powerful ruling entity. But notice on every one of the heads were blasphemous names. He is a blasphemer of God. He rises to prominence with all this power. Imagine ten horns, seven heads, ten crowns, this is a world ruler. He's wearing all the crowns.

And then it says in verse 2, "He was like a leopard and also feel like a bear and a mouth like the mouth of a lion." What's the importance of that? If you go back to Daniel chapter 7 verses 3 to 8 you will remind yourself that Babylon was described as a lion. And you will remind yourself that Medo Persia was described as a bear. And the great kingdom of Greece as a leopard for its swiftness...fierce, strength, swift. And so what you have here is the Antichrist being the composite of all the great world empires, Babylon, Medo Persia, Greece. He will come out of Europe, he will come out of the revived Roman Empire which died and is now being reformed. Isn't it amazing to watch it happen? A united Europe...that's no mistake, that's no political mishap, that's no serendipity. We wondered, I think, years ago how Europe could be so prominent in prophecy and why the Antichrist would rise out of Europe when America was more prominent. Now America is on the down and the great power of the world is becoming confederated Europe. And out of that Antichrist rises and then what you've got is all that Babylon, Medo Persia, Greece and the old Roman Empire were all rolled in to one individual. The whole earth is amazed. Verse 4, "They're worshiping the dragon who is Satan because he gave his authority to the beast...they don't know that...they worship the beast, they say, Who is like the beast? Who is able to wage war with him?" So he comes, he conquers the world.

Verse 5, he has a mouth and out of his mouth words of blasphemies. But once those blasphemies start he can only go for 42 months, that's three and a half years. That's exactly what Daniel 7:25 said, a time, times and a half a time. That's the limit. He speaks, verse 6, blasphemies against God...blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, blasphemes those who dwell in heaven. He makes war with the saints, overcomes them. Please note, he has authority over every tribe, people, tongue, nation on the face of the earth, that is all who dwell on the earth worship him whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of the Life of the Lamb who has been slain. Every non‑believer in the world worships this guy. He literally rules the whole world. He rules the world...this son of perdition. He rises to that rule and when he hits his apex he starts to blaspheme God and he blasphemes, it says, His temple or His tabernacle, His dwelling place and those who dwell in heaven. He just goes after God and everything that is associated with God.

Before he does that though he has reached world prominence. He gets to the point where the whole world embraces him and he must be tolerant of religion. He must be able to put his arms around the Jews and the Gentiles and everybody. I'm amazed to see this happening. I suppose you've been amazed to see the Pope meeting with Muslim leaders. There will be a tolerance of world religion by this individual...but, please notice verse 4, at one great movement he will oppose and exalt himself above every so‑ called God or object of worship. Boom! He is the ultimate egotist. He will be worshiped. By the way, this is simply a human being fulfilling some massive way the desire of the heart of Satan. When Satan fell, what prompted him? Isaiah 14 says he said this, "I will ascend to heaven, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the recesses of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High." Satan has always wanted to be in God's place. And this Antichrist will move in, blaspheme God, set himself up as God. First he opposes and exalts himself above every so‑called God or sebasma, that's a word that means something to be reverenced, every...every holy article, holy holiday, festival, or whatever. In other words, all religion goes.

You might note, up until this time, you read Revelation 17, he's been coexisting with the mother of harlots, the false world religions. He's been doing fine but eventually devours them. Read that in Revelation 17. And then he sets himself up. Verse 4, he takes his seat in the temple of God, in the naos, the inner most part, the sanctuary. It indicates to us that when he does this there will be a temple in Jerusalem. There will be a temple. He goes into the temple of God and he puts himself up as God, displaying himself as being God.

You say, "Why does he pick the temple?" Because for all of history since God brought His people into the land and built a temple, that has been the symbol of the presence of the true God. Yes, Israel is apostate. Yes, Judaism has failed. Yes, God has removed Himself, as it were, from that unique place of covenant blessing which Israel once enjoyed and awaits their future salvation. But still Jerusalem belongs to God and God's presence is symbolized in the temple in that place. What other place on the face of the earth would be a more perfect place for Satan to orchestrate the ultimate blasphemy against Jehovah the true God and therefore His Son Jesus Christ? So he goes in to the temple and desecrates it. This happens at the middle of the seven week, seven years, the seventieth week of Daniel, the time of testing, the time of Jacob's trouble, as it's called. For the first three and a half years he just captures the world. They don't know who he is. Then he's revealed for who he really is when he goes in and calls himself God and the world says, "Oh oh, we've got a maniac." Jesus said in Matthew 24:15, "When you see that happen which was spoken of by the prophet Daniel, even the abomination of desolation...next verse, the first verb...run, run and hope it isn't winter and hope you're not nursing a baby because what's going to happen is indescribable." He will massacre everybody he can, including those who have come to believe in Christ in that time, including Jews to wipe out the people of God if he can, literally all hell breaks loose.

The first half, he's this world leader. Daniel says he signs a treaty with Israel. He brings peace to the Middle East. He becomes the protector of Israel. They probably let him in and out of their temple. He looks like he's religious. He probably talks about loving God, about knowing God. And he controls the world. And then the reality is known when he moves into the place, opposes every religion, consumes the mother of harlots which is the false religious system of the world during that time, sets himself up as God and then begins to destroy anyone who associates with the true God in any way, shape or form. That act of going into the holy place, putting himself up...Jesus said it would happen in the holy place, Matthew 24:15, that act is the apostasy. That we might to borrow contemporary language say, is the mother of all apostasies...or better, the child of all apostasies, the ultimate apostasy. He sets himself up as God, the ultimate affront to the true God. And then for three and a half years he has a reign of terror that is ended by the day of the Lord.

But that act in the temple is called the abomination of desolation. What that means is an abomination denotes an object of disgust or revulsion, or abhorrence. The abomination of desolation, literally the abomination that desolates, that lays waste. It literally lays waste the house of God. It causes it to be desolate. And then he starts to kill anybody who names the name of Christ, he attempts to massacre the whole remaining population of Jews. This is the one to come.

What's Paul's point? He says...Look, you're not in the day of the Lord. I could have told you look up, is the moon blood? Is the sun gone out? Are the stars disappeared? I could have said, is Elijah here? Is there a big valley, have the nations been gathered? Has there been a war in Jerusalem? But here's something better, you can't be in the day of the Lord because the apostasy hasn't happened. The Antichrist hasn't gone into the temple, into the holy place, blasphemed the true God with an act of desecration.

I don't know what the specific act is but it's enough that he sets up the worship of himself. And if you read Revelation you'll see then the false prophet forces the whole world to worship him as God. For three and a half years he is worshiped as God and anybody who doesn't worship him is killed. Believers refuse to worship him therefore don't get the mark of the beast are massacred. He sets out to massacre all of Israel. God has to hide them and protect them so that they'll be around to be redeemed and to have the Kingdom promised to them.

You're not in the day of the Lord. Before the day of the Lord comes all this has to happen...the apostasy, the man of lawlessness.

This is comforting. So he says in verse 5, "Don't you remember, while I was still with you I was telling you these things." Beloved, there's no need to have fear. You're not of the darkness nor of the night. The day of the Lord will not overtake you as a thief. You're looking for our gathering together to Jesus Christ. You're looking for the Rapture when the Lord comes from heaven to take us to the place He's prepared for us. You're waiting for the Son, not the Antichrist. The day of the Lord isn't for us. Be comforted. Don't let anybody deceive you and don't be forgetful of what you know.

Father, we thank You this morning for Your Word. How powerful it is. We rejoice in hope of the coming of Christ, thank You that we'll not be in the day of the Lord. We'll not be there because You'll keep us from it. We thank You for the promise of Revelation 3:10 that we will be kept from the hour of testing that shall come upon the whole earth to try those who dwell on the earth. And we know that's a technical phrase, those who dwell on the earth for unbelievers and is so used throughout Revelation. There is coming a time to test unbelievers. There is coming a horrible day of the Lord. For us though there's coming a Savior to take us to be with Him. In that hope we find the call to holiness and source of our joy and we thank You for such a great hope in our Savior's name. Amen.
The Coming Man of Sin, Part 4
2 Thessalonians 2:6-10
Code: 53-10

Let's take our Bibles this morning for our time in God's Word and look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, our continuing study of the coming man of sin...the coming man of lawlessness, or as we've subtitled it, how to avoid fear regarding the Lord's return...how to avoid fear regarding the Lord's return.

You know, of course, that the return of Jesus Christ is set. The only thing we don't know is when. He said it's not for us to know the times and the seasons. He said no man knows the hour when the Son of Man comes. God knows. The plan is set. Jesus will return. And we should live not in fear of that but in anticipation of it.

In 2 Timothy chapter 4 the Apostle Paul says these familiar words, he says, "There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing." We should so greatly anticipate the return of Jesus Christ that actually it could be said we love His appearing. It is our greatest hope, it is our greatest and most joyous anticipation. We are to live in hope. We are to long for the return of Christ. We are to say with John, "Even so, come Lord Jesus." And yet there are some people in the church who claim to be Christians who are for one reason or another afraid of the return of Christ. Apparently the Thessalonians had such a fear. Notice verses 1 and 2, just by way of review. "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed, either by a Spirit, or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come."

Now Paul says I would like to write you about the Rapture. I would like to write you about the Lord coming for you, about our gathering together, as he calls it in verse 1. I want to talk to you about the coming of Christ and about the Rapture and about the day when we're going to be gathered together but you have been distressed and you have been disturbed and you have been shaken from your composure because somebody has created fear in you. How? Well somebody told you you are in the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is a technical term for the time of final judgment on the ungodly. Somebody had come along, according to verse 2, and said that a Spirit and a message and even a letter from Paul stated that the day of the Lord had arrived. And that means that they missed the Rapture or there was no Rapture. There was no catching away of the church in to the presence of Jesus Christ. They were now in the day of the Lord.

You say, "Why would they believe that?" Because they were being severely persecuted. And so they had been told that they had missed the Rapture or that there was no Rapture...we don't know which. And they were deeply concerned because this supposedly came from a Spirit, maybe even the Holy Spirit through a message and a letter from Paul, it was claimed.

Now there's one thing then obvious in this text and I've pointed it out and I'm just briefly reviewing, and that is this, Paul must have taught them that they would be raptured before the day of the Lord. He must have taught them that they would be caught away to meet Christ before the day of the Lord hit. That's what is inherent in what he says because they're saying we're in the day of the Lord, we've been told we're in it, what happened to the Rapture? Now that implies that they had expected to be delivered out before the day of the Lord began. And I think that's correct. That is what Paul taught and in fact they had been lied to and told that Paul had changed his view or some new revelation had come. To solve their confusion and to solve their fears, Paul then has to clarify the truth at hand, that is you're not in the day of the Lord, you didn't miss the Rapture. And his answer is to show them that they are not in the day of the Lord, they couldn't be in the day of the Lord because certain events precede the day of the Lord that haven't yet occurred.

Now that's kind of where we were in the very beginning of understanding this passage. So Paul says you're not in the day of the Lord. I'll prove it to you, there are certain precursors to the day of the Lord and they haven't happened yet. In verse 3 he tells them that, "Let no one in any way deceive you that you're in the day of the Lord and missed the Rapture, it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed who is also called the son of destruction." You can't be in the day of the Lord, he says, the apostasy hasn't come and the man of sin, the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, or as we know him most frequently, the Antichrist has not yet come. That's his answer.

And as he introduces the man of sin, the Antichrist, he then launches in to a more full discussion of him to help them to remember what he had previously taught them. Now as you look at verses 3 down to 17 there is a continuity here. And I just remind you of what we've already learned. Paul want's to allay their fears. And so he suggests several things to them. First of all, he says don't be deceived, verse 3, "Let no one deceive you." Deception can certainly create anxiety, deception, religious spiritual theological doctrinal deception can certainly create fear. He says don't be deceived. That is always an imminent danger in the church because it is always a major effort of Satan. But he is saying stick with what you know is the revelation of God, compare everything with Scripture like the Bereans did and don't allow yourself to be deceived.

