2 Thessalonians Chapter 2:1-12
Introduction
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Thessalonica for the second time he was aware that some people claiming to be apostles were spreading the rumour that the Day of the Lord had already come. These reports had unsettled the minds of the believers and at that time they were under severe persecution by Imperial Rome so that last thing they needed was to hear reports that the Day of the Lord had already come.
Previously Paul had only spent just a few weeks with them, and in that time had taught them quite a lot about the end-times and the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus. In that short amount of time Paul spent with the assembly at Thessalonica he considered it vitally important to teach them about the end-times leading up to and including the Second Coming of Messiah. Just as a side comment “when was the last time you had a Bible Study on Revelation or on the book of Daniel or on Eschatology in your church?”
Paul thought it was important to teach these new believers at Thessalonica about these things and his teaching on Eschatology is a strong feature in both Epistles. In the Bible “The Coming of the Lord” is also called “The Day of the Lord” and both these phrases refer to the Second Coming of Jesus; the Messiah. “
The Day of the Lord is that short period of time when God judges the nations of the world at the end of this present age culminating with the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus to catch up the saints to meet Him in the air as He pours out the bowls of God’s wrath on the Antichrist’s kingdom and a Messiah hating, Messiah rejecting world.
In fact the events leading up to and including the Second Coming will be sequential and coming rapidly one upon another and together they all constitute the day of the Lord. As we will see from this passage of scripture there is nothing “secret” about these events including the idea of a secret pre-tribulation rapture. Now let’s look at the text itself.
(Vs.1-2) “Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus the Messiah and our gathering together to Him, that you 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.”
Notice that Paul connects the second coming of the Lord Jesus with the rapture which is when the faithful Body of Messiah will be “snatched up” or “snatched away” (Greek-harpazo) into the sky to meet the Lord Jesus at His coming, to be gathered around Him and return with Him to earth. The coming of the Lord Jesus and the rapture are clearly included in the Day of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) (Matthew 24:29-31) (Mark 13:24-26) (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) (Revelation 7:14-17) (Revelation 11:15).
In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 we see the phrase “to meet.” The idea is that you have an important dignitary coming towards a city where the people of the city go out to meet him to welcome him and then accompany him back to the city. So the Lord Jesus comes for His bride the Body of Messiah, to judge the world, to rescue Israel, to destroy all opposition and to establish his Millennial Messianic kingdom. This is the context in light of other co-texts related to the Day of the Lord.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 as well we see two features of the rapture mentioned. You have a loud command or shout of victory from heaven by the Archangel accompanied by the trumpet call of God. Then in Matthew 24: 31 you also have mentioned a loud trumpet call. Then in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 you have the last trumpet sounded which contextually is directly connected to the rapture and the resurrection of believers to receive their indestructible, immortal, eternal glorified bodies.
In Revelation 11:15 we see the same trumpet and loud voices in heaven announcing the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus to take possession of the kingdoms of this world over which He will reign with a rod of iron, or an iron sceptre (Isaiah 9:7) (Psalm 2:8-9).
It is interesting also to note that in Revelation 7:14-17 we see the redeemed saints coming out of Great Tribulation between the sixth and the seventh seal. They are seen “coming out” in the Greek text in the continuous present tense.
Being continuous allows for the saints of all the ages coming out of tribulation through martyrdom or natural causes but also applies to the end of this age when the saints are seen coming out of Great Tribulation. It would seem that we are being told that the rapture and resurrection of the Body of Messiah happens between the sixth and the seventh seal after the seventh and last trumpet is blown.
Another aspect to consider is that the six days the Israelites walked around Jericho the priests carried their trumpets. Then on the seventh day they marched around the city seven times with the trumpets blowing. When the last blast came on the seventh day it was longer than the others and as that blast continued the walls of the city collapsed.
However, Rahab and her immediate family was not destroyed but rescued out of the city because of the red cord tied to the window of her house. She was in the city right up to the end and in the tribulation being experienced by the citizens of Jericho but protected, and just as the walls started to collapse her rescue came! She represents the faithful Body of Messiah saved by faith and by the shed blood of Messiah by which His elect saints are justified and protected from the wrath to come (Romans 5:9).
In Biblical typology we can see a relationship between the six seals in Revelation with the six days when the city was witnessing the judgement to come as the Israelites silently marched once around the city each day for six consecutive days.