Second thing he says, don't be forgetful...don't be forgetful. Down in verse 5, "Do you not remember that while I was still with you I was telling you these things..." what things? The things in verses 3 and 4, that the day of the Lord can't come until the apostasy comes, until the man of lawlessness is revealed and the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself above every so‑called or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God displaying himself as being God. In other words, the day of the Lord can't come until the man of sin comes, when the man of sin comes he will desecrate the temple of God, he will put himself up as if he were God, that is what Daniel called the abomination of desolation in Daniel 9.

So Paul says...Look, I've taught you about the day of the Lord, I've taught you about that ultimate blasphemous apostasy, I've taught you about the man of lawlessness, I've taught you about all of these things, the message has not changed...verse 5...don't you remember it?

THE apostasy, that's a specific event, by the way, that is the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet. That is THE event where the Antichrist goes in to the temple in Jerusalem desecrates the temple and establishes the worship of himself as if he were God. That is the final act of ultimate apostasy and it triggers the events that lead to the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord being the time of God's judgment on the ungodly. So when the Antichrist moves into the temple, when he sets himself up as God, blasphemous in his effort to replace all worship of the true God, that triggers the events that lead to the day of the Lord. By the way, we are told in Scripture that that event occurs half way through a period known as the Tribulation, half way through the seven‑year period. And it triggers the last half of that seven years called The Great Tribulation which leads to the day of the Lord.

So the Thessalonians basically cannot be in the day of the Lord. You can't be in it, no Antichrist has arrived. He has not desecrated the temple. He has not set himself up as God in the temple. You can't be in the day of the Lord. So don't be deceived by false teachers and don't be forgetful of what I have taught you.

Now wanting to go a step further he adds a third point and we'll come to that point for our lesson this morning, he says don't be ignorant...don't be ignorant. As long as I'm talking about the Antichrist I might as well fill you in on some more features of his career. And here in verses 6 to 10 he expands to discuss the Antichrist. By the way, in case you may not understand that term, Satan says he is going to overthrow God, he is going to overthrow Christ...that's his driving passion. And his final effort at doing that is to bring into the world a false Messiah, a false Christ, a counterfeit Christ who will be powerful, who will be energized by all the forces that Satan has at his disposal with the purpose of counterfeiting credentials so that the world might believe that he in fact is Christ the Messiah. Israel does buy it. He then becomes the ultimate apostate. He blasphemes God, desecrates the temple, sets up the worship of himself and that is the final effort to dethrone Christ, dethrone God and for Satan to take back the world, as it were, for himself. So Antichrist is a very important personality to come in the end time. Remind you also that John said there are many Antichrists, there are many people who have been against Christ, who have been false Christs, but this is the epitome of all of them, the consummate Antichrist who is the man of sin, or the man of lawlessness.

Now as you look at verses 6 to 10, Paul is going to give you four aspects of the career of Antichrist, four aspects, really fascinating...fascinating information as we look at the future. Number one, his revelation...his revealing. And he starts with his coming in verse 6. "And you know what restrains him now so that in his time he may be revealed."

Paul says to the Thessalonians, Antichrist has not yet come but there is a time when he will be revealed, for now he is being restrained and you know what restrains him. That's an interesting statement. And you know what restrains him now. Or literally, and now that which is restraining him you know. How did they know? How did they know what restrains him? If you were to pick up a Bible commentary on 2 Thessalonians today and you were to read some offerings about this verse, you would probably find people bouncing around on eight different opinions about what restrains the Antichrist. How did they know?

Well I'll tell you how they knew, Paul had told them. When he was with them he told them. We can only had wished that he had repeated it here. But he didn't, he just says, "You know," and so we're all saying, "Right, they know but are we sure?" How did they know? He taught them when he was with them. It was information well known to them, if not to us. That which is restraining, notice it there, literally the verb means to hold down, or to hold back. And so he says you know what the restraining force is, it is in the neuter here. So here you're talking about a force. We have all kinds of suggestions.

Some say that what restrains the coming of Antichrist is the preaching of the gospel and that the gospel will be preached and as long as the gospel is being preached it holds Antichrist in check...as long as men preach the gospel, he is restrained. And finally when the gospel is fully preached and needs to be preached no longer, then the restraint will be off.

Some say it is the Jewish state. It is the state of Israel that restrains. Some say it is the binding of Satan that is going on today among believers as they go around binding Satan. They are restraining him. Some say it is the church, the church restrains him by its influence in the world as salt and light. Some say it is human government, that God having ordained human government, human government being diverse and controlled by a myriad of people seems to be restraining him because of its own power. He can't take over because government is strong.

Some say it is a principle of law, or a principle of morality that sort of has effused itself into the fabric of the world and so this principle of morality restrains Antichrist from letting all hell break loose. Some use to teach that it was the Roman Empire, that the Roman Empire itself was the single government that held back the coming of Antichrist.

And then some have suggested that it could be an angel, and even specifically it could be Michael...Michael the angel uniquely is mentioned in Daniel in a way that could lead somebody to conclude that. I'll just tell you the verse, I think it's Daniel 10:21. It says there, "I tell you what is inscribed in the writing of truth, yet there is no one who stands firmly with me against these forces except Michael your prince." So here Michael is seen as standing against some evil force and some conclude that Michael then is the one who holds back the coming of Antichrist.

Now having said all of that I just want you to know that I don't think any of those is correct. First of all, all of those with the exception of Michael are human. They are all human. Humans preach the gospel. Humans are making up the Jewish state. Humans are running around trying to bind Satan. Human beings make up the church. Human government...the principle of law and morality that is part of human social life, the Roman Empire is made up of human beings. And it is hard for me to imagine that any human effort at all could restrain the supernatural power of Satan in releasing the Antichrist.

Further, even though...take, for example, what you would assume would be the best of those choices would be the church and you might assume that the church would be the best restrainer, certainly human government doesn't restrain things in all cases, certainly it doesn't necessarily restrain evil and give place to good. We wouldn't want to say too much about the principle of morality since our culture knows absolutely nothing about it. We wouldn't want to make virtuous the Jewish state or the Roman Empire.

So the best choice, you say, would be the church. The problem with that is that even the church as salt and light doesn't restrain evil. It may restrain evil to some extent in the lives of its people but it has not been successful in restraining evil in the lives of people outside of it. The world continues to get worse and worse. Evil men, says 2 Timothy, grow worse and worse. And there is no reason to assume that the church has some kind of power in and of itself to restrain Satanic plans for the ungodly. And, of course, as I mentioned, some of the folks in these institutions that are offered as the restrainer aren't even Christians, let alone spiritually strong. The Roman Empire at this moment is dead, and though it will be revived in the future, its revival has nothing to do with spiritual power. Human forces deal with human issues, not supernatural issues. Human forces, human power, human ingenuity, human society, human institutions do not cope well with supernatural forces.

So the power that holds back Satan from bringing the Antichrist and the final apostasy must be supernatural. Now let me give you a little insight here. Satan doesn't want to wait for God's timetable. You understand that? He is in a hurry. If he had his way the Antichrist would be here now. If he had his way the Antichrist would have already been here. But that's not God's plan. God has a timetable and God is operating that timetable. And Satan wants it to happen now, he wants the final rebellion now. He wants the false Messiah now. He wants the blasphemy now. He wants to set himself up as the controller of the universe and his Antichrist, as it were, as Christ now. But God says no and he is being restrained by God through a supernatural means. And the man of sin cannot come until God removes this restraining force.

So there is a power in operation and it has to be a supernatural power. It has to be dealing on another level, not just an earthly one. And it is retarding Satan from pulling off his plan with a final Antichrist. Now remember, this will be a human being. So we can assume then that Satan may have had a number of human beings that he would have liked to have used along the way. Adolph Hitler certainly being a prime example.

So he says to the Thessalonians...you know this, you know that there is a force, a supernatural force that keeps Satan from doing what he would otherwise want to do. Listen, you think the world is bad now, you haven't seen anything yet. Fortunately if you know Christ you won't see it, but in the day of the Lord when the restrainer is gone and all hell breaks loose, the world will see what happens when God does not restrain Satan in his plans.

Now the reason for the restraint, back to verse 6, so that in his time he may be revealed. God has this restraining force imposed on Satan in his plan for Antichrist because God has appointed a season and no sooner. You say, "What is the season?" Listen very carefully, you'll understand it. God is redeeming His church. Before the foundation of the world, God ordained who would be redeemed. Their names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life. If Satan were not restrained, he would come, he would send the Antichrist, he would bring the holocaust of final blasphemy and disaster and then God would step in and judge the whole thing and the day of the Lord would come and the end would come but the problem would be there would still be people who had been planned by God to live and believe and populate His eternal Kingdom who would not yet have been born. You understand that? So God must wait until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, to borrow Paul's term in Romans 11, until the whole plan is consummated, until all those from before the foundation of the world set for eternal redemption are born and believe, and only then can it come otherwise Satan has successfully thwarted the plan of God. So only in His time will he be revealed...not Satan, not demons, not any human enterprise or human force of fallen men, no devilish plan, no purpose from hell can operate until God allows it. His plan, His power control everything including Satan and Antichrist. As one commentator put it, "Evil will not pass beyond its limits." God would never allow that.

But in the right time, he says, he may be revealed. There is the word that is familiar to us. It really is a revealing not unlike Christ's...it is an apocalypse, it is an unveiling, it is a revelation. You remember in Galatians 4:4 it says, "In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son made of a woman." In God's perfect time the Messiah came, and in God's perfect time the false Messiah comes. In God's perfect plan, Christ came. In God's perfect plan, Antichrist comes on time on the schedule God has eternally ordained. He controls all of it. And He has ordained a specific time for the appearing, the manifestation, the apocalypse, the revelation, the unveiling of Antichrist just as He did for the appearing of Jesus Christ the first time and the appearing of Jesus Christ the second time. God the Father knows exactly when Christ will appear. You remember, Jesus said, "No man knows the day nor the hour except the Father," He does know the day, He does know the hour, He knows the split second and He operates the plan that way.

And so he says he will be unveiled, he will be revealed but only in God's time. So the idea...now mark this in your mind...the idea that somehow we can by some human enterprise bring the Kingdom prior to its planned time is not true. You hear a lot of, I guess, what you could call contemporary post‑ millennialists wanting us to do things in our society and our culture that will expedite the coming of the Kingdom of Christ. Listen, we can't do anything to bring it before God planned it to come. We can't end this whole deal until all those ordained unto eternal life have believed. This thing is set by God Himself and just as God has ordained the coming of Christ to bring it to an end, He has ordained the coming of Antichrist to start the final judgment.

Now Paul is in to this now. He's already made his point that it can't be the day of the Lord cause the man of sin hasn't come. But while I'm talking about the man of sin, he says, I just can't help but go a little further and give you a fuller understanding so you won't be ignorant. So in verse 7 he takes it a step further. "For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way." Now he says the mystery of lawlessness is already at work...mystery, interesting term. It means that which is unknown, that's all. It doesn't mean like an Agatha Christie novel. It means that which is unknown. I'll take it a step further, that which is incapable of being known unless revealed by God. A mystery is some reality, some great truth that you would never known, you could never know if God didn't tell you. There are a number such...of such mysteries given in the New Testament, perhaps the best definition, scriptural definition, comes in Romans 16:25, talks about the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past but now is manifest. That's a mystery.

Now look what he says. The mystery of lawlessness. What does he mean? The true character of lawlessness, follow this, the true character of lawlessness is already at work, it's already at work. But you haven't yet seen the final picture of it. That's the idea. It's already working. Evil men are growing worse and worse, 2 Timothy 3:13. It already is visible. We're watching a dying culture. We see iniquity prevailing and escalating. And so the mystery is gradually unfolding. It is already at work, but we have not yet seen in this world what lawlessness is really like, it is still somewhat of a secret. And the world will not know how wretched sin is, how wicked Satan is, how evil the kingdom of darkness is until the mystery is fully revealed. That happens when the apostasy takes place and the Antichrist sets himself as God, triggers the Great Tribulation and the horrors of the Great Tribulation which we'll learn in Revelation and then the day of the Lord where God destroys and damns to eternal hell all of the ungodly on the face of the earth.

When evil really is let loose, when the restraining force is gone, and as I said, all hell breaks loose and you have hell on earth, then you will see the fullness of the mystery of iniquity unveiled. But even now, he says, the mystery is already at work. It's already working powerfully and effectively. In our world we have evil and wretchedness and vileness and wickedness and lies and hypocrisies and false teachers and false religions and they get worse and worse and worse and it's almost as if the mystery is capped but it's in a jar maybe but it leaks and finally some day the whole thing is going to blow. The final Satanic plan to overthrow God and bring the false Christ is the ultimate form of the mystery of lawlessness and it's not yet revealed. But the spirit of this is in action. First John 2:18 says, "There's coming an Antichrist in the future but even now there are many Antichrists." That's the same concept. We can see the spirit of Antichrist. We can see already the embodiment and the attitude of a Christ‑hating mentality but we'll not know anything like what will be experienced when Antichrist finally comes.

Then he says in verse 7, "Only He who now restrains will do so until He's taken out of the way." The mystery will not be fully revealed until He who restrains is taken out of the way. Now here's a very important change. In verse 6, what restrains was neuter. Now we have "He" who restrains. We've moved from a neuter, a force, to a masculine, a person. And I believe this is a good indication that there is a person here, that there is a supernatural person who is exerting the force in verse 6, there is a force that restrains but there is a "He" who exercises that force.

Who is it? I believe the best understanding would lead us to believe it is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the person who exerts the force that holds back Satan.

In Genesis chapter 6 there is an important verse, verse 3, "Then the Lord said, My Spirit shall not strive with man forever." What you have here is a concept. The Holy Spirit battling against wicked men. And God says My Spirit isn't going to do that forever. My Spirit isn't going to fight your wickedness forever. It wasn't long until He drown them all, right? And I think you have there the work of the Holy Spirit that is a restraining work. The Holy Spirit was battling against the flood of wickedness in the ancient world. In Acts chapter 7, one other verse that shows us the Spirit's ministry in this kind of area. In Acts 7:51, "You men who are stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit." Now here again you have the Holy Spirit battling against sin, battling against iniquity, battling against evil, trying to restrain, as John tells us, to convict in John 16.

So we have a number of passages in which the Holy Spirit is seen dealing with sin, wrestling with sin, confronting sin, convicting of sin, restraining sin. No doubt He could be assisted by Michael, but Michael is not omnipresent. And Michael is limited because he is a created angel. I wouldn't argue that He may use someone like Michael, an angel like Michael or other holy angels, but I believe it is the Holy Spirit who is the restrainer.

Now please note. The Holy Spirit's restraint will go on until half way through the time called the Tribulation. The period called the Great Tribulation is the second half of the seven years. The Holy Spirit restrains until the mid point and then He allows the Antichrist to go into the temple, do the abomination, bring the apostasy, and then the horrors described in the book of Revelation take place, which lead to the day of the Lord. So that restraint will go on until the man of sin is revealed in God's perfect time. The Holy Spirit then, I believe, is most likely the restrainer because it must be a supernatural being. The Holy Spirit is the one most frequently associated with dealing with sin, restraining, convicting. And we could see it as a neuter because there is a force that He exerts and as a masculine because He is a person.

By the way as a footnote for you that are interested, in the Upper Room discourse, Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit. And in that discourse as He spoke about the Holy Spirit interestingly enough, He fluctuated between the neuter and the masculine genders. If you study the Greek text of the Upper Room discourse, John 13 to 17, you will see Him fluctuate between the neuter and the masculine referring to the Holy Spirit, depending on whether He was using a gender to agree with a grammatical term or whether He was using a gender to emphasize personality. So the Holy Spirit can be spoken of in the neuter, after all, pneuma the Greek word for Spirit is neuter, He can be spoken of in the masculine when He's identified as a person. So that's not an unfamiliar thing in Scripture. So I would take it that the Holy Spirit is preventing Satan from the full final lawlessness under Antichrist until God's perfect time. And it has to be in God's time because He has to redeem the church that is ordained from before the foundation of the world, He has to accomplish all that that involves.

Now then note, please. This has nothing to do with the Rapture of the church. Some people have said the Holy Spirit restrains but when the church is raptured the Holy Spirit living in the church is taken away and then the man of sin is revealed. That is not the case. The man of sin is not revealed until the mid point of the seven years. So the Holy Spirit is restraining all the way in to the mid point until the abomination of desolation. So if we are to affirm that the church is raptured before the seven years begins, the Holy Spirit continues to restrain until the mid point. You cannot therefore use the removal of the restrainer as evidence of the pre‑tribulation Rapture because if you believe in a pre‑tribulation Rapture, you have the church taken away on the basis of Revelation 3, kept from the hour that comes to try the earth, that's probably the key passage teaching a pre‑trib Rapture, but you've still got the Holy Spirit restraining until half way through the period of Tribulation.

Please notice in verse 7, the one who restrains is taken out of the way...just a footnote, that does not mean He is removed from the world. It doesn't mean that. That doesn't mean that He's taken into heaven. Listen, in the first place, the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, right? So He has to be everywhere. In the second place, people are going to be saved during this time and nobody is saved who isn't begotten again by the Spirit. So the idea that the Holy Spirit leaves is not true. What happens is the Holy Spirit is taken out of the way in terms of blocking Satan, in terms of His restraining ministry. So the Holy Spirit is simply taken out of the way as a restrainer, removed as a roadblock, not removed from the world or no one could be saved and God wouldn't be effecting His purposes and His plans. So we don't want to make too much out of that. It is the Holy Spirit, He is not removed from the world, or there could be no evangelization by the 144 thousand, there could be no comprehension of the gospel because the Spirit has to quicken the mind, there could be no conversion because He alone is the one who gives eternal life, so He has to be here doing His work, He just stops the restraining part of it.

William Hendrickson writes an interesting paragraph summing this up, "Accordingly, the sense of the entire passage in verses 6 and 7 seems to be this, Satan while perfectly aware of the fact that he cannot himself become incarnate nevertheless would like to imitate the second person of the trinity also in this respect as far as possible. He yearns for a man over whom he will have complete control and who will perform his will as thoroughly as Jesus performed the will of the Father. It will have to be a man of outstanding talents but as yet the devil is being frustrated in his attempt to put this plan into operation. Someone and something is always holding back the deceivers man of lawlessness. This, of course, happens under God's direction. Hence, for the time being the worse Satan can do is to promote the spirit of lawlessness but this does not satisfy him. It is as if he and his man of sin bide their time. At the divinely decreed moment when as a punishment for man's willingness to cooperate with this spirit, the someone and the something that now holds back is removed, then Satan will begin to carry out his plans," end quote.

The something is of supernatural force, the someone who exerts it is the Holy Spirit. Verse 8, "And then that lawless one will be revealed." That's when it's going to happen. And then that lawless one will be revealed. This, by the way, is the third mention of the revelation of Antichrist, the appearing, the manifestation, the coming of Antichrist.

Now we have already kind of talked about what's going to happen when he comes. You remember in our previous messages we went to Daniel chapter 9 and chapter 7 and chapter 11 and we went to Revelation chapter 13, chapter 17, and we saw his career. So I don't want to go into that now. This simply tells us when the restrainer steps out of the way, then that lawless one will be revealed. And then his career goes in to full operation. He does the abomination of desolation, sets himself up, begins to rule the world, destroys all religion that is existent, literally in Revelation chapter 18 it says that he consumes the false religious system, eats them, so that he is left alone as the one to be worshiped by the whole world. And then the terrible terrible fearful judgments described in the bowls, the trumpets come to pass. So we see something about his coming, or his revelation.

Let's look at a second element in these verses, verses 6 to 10, Paul again saying I don't want you to be ignorant, so the second thing is I want to talk to you about his destruction...his destruction, verse 8. "Whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming." Whom the Lord will slay...the Lord's going to kill him. We...and He's going to kill him right at the height of his operation...we remember from Daniel 7, isn't it verse 26? It says his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever. Revelation chapter 17 has a similar indication of destruction falling upon this man of sin in verse 11, "The beast which was and is not," that's him, "is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven and he goes to destruction." So Daniel says he'll be destroyed along with his power and Revelation says he'll be destroyed and here, says Paul in this letter, he will be slain, whom the Lord will slay.

How? This is very interesting. "By the breath of His mouth." He will be slain by the breath of His mouth. In other words, the Lord doesn't even have to do anything to destroy him, as formidable as he is, as powerful as he is, as monumental as he is in human history, the greatest world ruler the world has ever known, he has surpassing control over the whole of the earth, this massive Satanic empowered man is so powerful and yet Christ doesn't have to do anything, He doesn't have to call an army, He doesn't have to speak a word, all He has to do is breathe and he will be destroyed. That phrase, by the way, is an Old Testament one used in 11 of Isaiah, chapter 11 verse 4, "With righteousness He will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth, He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked." That's obviously where Paul got it, with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked, in this case the wicked one even the Antichrist.

Again in Isaiah 30 verse 33, that phrase is used again. "The breath of the Lord like a torrent of brimstone sets afire." God, as it were, lets the breath out of His mouth and it comes like fire and brimstone to consume and to destroy. Psalm 33:6 has a similar expression.

Notice again back there in verse 8, a second statement, "He will slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end...and bring to an end." Literally abolish, render inoperative, immobilize. Both verbs side by side give you the full annihilation of this man and his enterprise. Satan's false Christ, he's a counterfeit‑like Jesus Christ. I believe Israel makes a covenant with him because they believe he's their Messiah. He has a message which is a lie. He has a day just like Jesus Christ has a day. He has power to do signs and wonders. He has a supernatural person behind him. In all of those ways he's like Christ. Christ has a coming, a revelation. Christ has a message. Christ has a day. Christ has the power to do signs and wonders. Christ had a resurrection. Christ has behind him the supernatural God. But this one comes to a quick end and he's destroyed with the breath of God's mouth. His whole enterprise is brought to an end. Please note when it happens...by the appearance of His coming, that's the Second Coming of Christ.

Now you will clearly understand then that he has a short operation. How long is it? Three and a half years. At the abomination of desolation in the middle of the seven‑year period called the seventieth week of Daniel, the time of Tribulation, he operates. Revelation says he operates for42 months, three and a half years, then Christ comes and by the appearance of the coming of Christ he is slain and his operation is brought to an end. That phrase "the appearance of His coming" is interesting, it's the only time it's used. It brings together two words...epiphaneia, we use an English word epiphany which means an appearing. It means a manifestation, it means a shining forth. It was used by the Greeks for the manifestation of their deities. And he says his career will end at the epiphaneia, the shining forth, the manifestation of His parousia, that's His coming or His presence. The visible glorious Lord Jesus Christ comes out of heaven, paralyzes the daring presumption and arrogant activity of the man of sin, destroys him and destroys his whole enterprise. And He does it in a moment by the very breath out of His mouth.

And what happens to him? Revelation 20 verse 10 says he's thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone and tormented there forever and ever...along with the devil and his angels and the false prophet. So we see the revelation of this man, he will be revealed in God's time, we see the destruction of the man. Thirdly, his power. This is most interesting...his power. Verses 9 and 10 and we can cover this quickly, it's just very very clear. "That is the one who is coming is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders." Wow!

So powerful is he, verse 10, that with all the deception of wickedness he works. Now here he tells us about his power. Paul says he comes in accord with the activity, the energeia, the energy of Satan. By the way, that word energeia is used in Scripture for power in action. You see it in Ephesians 1:19 and 20, you see it in Ephesians 3:7, Ephesians 4:16, Paul uses it a lot in that letter and it means power in action. He comes with real power, okay? This is not just deception. This is not just tricks, magic. He comes in real Satanic power. Satan's power is limited, but it is real. It is limited but it is real. And so he comes in the actual energy of Satan. It is limited in terms of comparison to God's unlimited power, but whatever it is able to do he will be the manifestation point.

Then note again, "With all power and signs and false wonders." Power, signs, wonders...or you could translate it, miracles, signs and wonders...dunamis is the word for power, also translated miracles. What about that strikes you? It's the same that strikes me, those are the same three things that are used to describe the works of...whom? Christ...miracles, signs, wonders, Acts 2:22. Those are the same things that are used to describe the Apostles, Hebrews 2:4, miracles, signs, wonders. He's a counterfeit...he's a counterfeit, he mimics the true Christ. And while it is not just magic, it is real supernatural power, it does have its limitations but it is convincing. Verse 10 says it is convincing enough to deceive people with all the deception that wickedness can muster. Would you please note it says with all power, or all miracles, signs and false wonders, literally miracles, signs and wonders that are false and deceptive. False not in the sense that they're fakery, but that they lead to false conclusions about who he is. Power...what is that? Mighty displays of supernatural acts. Signs...pointing to him as the one who does them, pointing to his supernatural power. Wonders...getting the astonishing results. He will do powerful miracles which will point to him as a supernatural being and create wonder and shock and astonishment, so much so that people will conclude that he is divine, the Jews will conclude that he is the Messiah, people will conclude that he is God, he will set himself up as God, the world will fall at his feet and worship him. He will consume all other religion, the whole world will bow down to him and anybody who doesn't will be destroyed by him. He will do mighty acts, pointing to himself as a supernatural energized person, exciting and eliciting astonishment and wonder from the world.