Jericho is a type of this world in rebellion against God. The Israelites represent the armies of heaven bringing judgement to the inhabitants of this world at the end of this age. The seven trumpets in Joshua Chapter six represent the seven trumpets in Revelation. When the seventh trumpet in Revelation is blown the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of the LORD and His Messiah and He, the Messiah, will reign for ever and ever. The systems of the world collapse!
One thing to keep in mind is that spiritual deception will be a conspicuous feature of the very last of the last days (Matthew 24: 4, 9, 24) (1 Timothy 4:1-2) (2 Timothy 3:1-9). The assembly members at Thessalonica had been quickly shaken from their composure and disturbed by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from Paul and his companions, to the effect that the Day of the Lord had come.” This was compounded by the severe persecution the assembly was experiencing and were being led to believe that the Lord had come for His followers and that they had somehow been left behind.
Paul was quick to deal with this in his second letter. For the first century believers under the iron heel of Rome it was humanly speaking a terrible nightmare and very real and at times a dire situation they faced. One can understand how the letters they had received supposedly from Paul, which they weren’t, unsettled their faith.
The first century Body of Messiah had one great blessed hope and that was the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus which would include the rapture (Titus 2:13). Let’s continue…
(Vs.3-4) “Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 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 Paul’s letters which are clear and explicit concerning the end of the age and the Second Coming of Messiah and the events leading up to it there is no indication of a secret pre-tribulation rapture which those that teach it also teach that the Antichrist will only be revealed after the Church has been raptured. Paul clearly teaches that this will not be the case! Paul clearly says that this kind of teaching is in fact a form of spiritual deception. He clearly says that the Day of the Lord which includes the rapture cannot happen until the man of sin, the Antichrist, is revealed.
Notice Paul also connects the revealing of the man of sin with the apostasy. It is not just a general falling away from the faith once delivered to the saints but “the falling away,” a falling away on a global scale.
The Lord Jesus Himself said; “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of Me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:9-13).
If these are not saved then what will they be falling away from if they were never saved in the first place? The writer to the Hebrew Assembly tells us that it is a possibility (Hebrews 6:1-9) (Hebrews 10:26-31). Notice that the Lord Jesus also says that because of abounding lawlessness (Torahlessness) the love (agape) of most will grow cold. The word used for love is “agape” which only a born again believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit is capable of (Romans 5:5).
The effects of this wickedness then will have to be resisted and endured by the faithful saints to the end if they are to be ultimately saved. It is rendered “has endured to the end”
We have to endure now as saved believers but to stay saved we must endure to the end. Only by the grace of God can this be achieved and it is the blessed Holy Spirit who can enable us to endure if we want to say saved and useful in the Kingdom of God (1 Peter 4:12-19).
If you really want to stay saved, even though at times you will have a heaviness of spirit due to multitudes of temptations, then no one in the heavens, on the earth or under the earth will be able to pluck you out of the Fathers hand of the Lord Jesus’ hands! We have His assurance on this matter (John 10:27-29).
So then the apostasy will open the way for the revealing of the Man of Sin. Whether it is ecumenism, interfaith, Kingdom Now, hyper faith prosperity, the feel good gospel, or any other teaching, dream or revelation or manifestation of one sort or another for that matter that does not align itself with the Word of God, it is all spiritual deception.
Added to this, Satan is seeking to impart a spirit of anti-Semitism within wider Christendom which is happening at an ever increasing level today because he knows that the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus depends on the survival of Israel. Of course Israel will survive and the Messiah our Lord Jesus will have a kingdom to return to as the King of the Jews and the one destined to sit on the throne of David at Jerusalem.
As we read in the gospel of Luke; “…Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”(Luke 1:31-33)
Now the spirit of Antichrist is always associated with religion and especially when it comes to secretly introducing into the Body of Messiah doctrines that lay truth and error side by side (2 Peter 2:1-3). The spirit of antichrist denies that the eternal Son of God through the incarnation came into the flesh (1 John 4:1-3)
When the man of sin is revealed he will sit in the Temple of God declaring to be God and acknowledge no other deity other than himself. He is ultimately doomed to destruction which will happen when the Lord Jesus returns (1 Thessalonians 2:6-10).
Now Daniel chapter 11:36-39 aligns with our text in 2nd Thessalonians 2:3-4. In second Thessalonians we see his religious side, however, in Daniel 11:36-45 we see him in his military conquest. When you read Daniel chapter 11:36-45; it is clear that he will be a middle-eastern despotic potentate aligned with religion. The only ideology that fits this description today is Islam. It is a military power, a socio-economic system, a despotic governmental system with religion as a component.