The word "false" should be taken with all three, it's pseudos from which we get pseudo. It shows the effect of the miracles, not the nature of them. They're not false miracles in the sense that it's fakery. They are supernatural Satanic things not like the miracles of God but enough to be convincing. The effect of them is to make people believe a lie.

And then verse 10, "With all the deception of wickedness." That is all that wickedness can do to deceive, all the deceit that wickedness has at its disposal, all the deception that wickedness at its worst can produce. The whole operation is a lie, it is false, it lures people to believe that Antichrist is the world's savior, the world's Messiah. Even non‑religious people are going to see him as the one who will solve the world's problems, who will fix the world. You can see how our world today would bow at the feet of a man like that, can't you? Especially if he could do supernatural things. They're going to believe that this is the man to deliver the world from all its troubles. Religious people are going to believe this is God's man, this is the world's deliverer. And every hellish supernatural ploy Satan has will be used to achieve this deception. And he'll do it and he'll be successful because the Holy Spirit will step out of the way and not restrain it. All of evil's undiluted, unrestrained power to deceive will act.

So Paul says I don't want you to be ignorant so I'm going to fill you in on the details. This man has to come. And here are all the details about his coming before the day of the Lord comes.

The fourth and final thing that I would note for you is his influence. And this is ever so brief. In verse 10, he comes with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. The extent of his influence, on all who perish. Literally those who are perishing, those who reject the truth, those who do not love the truth, the truth written, the truth incarnate. If you don't love the Word of God and love the Lord Jesus Christ so as to be saved, you will be caught up in the deception. The unregenerate will believe the lie. Listen, they always believe a lie. And you remember back in John 8 Jesus said to the Jews, "You're not of God, you're of your father the devil, and he's a liar from the start." If you don't believe the truth of God, you'll believe the lie of the devil. This is the class of people who will succumb to Satan's deception.

In Matthew 24:24 we have a very important statement being made there. There will be people being converted at this time and believing the truth and it says that this guy will be so formidable and so deceptive and so many signs and so many wonders will come so as to mislead if possible even the...what?...the elect, but it isn't...what?...possible. The unregenerate, yes. Their blindness is self‑imposed because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. It's the only time in the New Testament that phrase is used. It doesn't say they didn't receive the truth, he adds that compelling thought they didn't receive the love of the truth to show you that true salvation is a love relationship with truth written and truth incarnate. The love of the truth, the gospel, they gave it no welcome, they didn't want it, they didn't love it.

Back in chapter 1 verse 8 it says that the unsaved do not know God and do not obey the gospel. They don't know God, they don't obey the gospel and they don't love the truth. John 3 says men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. They reject Christ's words, they reject Christ's person. He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life," He is the truth incarnate embodied. Ephesians 4:21, "If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him just as truth is in Jesus."

They don't love Jesus, they don't love truth. Their unbelief is not a matter of mind, it is not a matter of intellect, it is a matter of heart, it is a matter of affection. They may have heard, they may have understood, they may have even thought it was true, but they had no love for the truth. I think we have a lot of people today who if you asked them ‑ do you believe Jesus is God, died and rose again for salvation ‑ would say yes but they don't love Him or His truth. This is the test of destiny. If they had loved the truth, if they had loved Christ, they would have been saved and delivered from Satan's lies and deception and destruction. So the guilt is theirs. All unredeemed people are under some damning level of Satanic deception. Did you get that? All unredeemed people on the face of the earth are under some damning level of Satanic deception, they are all believing a lie. And we're not surprised to find these folks sucked up in the lie of Antichrist because it is the most powerful embodiment of Satanic deception in the history of the world.

I'll tell you something. You ought to fear the end times if you don't know Christ, if you're not saved, if you don't love Christ, if you don't love His truth because when the end comes you will buy the Satanic lie. So Paul says...Look, don't be deceived, don't be forgetful and don't be ignorant. You are not in the day of the Lord, it hasn't come. It won't come until the apostasy pulled off by this man of lawlessness. You won't be in the day of the Lord, you're going to be raptured before it begins. The ones who are left who refuse the love of the truth will buy the lie and occupy the lake of fire and brimstone along with the devil, his angels, the Antichrist and the false prophet.

Father, we thank You for such a clear instruction. There could be no price to pay, no treasure could we give for the privilege of knowing the truth about the future and yet freely You've given it to us in Your Word. We bless You for that. We thank You for that. And, our God, we ask that You would speak to every heart. I pray, Lord, that those of us who know Christ might live in the joyous anticipation of His return, that we might eagerly await His coming, knowing that He will deliver us from the wrath to come, knowing that it is impossible to deceive the elect. We have nothing to fear. So, Father, we pray that we might live in hope. And we pray for those who do not know Christ, who do not love His Word and do not love Him, who know not the love of the truth so as to be saved. O God, may this be the day when they commit themselves to Jesus Christ, when they accept His death and resurrection on their behalf. May this be the day when they believe in their heart that God has raised Him from the dead and that He alone is the true Savior so that they will not ever know the horrifying deception of the coming Antichrist. We thank You that You'll deliver us from that as You catch away Your church in the gathering together. But we ask, O God, too that You would include in that gathering many more so they'll not live to be so eternally deceived. In Christ's name we ask. Amen.
The Coming Man of Sin, Part 5
2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
Code: 53-11

Open your Bible to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We're looking at this great chapter that tells us about the coming man of sin or the coming man of lawlessness, the Antichrist. We've subtitled it, "How to avoid fear regarding the Lord's return." This is part 5 in our study.

This week I received a brochure, quite an interesting brochure. And in that brochure it explained in detail the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to occur October 22, 1992. In other words, in just a few months this brochure said the Lord would appear in heaven, this would be His great and glorious coming.

As I looked at it I tried to put myself in the position of the Thessalonians because this is somewhat like what they must have been experiencing, for if indeed Jesus is coming in His glorious return and appearing October 22, 1992, and that's only a few months away, then we could well be in the day of the Lord now. We would certainly be in the Great Tribulation which lasts three and a half years and we would definitely be under the reign of terror of the Antichrist. There will be a number of people who will believe that.

I remember thousands of people believed back in 1988 that Jesus was coming when a very popular book was circulated around the nation and even the world. There have always been those people who wanted to fix a date and tell people that Jesus was coming at a certain moment and this would be His glorious appearing. But if, as I said, Jesus is coming in His appearing, if He will appear in the sky as this brochure said, the writer is not talking about a secret Rapture of the church but talking about the glorious return of Christ, then we must be in the end of the Great Tribulation, we must be under the reign of terror of the Antichrist, and we could well be in the day of the Lord and starting to feel the full heat of it. And the fact of the matter is, we know those things aren't true. We are not in the Great Tribulation, we have not seen the unfolding of the seven seals, and the seven trumpet judgments. We have not seen the development of the career and the enterprise and the empire and the power of the Antichrist who will rule for three and a half years or 42 months.

And so, I can simply say to anyone who may get that brochure, it isn't so. There are some things that have to happen before the Lord Jesus can finally come to destroy the ungodly and set up His glorious Kingdom. But it was a very similar kind of situation that had plagued the Thessalonians. Somebody had come to them with the word that the day of the Lord had already come, they were in it, they were in the Tribulation. They must have missed the Rapture which they expected to deliver them from it or there was no Rapture. And they are now in the day of the Lord. This was proven to them by whoever told them saying that Paul was the one who was teaching this, he received it by a spirit, gave it in a message, wrote it in a letter. And verse 2 indicates that. It was important if you're going to sort of push that theory off on the church to have some authority for it since it was contradictory to what Paul taught and so they simply said that Paul had gotten a new revelation, a new revelation from some spirit was preaching a new message and had written a new letter. Since Paul dictated his letters they could show a letter not written in his own handwriting and say, "Well it was dictated by Paul," that may be why at the end of chapter 3 Paul says in verse 17, "I write this greeting with my own hand and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter, this is the way I write," to say if somebody gives you a letter and says it's from me but it doesn't have my handwriting at the end, it is a forgery and a fake.

But somebody had come along with this brochure, supposedly, from Paul announcing that here they were in the day of the Lord, they were very near the imminent coming of Jesus Christ to judge the world and somehow this was confusing to them as verse 2 says, it shook them from their composure, it disturbed them deeply because the assumption is they must have thought they weren't going to be in the day of the Lord. Which indicated they thought they would be raptured before the day of the Lord began. So here they were then sufficiently confused and agitated and fearful that they were going to fall, as it were, into the hands of an angry God and get caught up, swept up in the day of the Lord which is a day of fierce and final wrath. That kind of foolishness espousing that kind of fearful message to the church is still going on even today.

Now how does Paul deal with this? How does he remove our anxiety about the fact that we might be in the Tribulation or in the day of the Lord and maybe there is no Rapture, or we missed it somehow, it was a partial Rapture and somebody else got raptured and we didn't? How does he deal with this?

Well he does it by laying out some very important teaching that flows all the way from verse 3 down through verse 15 and then closes with a benediction at the end of the chapter. And in these verses 3 and following he points out some very important matters that they need to take very careful care of. First of all, you remember he said, "don't be deceived," verse 3, "Let no one in any way deceive you." Back in verse 1 he had said, "I would like to talk to you about the coming of the Lord Jesus and the gathering together, our gathering together," that's the Rapture, I want to talk about the Second Coming, I want to talk about the Rapture which precedes it, but you're so confused I've got to clear up a lot of things. The first thing I want you to do is not be deceived, verse 3, "Let no one in any way deceive you." If you fall into the deception of people who say that you're in the Great Tribulation or the deception of people who say you're in the day of the Lord, or give you some error regarding the return of Jesus Christ, it can create fear, it can create anxiety. So don't be deceived. Don't listen to new revelation, don't buy into some guy who says, "I know it's October 22, 1992 because God came to me and told me that." You know what you've been taught. You know a true prophet and a true Apostle. You know the true Word of God, don't be deceived.

Secondly in verse 3 down through verse 5, he says, "Don't be forgetful. You have been taught, verse 5 he says, "Do you not remember that while I was still with you I was telling you these things?" You already know about these. Back in verse 3, "That before the day of the Lord comes the apostasy comes first," and what is that? "That is the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, that's the Antichrist, who opposes and exalts himself above every so‑called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God displaying himself as being God." In other words, you can't be in the day of the Lord because you know I have taught you...don't forget, before the day of the Lord comes, the Antichrist comes, he goes into the temple, does the ultimate Satanic act of desecration by setting himself up as God. Here is Antichrist's attempt to be accepted as the true God, the true incarnation, the true Christ. That has to happen first. Daniel 9 calls it the abomination of desolation which Jesus speaks of also in Matthew 24. So he says you couldn't be in the day of the Lord, the Antichrist hasn't come. Where is his career? Where is the apostasy in which he sets himself up as God, as Christ, as the Messiah in the temple? That has not happened. It still hasn't happened. So we cannot be in the latter half of the Great Tribulation waiting for the return of Christ in October. We cannot be in the day of the Lord which follows the time of the Antichrist.

So he says don't be deceived by false revelation, don't be deceived by people who are not true prophets and apostles, and don't forget the things I told you when we were together. And then there is a third thing that he says to them that will waylay their fears, "Don't be ignorant." Don't be ignorant. Starting in verse 6 he unfolds more detail about the Antichrist. He says to them, "You know what restrains him now, there is a force that holds back the Antichrist." Satan would love to come, pick a man, dwell within that man as a devil‑possessed man and pull off the great desecration but there is a force restraining him. There is a force holding Satan back from doing that. Verse 7 says, "The mystery of lawlessness is already at work."

In other words, the wicked intent, the Antichrist activity of Satan is already working, the principle is already at work but the ultimate embodiment of it hasn't yet come. There are, as John put it, many antichrists in the world now, many people with an antichrist attitude but the ultimate Antichrist has not yet come. And he can't come until the one who restrains is removed. And all that means is the Holy Spirit who is the force restraining Satan from bringing his ultimate false Christ and attempting to take over the world is stopping Satan. Some day He'll step aside and let that happen in God's good time.

So the Apostle is simply giving them more detail and outlining what's going to happen. Having talked about the revelation of Antichrist in verses 7 and 8, at the end of verse 8 he talks about his destruction. The Lord is going to slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end his...his whole enterprise by the appearance of His coming. In other words, he'll run right up till the Second Coming and at that point the Lord will destroy him and his operation.

He moves from his revelation and destruction to his power. In verses 9 and 10, he's so powerful, he has all power to do signs and false wonders. He is so powerful that he can muster all the deception that wickedness can produce. And then he talks about his influence. His influence is over those who perish, that's the ungodly of the world.

So he says I don't want you to be ignorant about this. You can't be in the day of the Lord because there are some precursors, some things that happen before the day of the Lord. Let me pick out one, the apostasy or the abomination of desolation, the time when Satan's Antichrist, false Christ, false God goes into the temple, literally sets himself up as God. Demands that the whole world worship him, which they do. Makes his point of power by signs and false wonders. When he comes that's prior to the day of the Lord. You can't be in the day of the Lord, he hasn't come. He will be powerful. You won't miss it. He will deceive the whole world of perishing people. So it won't be some obscure isolated small‑time event. You'll know if you're alive at that time. Anybody would. So he is saying you don't want to be deceived by people who come and give you false revelations. You don't want to be forgetful of what you know to be taught. And you don't want to be ignorant about the details of the future or you might find yourself fearing the Second Coming.

There's a fourth component. This one very important. Don't be unbelieving. Don't be unbelieving. Here is a warning to anyone who might be in that church who is not a true Christian, who is not a true believer. He is saying, in effect, if you're not deceived and if you're not forgetful, and if you're not ignorant, you won't be afraid...unless you're not a believer. Because he says at the end of verse 10 that the people who perish are the ones who didn't receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. Those who perish means the damned or the lost, those who are set for eternal hell. And he says don't be among them, they perish because...this is one of the most important statements in all of salvation texts...why do people go to hell? Why do people perish? Why are they punished eternally? Here it is, "Because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved." It is a human choice, it is an unwillingness to accept the truth.

Listen, there is no double predestination. People perish not because God ordained them to hell. People perish because of their own choice to reject the truth. Scripture is absolutely crystal clear on this issue. Going back, for example, to the words of our Lord Himself in John chapter 5 and verse 39, Jesus speaking, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is these that bear witness of Me." Then verse 40, "And you are unwilling to come to Me that you may have life." Your problem is not a lack of information. You search the Scriptures and they tell about Me, but you won't come to Me that you might have life. Their antipathy, listen, their antipathy to truth is not intellectual. Their antipathy to truth is moral. Did you get that? Their resistance to the gospel is not intellectual, their resistance to the gospel is moral. In John 8 verse 24, Jesus said this, "I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins."

Why do people go to hell? Because they die in their sins. That is their sins have never been forgiven, atoned for or covered, and so hell is where they will pay for them forever. Why do they die in their sins? Because they believe not on Me. Why do they not believe? Because they are unwilling to believe. It is a question of human volition. And again I say, their antipathy is not intellectual, it is moral. It is moral. If you go to someone and say, "There is a God who loves you. There is a God who loves you so much that He came into the world in the form of a man to die on a cross to pay the penalty for your sins. And He wants to forgive you all your sins. And He wants you to be free from any guilt or any condemnation or any judgment and He wants you to spend eternity in glory and bliss and joy and happiness and peace." I daresay to you that anybody is going to say, "I like that...I like that. I like a God who is willing to forgive any of my sins. I am very excited about a God who paid the penalty for my sins so that I will never be punished for any of them. I like a God who wants to remove all my guilt, I like that. I like a God who wants to give me peace and joy and love and satisfaction. I like that."

But the kicker in the whole story is this...are you willing to abandon your sin, repent of it and turn toward the path of righteousness and embrace Jesus Christ as Lord? You see, the decision is a moral one, not an intellectual one. You give someone the intellectual data of the gospel. But now you confront them and you say...will you love the truth or will you love your sin? And you have faced them with a moral dilemma. And, in fact, according to John 3:19 it is simply resolved in these words, "Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil."

Coming to Christ is not an intellectual decision, it is a moral one. It is a decision that says I will no longer love my sin, I will love Christ. Would you please notice verse 10? They perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. If they had received the love of the truth, they would be saved. Note this, please, it doesn't say they did not receive the truth, but they did not receive...what?...the love of it. This marvelous enlightening phrase used only here tells us what is really involved in accepting Christ and the gospel. They had no desire to be saved. They loved their sin, not the truth.

Now what is the truth? Well certainly it's the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the truth that saves, the love of the truth so as to be saved. So it would have to be saving truth and saving truth is the gospel. But I think it could even be a capital "T" and refer to Christ Himself. First Corinthians 16:22 says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, he is accursed." So it is the truth of the gospel as embodied in the Truth who is the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying to them, "You refuse to love Christ and His saving truth. That's your problem. You love your sin."

You see, Paul is saying...Look, you people, you don't worry about the Antichrist, you don't need to worry about all that's going to be happening in the end when the Antichrist comes with his horrible deception and all of that. That is going to effect perishing people, not saved one. Perishing people will buy that lie. Perishing people will get in to that deception. Perishing people who because they do not love the Truth so as to be saved, love a lie. That's who that effects. So if you're not unbelieving, you have nothing to fear. I have to say to an unbelieving person...you have to fear the coming of Christ, right? You have to fear the return of Christ in glory on His day because He's coming in judgment against all ungodly and you have to fear the coming of Antichrist who will delude and deceive you with all the deception that wickedness can prosper. But here is the true condition of an unbeliever.

Back in verse 8 of chapter 1, they don't know God, they don't obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus and here they do not love the truth. How would you describe an unbeliever? Doesn't know God, doesn't obey the gospel, doesn't love the Truth, being Christ and His wonderful atoning work. They love their sin, they love what they believe and what they believe is in themselves. They love the lie of Satan and they hate the gospel and Christ. That is a human choice. That is a willful choice and they bear completely the guilt for that refusal. As I said, one can actually receive the truth but not love it. One can make an intellectual apprehension of the truth and not love it.

You have illustrations of this. For example, John 12, just listen to this. In John 12 verse 42, "Many even of the rulers believed in Him...intellectually...but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him lest they should be put out of the synagogue...and listen to this...for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God." You see, becoming a Christian is loving God and loving Christ and loving the gospel and loving the approval of God more than you love anything else. Jesus put it another way. "If any man loves father or mother more than Me, he's not worthy to be My disciple." It is a loving issue here. It is an issue of loving God, loving Christ, loving righteousness and hating sin.

But the perishing are perishing because they didn't love, not because they didn't hear, not even because they didn't understand, not even because they didn't see that it could be true or even affirm that it is true, but because they didn't love Christ and hate sin. They prefer to love sin, to love lies. Those are the people who are deceived by Satan. You look at the world around you and you...you who are Christians you say, "I have a Bible and it's so clear and so wonderful and so understandable and so life changing. Why in the world can't other people see it the way I see it? What's wrong with them?" Listen, it is not a question of their mind, it is not a question of their thinking, it is a question of their morality. They love their sin. That's what holds them. And loving sin they must love lies because in order to love sin you'd have to buy a lie, wouldn't you?, that sin is beneficial.

Now the results of this willful unbelief are devastating, verse 11, "And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false." This is powerful. Because of their willful unbelief, because of their willful refusal to love and obey the truth and be saved, there is a severe divine recompense. He says at the end time when the Antichrist comes, those people who have willfully not believed are going to suffer consequences of that unbelief...severe consequences. What are the consequences? Verse 11, "God will send upon them..." Folks, that's divine judgment. That is divine judgment. God will send upon them. What a thought. The sovereign power of God is going to act on unbelievers to seal their fate...to seal their fate.

What's He going to send on them? A deluding influence so that they might believe what is false. Wow! God's going to send on them literally a force of delusion, or a force of deception so that they might believe what is false. If you read the book of Revelation and you remember when Antichrist comes it says the whole world worships him...do you know why? Because God takes those who have been willfully unbelieving and sends on them a deluding force that causes them to believe that lie.

You might ask yourself...how in the world could people believe the Antichrist was the true Christ? How could they be sucked in to Satan's lie? Because he does mighty signs and wonders, partially. Because he is such a savior of a troubled world, partially. But truthfully, the bottom of it all is that God has sent upon them a deluding influence. God judicially is saying to them...you chose to believe a lie and now I harden you so you couldn't believe the truth if you heard it. All you can believe is a lie.

It's reminiscent, isn't it, of Pharaoh? You remember in the Old Testament when God was endeavoring to speak to Pharaoh to get him to release the children of Israel from the oppression and the bondage in which they were held captive. You remember that God expressed what He wanted done...Let My people go. And if you read through the book of Exodus you read, "Pharaoh hardened his heart...Pharaoh hardened his heart...Pharaoh hardened his heart," and then all of a sudden you read, "God hardened Pharaoh's heart," Exodus 9:12. God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh chose a path, God fixed him in that path from which he could never return. It was like Proverbs 5:22 which says, "His own iniquities will capture the wicked and he will be held with the chains of his own sin." It is a frightening thing but God will seal people in unbelief.

I go back to that familiar sixth chapter of Isaiah. God says to Isaiah, "I want you to go and tell this people, I want you to go and preach repentance, preach righteousness, preach judgment." And in Isaiah 6:9 God says, "Go and tell this people," then He says this, "Keep on listening but do not perceive, keep on looking but do not understand, render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, their eyes dim, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart and return and be healed." That is astounding. God says you go and preach but I'm going to fix it so they can't hear, they can't see, they can't feel and they don't respond.

That same passage is repeated several times in the New Testament. In the case of Matthew chapter 13 Jesus speaks in parables. Why? Why does He speak in parables? Why doesn't He just speak clearly? And He says, "I speak in parables...Matthew 13:13...because while seeing they do not see, while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand and I am fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, you will keep on hearing but will not understand, you will keep on seeing but will not perceive, for the heart of this people has become dull and their ears they scarcely hear and they have closed their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and I should heal them." In other words, they've done it on their own and now I'm doing it to them. That is repeated in Mark 4:12, Luke 8:10, John 12:40, Acts 28:26 and 27, that same Isaiah passage. If you will not hear and will not hear and will not see and will not see, the day will come when you cannot hear and cannot see. If you reject the truth the day will come when all you can believe is a lie as God hardens you in the path which you have chosen.

So, judgment comes in a most interesting form. He says judgment comes in that God sends upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false. They are judicially sentenced by God to accept evil as if it were good and a lie as if it were the truth. They have chosen falsehood and they will get it and nothing more.

It should be interesting to point out here that God is really using Satan and Antichrist as the means of His judgment. He is using Satan and Antichrist to punish the perishing who refuse to love His Son. You shouldn't be surprised at that. It is not uncommon for God to do just that. If you were to go back, for example, in to the Old Testament, you would find that God, for example, in 1 Kings, just an illustration here, chapter 22 and verse 23, uses Satan's force for His own purpose. "Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these, your prophets." God says you've been disobedient and you've been disloyal and you've been unfaithful and I'm going to send to you a spirit that is going to deceive you through the mouth of these prophets. And that is precisely what He's saying, the Antichrist, the false Christ, the false one is coming, he will speak lies but I will send a deluding influence and you'll believe those lies are really true.

In Romans chapter 1 we have something of this same attitude on God's part as He judicially responds to the path that man has chosen. Listen to Romans chapter 1, you might want to look at it. It tells us in verse 19 that what is known about God is evident within us, for God made it evident. God has revealed Himself in verse 20 through the creation as well as the conscience. But in verse 21, here is the indictment of man. "Even though they knew God they didn't honor Him as God." So man has the intellectual knowledge but not the moral will. That's the problem. He can understand God, he can read the Bible, he can say it's true, he can say the facts are believable, but he has not the moral will. "Though they knew God they didn't honor Him as God, so they became futile in their speculations, their foolish heart was darkened and they thought they were so smart but they were fools," then it goes on to describe their idolatry.

Then verse 24, here's what happens, "Therefore God gave them over." Verse 26, "For this reason God gave them over." Verse 28, "They didn't see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over."

What does that mean? That means they passed the point of grace. That means God let go. God turned them over to the consequence of their own choice. First in verse 26 He gives them over to degrading passions. Homosexuality is discussed there, indecent acts. Verse 28 gave them over to a depraved mind. Verse 24 He gave them over to lusts. God just gave them over to the consequence of their own sins and they were then fixed and hardened. It's like Genesis 6 where God said, "My Spirit will not always strive with man." There comes a point when I stop striving and I start judging. Evangelists through the centuries have said, "Don't you continue to sin past the period of grace." You will wake up in the period of judgment and you will have no capacity to believe. Anything but the lie.

In verse 4 we remember the lie is that Antichrist is God. That's the lie. And he's saying you people that may be alive at that time, you're going to believe that, you're going to believe that Antichrist is God incarnate, the true Messiah, Savior. I think Israel is going to believe that. They're still looking for their Messiah. They have chosen willfully to disbelieve. And the nations of the world are going to buy into it, that Antichrist is God and Christ. What an unimaginable situation. But they won't have any choice. They'll be confirmed in that belief because they have chosen to reject the love of the truth.

So you see the position of perishing man. Perishing man has separated himself from God. He is at enmity with God. He is under judgment. He is condemned to a lost eternity. And only grace, grace from the loving heart of God could alter that. Only grace and love expressed in the sacrificial death of God's beloved Son could build a bridge to Him, to reconcile, to justify him. But the perishing ones refuse it. They don't love the Truth, they don't love the Christ of the truth, they don't obey the gospel. They're doing more than presuming on God's grace. They are refusing God's grace because they prefer sin, they love sin, it's a moral decision. It isn't that they don't understand, it isn't that they can't understand, it isn't that it isn't believable, they love sin.

It's a set condition that man brings upon himself by willful unbelief that ultimately becomes a judicial consequence of his own chosen course of action, sealing him in the chains of his own iniquity. He refuses light and chooses darkness, then he'll have darkness and he'll never recognize light. He hardens his heart, then hardened it shall be. He refuses the love of the Truth, then let him receive a lying spirit and embrace the ultimate lie of idolatry and worship the man of lawlessness. He spurned eternal life, then let him have eternal death. So they reap the reward of their unbelief and God even uses Satan and Antichrist to punish him. In all ages, not just the time of the Antichrist, in all ages those who persist in sin may find that eventually they won't be able to change the pattern.

So perishing people hate and reject the saving gospel. Perishing people refuse to love the Lord Jesus Christ. Perishing people love sin. Perishing people will not believe the truth but do believe lies. They will not follow God, they will follow Satan. And eventually unless they repent while they can, they won't be able to. So Paul is saying...Look, if you want to look joyfully at the return of Christ, if you want to be eager about His coming, if you want to love His appearing, then don't be deceived and don't be forgetful and don't be ignorant, and please, most of all, don't be unbelieving. Any of those should produce anxiety.

There's a fifth point. And this one is highly significant. Verses 13 and 14 and I'm only going to introduce it. Don't be insecure...don't be insecure. Verse 13, he says, "We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth and it was for this He called you through our gospel that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

That little two verses is a mini‑soteriology, that's the technical word for the study of salvation. You have in those two verses enough data about salvation to occupy an eight‑year study. Relax, we're not going to do that. But there's plenty there.

In those two verses we are swept across the vastness of God's redemptive plan. But the main point is this, you don't need to fear that you might miss the Rapture. You don't need to fear that you might get caught up in the day of the Lord. You don't need to fear that somehow God might leave you out and you're going to feel the heat of His fury. You don't need to feel that somehow you could do something to forfeit your future blessedness because God chose you...verse 13...that you may have the glory of the Lord Jesus...verse 14. You have been chosen to glory and you're going to get there.

I was doing a radio interview Saturday, Live in Charlotte, North Carolina and on some branch station in South Carolina. And I was talking to some callers, most of whom who were wonderfully encouraging about the book Charismatic Chaos. One caller called and asked me if I thought that salvation was forever. And I answered the question and it was immediately followed by another caller who said...Look, I must obey the Lord and I must work very hard because if I don't I'll lose my salvation." So he said, "If you...if you believe...this is in effect what he was saying, not his exact words...if you believe that salvation is forever, you're going to cause people to be lazy and indifferent and disobedient because they've got nothing to hold on to. It's all covered, it's all done for them, it requires nothing and you're going to produce people who are indifferent to spiritual responsibility but...he said...I know I can lose my salvation and so I work and I obey to keep it.

And my response to him was simply that I work and I seek to obey not to keep my salvation but to thank the God who keeps my salvation, for keeping it. He's saying to the Thessalonians...Look, you have been given an eternal salvation that started with the love of God in eternity past, and will end up in your glorification. And you're not going to get lost in between, you are the beloved of the Lord, you are the chosen, he says, you have been set apart by the Holy Spirit, you have exercised faith in the truth, you have been called through the gospel and the end of all of that is so that you may gain the glory that belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ. You've got nothing to fear, don't be insecure.

So he says in verse 13 we should always give thanks to God for you. I want to thank my God that the salvation He's given to you is forever. Maybe he thought back to John 6 where Jesus said, "All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me and I have lost none of them." Nobody falls through the cracks of salvation. There aren't any cracks. So he said I want to thank God for you, in contrast to those who refuse to believe, who refuse to love Christ, who refuse to obey the truth are those who willingly do and that's you, in contrast to those God judges in damnation are those He glorifies in salvation, in contrast to those who are given the Satanic delusion are those who are given the truth...in contrast to those who receive the horrors of Antichrist are those who receive the blessings of Christ. So he says I'm so thankful for you. I'm so thankful that you're God's children and you will never experience the wrath.

Don't be deceived. Don't be forgetful. Don't be ignorant. And don't be unbelieving. And don't be insecure. If I could add just one statement as a footnote that would help you to understand something of the majesty and something of the wonder of this matter of salvation, it would be this statement: in damnation...in damnation God acts in response to human choice. In damnation God acts in response to human choice. In salvation man acts in response to divine choice. That's always the way the Scripture lays it out. And so, he says I will damn those and I will send a deluding influence on them who refuse the love of the truth but for you who are the elect you have nothing to fear for you will receive the glory to which you were chosen.

Father, we thank You for this great passage, so much more yet to learn from it. But we don't want to be caught in any foolish deception that the great appearing of Jesus Christ is coming in October. We don't want to be forgetful of what we know the Bible teaches about the events of that time that would make that an impossibility. We don't want to be ignorant about things that we need to understand in greater fullness. And, Lord, as Paul would have hoped there would be no one unbelieving in the church at Thessalonica, so I would hope and pray that there will be no one here unbelieving for they do have much to fear. And then, Lord, we wouldn't be insecure. How could we be insecure with the God who planned our salvation from before the foundation of the world? So, Lord, help us to look forward to our gathering together to Jesus Christ, look forward to the time when the Savior comes to take us away and keep us out of that hour of trial that comes upon the whole world. Help us to rejoice that we'll not go through the day of the Lord, not feel any of His fury. Help us to realize that the day is coming when Jesus comes not to find us on earth and catch us in judgment, but to meet us in the air and take us to heaven to dwell in the place He's prepared for us. Thank You that He comes to deliver us from the wrath to come. And may we look forward to the return of Christ with great hope and no anxiety, may we love His appearing...in His great and blessed name we pray. Amen.
The Coming Man of Sin, Part 6
2 Thessalonians 2:13-17
Code: 53-12

As you know we have been studying 2 Thessalonians and we have been going through the wonderful and rich second chapter and I want you to return to that this morning as we conclude that chapter....2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We've been dealing here with the coming man of lawlessness, the coming man of sin, the Antichrist.

When I was in Indiana this week, on Monday night we arrived for a great meeting that night. And as I pulled up to the church there was a large crowd of cars in the parking lot and many people were moving toward the auditorium. And I was watching them. And then I noticed out of the corner of my eye some people were picketing the church. They had sticks with big placards on them. I noticed the first one in line said, "Jesus does not forgive sin." And then there were a number of other such things that were basically denials of the work and person of Christ in one way or another. It's a bit unusual to have a church picketed by people who are so bold and brash as to demonstrate the Antichrist's spirit right in the very place where Christ is exalted. But certainly it is the brashness of the enemy himself to do that. That is the Antichrist's spirit which is already at work in the world. It's the mystery of lawlessness that is already at work.

Ultimately it culminates in the final Antichrist. But there are many many who today demonstrate the attitude of Antichrist. There is a powerful supernaturally energized anti‑Christ attitude that pervades the world. It is part of Satan's attack on Christ. You see, the plan of Satan is to keep the world from accepting Christ and His work, to keep the world sufficiently deceived so that they are not saved. And then ultimately to bring his own false Christ, the culmination of all the antichrist attitude, namely the man of sin, the son of perdition and thus bring about the ultimate and final deception.

We're learning about this man and his career in this chapter. Satan we know is a liar and a deceiver and the father of lies. He disguises himself as an angel of light and his emissaries are equally disguised in the same way. They like him are deceitful workers and their primary deception is to lie about Christ. That is why inevitably false religions have an inerrant Christology. False religions tell lies about Christ.

In 2 John verse 7 it says, "Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist." So he tells you right there the antichrist attitude is a denial of Jesus Christ as God in human flesh. And so again I say, inevitably false religious systems always attack the person and the work of Christ. All of them, all false religions, hold to a salvation by works or ceremonial ritual or effort and that denies the work of Christ who alone can save. And all of them have a skewed view of Christ. To some He is an angel, to some He is some kind of an elevated emanation, to others He is a glorious man and so on and so on...to some He is a prophet of God. Always the antichrist spirit attacks the reality of Christ and His work.

Finally and ultimately that attitude will find its form in Antichrist...the final great Satanic religious leader of the world. When he comes he will be the consummate enemy of Christ. He will be the greatest deceiver the world has yet experienced, the greatest human deceiver, who will lead the whole world to worship him and not the true Christ. In fact, just by way of reminder, look for a moment at Revelation chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13 and verse 4 it mentions him, calling him the Beast. And of the Beast, it says in verse 5, there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies and authority to act for 42 months was given to him. He has a 42 month or a three and a half year career. It was given to him, verse 7, to make war with the saints and overcome them and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.

So he literally rules the whole world. He is a powerful powerful figure. Verse 8 says, and here's the key, "All who dwell on the earth will worship him." He literally gains the worship of the whole world, all of those whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who has been slain. Anybody who is not a believer, anybody who is not in Christ will worship this ultimate Antichrist.

Further into the chapter it tells that he will by the enabling of Satan and through the instrumentation of the false prophet who is his henchman perform all kinds of deceptive signs and those deceptive signs, of course, will increase his attractiveness and be the reason why the whole world falls down to worship him. And eventually he controls everybody. Verse 16, "Small and great, rich and poor, free and slaves, they all bear his mark on their right hand or on their forehead and they are all a part of his operation."

This Antichrist then literally captures the world. He becomes a religious and political leader that people really worship as God. He starts his career, according to Daniel 9 and Matthew 24, he starts his career by going into the temple in Jerusalem and there he desecrates the Holy of Holies, the altar, and then sets himself up as God, demands the whole world to worship him and they do because they are all given over to deception by God because they have rejected Christ. So the final Antichrist is a man, a human being, energized by Satan, equipped to do some astounding things. He pulls off the ultimate blasphemy in the temple of God, sets himself up as God. The whole world worships him and he sucks the whole world to himself and therefore God judges them. It is the day of the Lord, you'll remember, that great judgment that comes to destroy Antichrist and with him the false prophet and all who followed him and cast them into the lake of fire forever and forever.

So the Antichrist is an important personality in redemptive history. Now why is Paul writing about the Antichrist to these Thessalonians? Well, because they were confused. When he was with them he taught them about the return of Christ. He taught them they had nothing to fear. He taught them that Jesus would come and rapture them and take them out. And then there would come the day of the Lord judgment, but they wouldn't be in the day of the Lord judgment, they wouldn't experience that judgment. Somehow, however, they had come to think that perhaps they were already in the day of the Lord and somehow had missed the Rapture. What would make them think that? Persecution, hostility toward them, difficulty. But more than that, verse 2, somebody came along with a message and a false letter supposedly written by Paul and saying that there had come a supernatural spiritual word from God and Paul was preaching it and penning it and it was saying that the day of the Lord has come...end of verse 2, and you're in it. And panic set in and they were shaken and disturbed.

Why? Because the day of the Lord was a day of devastating world‑wide judgment and damnation. And they didn't believe they were supposed to be in that. And so the question would be...what happened to the Rapture? Why weren't we taken out? Why weren't we rescued? What's going on here? And they were in a state of fear and doubt. And so Paul writes to them with regard to the coming of the Lord and our gathering together to Him...namely the Rapture. And what he says to them is this...you couldn't have missed the Rapture, you couldn't be in the day of the Lord. Why? because Antichrist hasn't come. And Antichrist has to come before the day of the Lord breaks loose and Antichrist hasn't come, so how could you be in the day of the Lord?

So he uses that event of the coming of Antichrist, which is a precursor to the day of the Lord, as a way to show them the day of the Lord hasn't come. Because it was obvious the Antichrist hadn't come, the abomination of desolations called the apostasy in verse 3 hadn't taken place. The whole world certainly wasn't worshiping him. That had not happened yet. And so the reason he moves into this discussion of Antichrist is to show them that they cannot be in the day of the Lord to give them hope and encouragement that they will escape all of this stuff when the Lord does rapture them and they can still hope for that event to come.

So they had been in fear. And as we looked at the text we noted that Paul was very concerned that they not be afraid. He said, "I don't want you to be shaken and disturbed. It's not necessary." And so he unfolds, starting in verse 3, a series of things to help them alleviate their fears. There's no reason anybody who is a Christian should be afraid of the return of Christ, the coming of Christ, the end results of human history, the final day. There shouldn't be any fear in our lives. We should look with joy and hope and eagerness and exhilaration and happiness at that great time. We have nothing to fear. We're not going to be in the day of the Lord. We're not going to become the victims of the Antichrist's deception. We're not going to become pawns in Satan's great game against God. We're not going to miss the Rapture and somehow get swept away in condemnation. That's not going to happen.

And so, starting in verse 3 Paul tells them a few things to keep in mind. Number one, don't be deceived. And we're just reviewing now. Don't be deceived. Verse 3, "Let no one in any way deceive you." And he goes on to say you couldn't possibly be in the day of the Lord because the apostasy hasn't happened and the man of sin, or lawlessness hasn't been revealed, the son of destruction. He has not yet opposed and exalted himself above every so‑called God or object of worship. He hasn't yet taken his seat in the temple of God displaying himself as being God. That hasn't happened. So you couldn't possibly be in the day of the Lord. So don't be deceived. And we would say to you folks, don't be deceived as you look at the coming of Jesus Christ, don't let anybody concoct some kind of a theory that's going to take away your joy and your hope and your anticipation, something that's going to confuse you and shake you and remove your composure.

Secondly we noted he said don't be forgetful. In verse 5 he says, "Do you not remember that while I was still with you I was telling you these things?" Don't let go of what you already know. It's amazing to me, I've often said this to people, "Look, I don't mind if you doubt what you don't know, but don't doubt what you know. Doubt your doubts, don't doubt what you know is true. Hang on to what you've been taught." That's what he's saying. You know what I told you, don't you remember it?

I suppose one of the most traumatic things that can happen in the life of any believer is to forget things that are very essential to Christian growth and Christian encouragement. And so he says hold on to those things, that means a constant review, a constant recitation in the mind, a constant effort to remember those things as you go over them over and over so that you cannot be easily deceived.

Thirdly he says to them, don't be ignorant. And starting in verse 6 and running down to the middle of verse 10 he basically fills in the gaps about the Antichrist. I don't want you to be ignorant because ignorance can lead to fear and doubt and questioning. So he says I'll just tell you a few more things. And he goes through the career of the Antichrist there a little bit, talking about his revelation, his power, his influence and his ultimate destruction. I don't want you to be ignorant because ignorance can lead to fear. I don't want you to be forgetful because forgetting things you already know and I certainly don't want you to be victimized by some deception.

Fourthly then, in verse 10 right at the end there and down through verse 12, he says don't be unbelieving. And here's a very important point. He does say here that people who don't receive the love of the truth, end of verse 10, so as to be saved will perish and God will send them a deluding influence, they will believe what is false, they will be judged because they didn't believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness.

So he's saying this, don't be unbelieving. Don't be in the church but unsaved or you have every reason to fear because you will be perhaps around in the future when Antichrist comes and you will be victimized by his deception. All the ungodly, all those who take pleasure in wickedness, all those who do not love the truth of the gospel so as to be saved are going to feel the judgment of God. And part of that judgment is the inability to understand the truth and being turned over by God to believe a lie. Because of willful unbelief and refusal to love and obey the truth, there will come judicial unbelief and an inability to obey and believe the truth.

So if you want to look joyfully, he says, at the future, don't be deceived, or forgetful or ignorant or unbelieving. Now let's come to a fifth, and this is the one that I think is so important for us today. Don't be insecure. Don't...you have no reason to be insecure.

I was listening to a conversation one time, a question and answer conversation with a pastor talking to various people asking questions. And one of the questions was this...what happens if Jesus returns and a believer is sinning? The answer was...the believer goes to hell. A follow‑up question came, what happens if the Lord Jesus returns and someone who believes their a Christian has unconfessed sin in their life? Sin they have committed in the past for which they have never sought by confession forgiveness, what happens? The answer, same answer, they go to hell.

In other words, if Jesus comes and everything is not on perfect terms with Him, you go to hell. Now that's a very very frightening thing to believe. I don't see how anybody who believed that kind of thing wouldn't live in fear all the time because the fact of the matter is if we say we have no sin we make God a liar. He didn't say, John didn't say in 1 John 1, if we say we have never sinned, he didn't say if we say we have not sinned, he said if we say now we have no sin we make God a liar. At any given point in any Christian's life there will be some manifestation of his fallenness. To say we have escaped that is to make God a liar. And by the way, if you get in to Arminian theology, I believe that the reason Arminian theology has developed a perfectionistic viewpoint is to get people out of living in constant fear. And so they have this theory that you can reach a point where you never sin anymore because they desperately need some plateau of security. But the fact of the matter is there are people who believe that if you haven't confessed your sins and you've got some that are unconfessed or if you're caught sinning when Jesus comes, you're doomed and you've got to keep your accounts fresh all the time. You sort of have to keep yourself saved.

And it may have been that some of that kind of thinking had gotten in to the Thessalonian church and that they were thinking, you know, maybe this Rapture deal went and we didn't see it because somehow we slipped out of salvation. Somehow we got lost again. Or maybe the Lord had planned a Rapture but He cancelled it because there were so many defectors. And we're all just going right into the day of the Lord to be judged and condemned.

That thing could shake you from your composure. That could disturb you. If you were afraid He might lose a hold of you, or you might lose your hold on Him. Paul doesn't want anybody to think like that so he says this in verses 13 and 14, "We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth and it was for this He called you through our gospel that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

What he says here is very simple. He says when God chose you in eternity past from the beginning, He chose you to gain glory in Jesus Christ. You're in the process of moving from salvation to glory because that's the plan. So you don't have to fear you're going to get lost somewhere. From the very beginning when God chose you, He chose you to be glorified. You were elected to gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. You were elected to be as perfect as Christ is, as holy as Christ is, to stand in His presence undefiled like Him. That's what you were chosen for. You weren't just chosen to be saved in time in the hope that you could make it, you were chosen to be glorified. Salvation in time was simply an element in bringing that choice to its fruition.

Now let me show you the flow here. You have the theology of salvation here in a microcosm. First, he says we should always give thanks to God for you. In other words, we're thankful to God for your salvation. We're thankful to God that He saved you. The thanks goes to Him because the saving was His work, right? It's all God's work. We don't thank you for being smart enough to do that, we thank God for saving you. We should always be giving thanks to God for you because He saved you.

And then he takes the components of that work and he begins to delineate them. First one, you are loved by the Lord, you are loved by the Lord. He says in verse 13, "We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord." That's where salvation began. Do you understand that? Your salvation began when God decided in eternity past to set His love on you. This is where salvation begins in the sovereign...here's a good word to remember...uninfluenced, undeserved initiating love of God. Without any influence outside of Himself by anyone or anything, God predetermined to set His love on you. And that's what Ephesians 1 says, "In love having predestinated..." God freely and uninfluenced set His love on you. You were loved by the Lord. That's where it all started. Just like He said of Israel in the Old Testament, you were not greater than any other people but I determined to love you. That's the only explanation. You ask why? You don't know why, that's just in God's own mind in His own plan, He determined to love you. That's where your salvation was initiated. You were loved by the Lord.

Secondly, you were chosen by the Lord. Flowing out of that predetermination to love was a choice. And it says in verse 13, "Brethren, beloved by the Lord," because God has chosen you. We want to thank Him for loving you, and we want to thank Him for choosing you from the beginning for salvation. God chose you from the beginning, that means eternity past. That's what Revelation 13:8 and 17:8 mean when it says your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, before time began God chose you before you were ever born, before man was ever made, God chose you. Election is not an after thought. This choice is not a recent matter. It isn't that God looks all over the world and picks out a few that He likes. Sovereignly designed in eternity rather by God's own sovereign pleasure He chose. This surpassing truth is all through Scripture. That's why the New Testament calls the church the elect. Even Israel is called Israel, Mine elect. God chose them, too. God chose us, we are the elect. We're called the elect all through the New Testament. In Matthew 24 Jesus says the time of the Tribulation is shortened for the elect's sake. In Romans 8:33 Paul says, "Who is going to lay any charge to God's elect? It is God who justifies." In other words, if God has chosen you and God has already made that choice and justified you, who is going to be able to go into heaven and bring an accusation against you that's going to force God to take your salvation away? No one can do that. God made the choice and the choice is fixed forever.

That's the point. In Colossians chapter 3 and verse 12, a familiar little verse, "So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved." You have been chosen of God. You are loved and you have been made holy. This is the great truth Jesus articulated to His disciples in John 15 when He said, "You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you and ordained you that you should bear fruit." He does the choosing based upon His love.

Now that doctrine of God's elective sovereign predestinating love crushes human pride, doesn't it? Because it gives Him all the credit. It exalts Him. It produces joy unspeakable because how wondrous to think that you've been chosen. It grants us privilege because we get with that the full and eternal inheritance. It should promote our holiness for we who have been chosen by God to be His children should long to be like Him.

And then finally, and this is what Paul is after, it produces security. If I have been chosen by God unto glory and if it's true and it is, Philippians 1:6, "He which has begun a good work in you will perform it till the day of Jesus Christ," then I am secure. That's really what I was saying when I read to you Psalm 91, there is nothing that can get to the one who is loved by God and who is hidden in the refuge of God's own faithfulness.

So divine love and choice lead to a third thing, we are loved by the Lord, he says, we are chosen by the Lord, thirdly, we are transformed by the Lord. Down in that same verse he says, "We have been chosen by God from the beginning for salvation which is accomplished through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth." And there you have both the divine side and the human side. Salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. There are two elements, those two elements to salvation.

The first element is called sanctification by the Spirit. What does that mean? Sanctified means set apart, separated. That simply means that the Holy Spirit sovereignly miraculously and divinely detaches you from sin. A new inner man is created, separated from sin, detached from it. It is the life of God within you, it is the divine nature that becomes yours. It is holy and it longs for what is pure and holy and it delights in the law of God, as Romans 7 says. It has holy aspirations and righteous longings. That new creation on the inside is fit for heaven and fit for the presence of God because it is made holy. It is detached from sin. It's a new you. You're regenerated, you're born again. The old dies, a new is born. And so that's the work of the Holy Spirit by which He separates you from sin and creates in you a holy nature. That's His work. Salvation is a divine miracle.

Some men were asking me this week, "What do you say to someone who wants to know how to be saved?" I explain to them the gospel and ask them if they believe it. And if they believe in Jesus Christ. And if they affirm that they do believe it, that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, they acknowledge Him for who He is and what He's done, then I ask them to ask God to save them...not to pray a little formulized prayer but to ask God to save them for only God sovereignly and supernaturally can separate them from sin, detach them, create in them a new creation. So rather than a formula is a prayer, "God, please save me, separate me from sin. Declare me righteous before You by the righteousness of Jesus Christ and plant that holy new inner man in me." That's...that's the two‑fold aspect.

So the Spirit actually separates us. The Spirit actually regenerates the inner man, setting him apart from sin to God, and then keeps that process going all through life. So there is an initial separation sanctification and then there's continual separation as we gain victory over our flesh in which that new man is still incarcerated.

But the second component is faith in the truth. And I mentioned that, that has to be there, too. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved and your household, right? Acts 16:31. If you want salvation you must believe. You must believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, that's the human response. The divine transformation worked by the Spirit requires the element of faith, faith in the truth. Therefore you have to hear the truth. You remember it says in Romans 10, "How shall they hear without a...what?...preacher?" You cannot be saved until you hear the truth. The Spirit regenerates one who hears the truth, believes the truth. So the work of the Spirit becomes operative through faith in the truth, the truth being the gospel and the Truth being Christ for He too is the way, the truth and the life.

So Paul says God has eternally chosen you, chosen you purely on the basis of His love alone. Brought that choice into reality by saving you in time through the powerful transforming work of the Holy Spirit who separated you from sin, your old life died, you were born brand new, regenerated into a new creation with holy desires and to enact that He produced in you faith to believe the truth. You've been in all that process, he says to the Thessalonians. Loved, chosen, transformed.

Now that's not all, folks, there's a fourth element. Chronologically it belongs before the third one. Paul puts it in to verse 14, "And it was for this He called you through our gospel." He reaches back and gives us something before even your salvation and that was you were called. What's he talking about? This call, now follow very carefully, this call is what we call an effective call, an efficacious call. It worked. It is what theologians call "irresistible grace." This call is when God's Holy Spirit called you to Himself and you couldn't resist. This is what gave you the truth to believe and the will to believe it. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. The natural man cannot believe even though he hears the gospel, unless the call is not just something he hears but something that turns his heart. The gospel then came to you. And when it came to you it wasn't just words and facts, it was power, it was a transforming call. It really changed you.

Back in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, "We thank God that when you received from us the Word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men but for what it really is, the Word of God...listen...which also energeia, energizes its work in you who believe." So he says you also were called by the Lord, a saving call. That's what activated your otherwise dead faith.

So, he says to the Thessalonians, you were loved by the Lord, you were chosen by the Lord. At the appropriate time you were irresistibly called by the Lord. And in response to that you were transformed by the Lord. He's been doing all of this. He's been working all this through and this leads to his final point, end of verse 14, "In order that," is what it means, "In order that, or for the ultimate purpose that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." Why did He love you? To bring you to glory. Why did He choose you? To bring you to glory. Why did He call you? To bring you to glory. Why did He transform you, save you? To bring you to glory. Do you think that somehow you're going to slip through the cracks? This is a firm statement about the security of the believer, loved and chosen and called and transformed in order to be glorified. When it started out in eternity past and God said, "I choose so‑and‑ so," He didn't say I choose them to be saved, I choose them to believe, He said I choose them to be glorified, I choose them to be made like My Son that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be like Him for you shall see Him as He is.

And what is going to separate you from the love of God in Christ? Nothing, right? Nothing. Not principalities, or powers, not things present or things to come, not height nor depth, not any other creation, Romans 8 says, nothing. Absolutely nothing can cause the process to default.

You say, "Well what if I'm not deserving?" You never have been and you aren't now and you never will be. And you certainly weren't when God made the choice. There is no need to be insecure. There's no need to be fearful about the return of Christ. There's no need to be anxious thinking God may have missed you and here you are caught in the day of the Lord and you're going to get judged and swept away, or somehow you defaulted and God let you go and now you're lost. Or maybe God doesn't remember you're even around, He's got so many people on His list, a few names somehow escaped Him. No. Don't be insecure. You were not destined for judgment, you were destined for glory. You are not to be included with those who will be deceived and judged. Before the world began God loved you and chose you and called you and transformed you in time in order to make you one of His sons of glory, in leading many sons to glory, the plan is completed.

Those who are unbelieving, they have a reason to fear the judgment of God to come, the day of the Lord, should they be alive then. The ignorant, they have cause to fear, they just don't know enough not to fear. The forgetful, they have reason to fear too because they can't remember what they should know and the deceived probably have reason to fear too because they've been confused. But there's no need for that because the Word of God gives us ample instruction to take away any fear.

And then a final word and in this final word he adds one more exhortation, don't be weak...don't be weak. With everything I've given you, "So then, brethren," verse 15, "stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by letter from us." And this is just a sort of a summation, direct exhortation to the Thessalonians. So then, brethren, stand firm. Don't be weak. Don't be vacillating. Hold your ground. Stay upright, don't waver, don't be fearful, don't be doubtful, don't be insecure, don't be agitated. Stand firm and hold. That simply means to exert strength with your grip so something can't be pulled away from you. Hold on. To what? To the traditions which you were taught, whether by word...word of mouth...or by letter from us.

Now when we hear the word "traditions" we might get a little confused here. What's he mean? He means the message from God, divine revelation. The word tradition has come to mean a lot to us, it usually means a whole lot of stuff that's concocted in some kind of culture, religious or social, that gets passed down from generation to generation. And in our vernacular that's usually what the word tradition means. We talk about tradition as something that's no revelatory, we say on the one hand there's the Bible, on the other hand there's tradition. And so maybe we see those two juxtapose when they shouldn't be. The word tradition in the Greek means literally things handed down. That's all it means. Things handed down. And what he is saying then in that sense is this, stand firm and hold on to the things handed down, the things handed down through teaching by word and letter from us. That's divine revelation, my friend. In the Pauline letters and the revelation God gave him which he preached to them...the oral things and the written things. The oral things, by the way, that God inspired have been recorded for us in the gospels and in the book of Acts. The written are in all the epistles.

So he says whatever God has passed down through the Apostles, through me, whether oral or written is the authoritative teaching from God handed to you, stand firm and hold on to it, hold your ground. And if you do that, if you do that obviously you're not going to be deceived and you're not going to be forgetful, and you're not going to be ignorant and you're not going to be unbelieving and you're not going to be insecure if you'll just get a grip on the revelation of God that's been given to you. Doctrinal instruction, authoritative teaching.

There is the use of the word tradition in the New Testament to refer to human tradition. It's used in Matthew15 to speak of the tradition of the elders which was manmade stuff passed down by the Pharisees. And then in Colossians 2:8 there's a phrase, "the tradition of men," which is used of Gentile philosophy. So the Jews had their religious tradition, that is true. And the Gentiles have their philosophical tradition that they had down from generation to generation, human wisdom. He's not talking about those kinds of traditions. He's talking about that which is handed down from God to the Apostles to the church. Hold on to that. Doctrinal instruction.

In 1 Corinthians 11 verse 2 it's used, and I think it's used in a way that will help you to understand that. He says, "I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you." He's talking about the apostolic doctrine, the Apostles' teaching which was essential to the life of the church. That kind of message handed down, not some human tradition.

Now today for us the apostolic message handed down is in this book. As I said, in the gospels and Acts we have the record of what was spoken. In the epistles we have what was written. And this is the once for all delivered to the saints faith, this is...Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:20...he said, "This, Timothy, is what you must guard. O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you." And then in second epistle of Timothy, chapter 1 verse 14, "Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been entrusted to you." It is the tradition that came down, that was handed down from God to the Apostles to the church. Now he says if you do this, you stand firm and hold on to the word of the living God which you've been given, you're not going to waver and be confused and ignorant and insecure.

And then he closes this central part of the letter with a benediction which is really a prayer wish in verses 16 and 17. "Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word." This is very simple. He's just saying I know one thing for sure, no matter what I say you don't have the human ability to make it operative so I want to ask God to effect all this in your life. And here we come to that mysterious and wonderful reality that even though we are commanded to obey and we are commanded to respond, in the human flesh we don't have the capability and so it depends on God to energize that response through us. That's the mystery of the Christian life.

So he says I'm going to ask the Lord in this prayer wish, "May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father comfort and strengthen your hearts," that's the main thrust, taking out the modifying clauses. I want God to encourage you in the midst of your being shaken and discomforted. And I want God to strengthen you to hold on. I don't want to exegete this benediction and prayer because it's so self‑evident, but I do want to mention a couple of things.

First, would you please note there's a pronoun "Himself" that is in the emphatic position. It could read, "Now may Himself our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father." Quite interesting. Here's another very strong statement about the deity of Christ. The mention of the Son the Lord Jesus Christ before the Father also emphasizes their equality. But what really solidifies it, if they're both the source of comfort and their both the source of strength and the Son is mentioned first, then we could understand that they must be one and the same. What really solidifies it is a singular pronoun, Himself, used to refer to both of them. And may Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father. And so this equates God and Christ, again the major message of Christianity, God is revealed in Jesus Christ. That is what the spirit of Antichrist always attacks.

And then it says, "May Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father...describing Him...who has loved us." That takes us all the way back again to what makes it all happen, He loves us and He has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace. He's talking about salvation there. He loved us and He granted to us eternal encouragement and a good hope and He did it all by grace. He's talking about our salvation. So He says, "May God and Christ who loved us in eternity past and in time and who granted to us gracious salvation, may that God, that saving God who had the power to redeem us comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word." May the same God whose power was demonstrated in our salvation be demonstrated in our obedience.

He has then summed it up. You don't need to be discouraged. You don't need to be shaken. You need to be hopeful and joyous, anticipating the Rapture, the return of Jesus Christ for those who love Him. You don't need to fear being lost in judgment and caught up in the day of the Lord, it isn't going to happen. It can't happen. I want you to get above this stuff. I want you to live lives that are strong and courageous. I want you to be encouraged and I'm going to ask God to do the work that produces that in your life. He says "comfort," that means encouraged. Strength, an interesting word, sterizo from which we get steroids, source of strength and power. And I want Him to strengthen your heart, that's the inner man, your mind, what moves you, what makes you think and act and react in every good work and word. Both in what you do, your deed, and in what you say, your speech. So may God empower you in what you do and what you say to be strong and bold and immovable and stable and fixed and mature and not shaken.

And thus he closes this, the heart of his epistle. We have nothing to fear, beloved, and everything to hope for. And I pray for you the same thing that as you look at the future the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father who had the power through grace to save you will grant you graciously and powerfully to be comforted and strengthened in your own hearts so that you do everything that is good and say everything that is good until Jesus comes. There's no reason to live with anything other than a joyous hope for what awaits us.

Father, thank You this morning that You have drawn us to again thank You because everything we have comes from You. You gave us salvation and You gave us a salvation that was eternal. We bless You for that. I pray that no one here will be shaken or worried or fearful in the future but that they might look at the future with hope and anticipation because they know the truth and they know the Savior and they know salvation is eternal and that they are destined for glory. And I pray that as we await the time when Jesus comes, that we may be strong and bold and courageous and unshaken and immovable because we are comforted, encouraged and strengthened by Your power in everything we do and everything we say. May we be as we sung this morning soldiers, strong, bold and effective as we live for the One who some day will come to take us to be with Him forever. Until that day may we know Your power and Your comfort in Christ's dear name. Amen.

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Ravings from Tokyo

January 6, 2010

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 1

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5
Code: 53-7

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 2

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5
Code: 53-8

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 3

2 Thessalonians 2:3-5
Code: 53-9

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 4

2 Thessalonians 2:6-10
Code: 53-10

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 5

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
Code: 53-11

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 6

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17
Code: 53-12

Comments (1)

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usalapinhazzer

I can't find it, either!

Ravings from Tokyo

January 6, 2010

Antichrist

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 1

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5Code: 53-7

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 2

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5Code: 53-8

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 3

2 Thessalonians 2:3-5Code: 53-9

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 4

2 Thessalonians 2:6-10Code: 53-10

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 5

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12Code: 53-11

The Coming Man of Sin, Part 6

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17Code: 53-12

Comments (1)

Post a Comment

usalapinhazzer

I can't find it, either!

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5
Code: 53-7

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5
Code: 53-8

2 Thessalonians 2:3-5
Code: 53-9

2 Thessalonians 2:6-10
Code: 53-10

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
Code: 53-11

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17
Code: 53-12