Scripture tells us that Judas Iscariot was personally indwelt by Satan (John 13:27), likewise so will be the man of sin. These are the only two people in the Bible called the son of perdition. The man of sin being the Antichrist will be the incarnation of Satan on earth demanding to be worshipped in Israel, within wider Christendom and in the realm of his empire which will be one of global proportions.
This man will deny the eternal relationship between God the Father with God the Son (1 John 2:18-23). The spirit of antichrist will be operating in and through this man of sin denying the deity of the Lord Jesus, waging war with Israel, with other nations, and persecuting the wider Body of Messiah (Daniel 11:38-43) (Revelation 13:5-8).
At present we have the Papacy which gives titles to the Popes that can only be applied to God. They call him “the Vicar of Christ” a term only reserved for the Holy Spirit on earth. In Latin the Pope’s title is “Vicarious Christos”, in Greek it is “Anti Christos” or “Antichrist” or “Antic Messiah.” It has two meanings, it means “against Christ” and “in place of Christ.” Satan wants to turn everyone he can from the true Messiah and replace the real Messiah with a false Messiah. In Islam their Jesus is our Antichrist and their Antichrist is our Lord Jesus.
The Islamic Antichrist will seek to conquer Jerusalem, showing Islam’s superiority over Israel, and conquer Rome showing Islam’s superiority over Christendom. Allah of course is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Allah is a different “god.” Now let’s continue…
(Vs.5-7) “Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 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.”
Paul had spent only several weeks with assembly and in that time had taught quite thoroughly and accurately the things pertaining to the end-times and what was coming, and about what would happen at the Second Coming of Messiah. He had also taught them about the one who still restrains the man of sin from being revealed. Some say it was Rome at the time, however most prophecy teachers believe the “he” refers to the person of the Holy Spirit.
We are told that the He who is restraining the man of sin will be taken out of the way. This does not mean that He leaves the earth. It means He allows the man of sin to enter centre stage in world affairs. In the Old Testament virtually all of the nations and geographical regions mentioned throughout the Middle -East and on the African continent are all Islamic today.
The mystery of lawlessness (Torahlessness) is already at work within Israel, within wider Christendom, and in the world at large and we see the retraining hand of the Holy Spirit starting to allow lawlessness to increase in frequency and intensity. Spiritual deception is now a global plague. The only ones who are aware of this wicked trend are those who are enduring the assaults of the world, the flesh and the devil and walking in step with e Holy Spirit and according to the revealed word of God.
Right now millions of faithful Christians are laying down their lives for the Lord Jesus as Islam spreads its religious ideology of the sword through many third world countries. The whole of the Middle-eastern region is infested with Jihadist Islamic fundamentalism. Islam itself is the greatest threat to western democracy and Christianity we have today.
The west is compromising with Islam, but Islam is not compromising with the west! In fact it is Islam and not Rome that endangers the very freedom and democracy we hold dear in the west. Europe is still being invaded with thousands of ’refugees’ many of whom are undoubtedly Jihad minded militant operatives.
No western democracy is immune. Great Britain, once the bastion of Biblical Christianity now has Mosques all over the nation and more are being built while Church attendance for the most part is declining. Canada is not faring much better, neither is Australia and even the United States that has many Jihadist minded Muslims entrenched within every level of American society primarily through unchecked illegal immigration from Islamic countries. Behind this infiltration in the west is the Muslim Brotherhood.
Anything and anyone or any ‘doctrine’ or way of life that does not align with God’s Word is practicing lawlessness, and when it creeps into the assemblies of God’s people, also called God’s Temple corporately, you will ultimately have that apostasy that will inevitably pave the way for the man of sin to be revealed. And now let’s continue to read…
(Vs.8) “Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;”
When the man of lawlessness is revealed he will usher in a time of tribulation unequalled in the past and never to be equalled in the future (Matthew 24:15-22) lasting for three and a half years, (42 months, 1,260 days, a time, times and half a time) to reign over his vast empire and then his demise will come and his kingdom smashed! In the end no one will help him! (Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45) (Daniel 6:8-27) (Daniel 11:45). His demise will be at Jerusalem when his royal pavilions are destroyed between the Dead and the Mediterranean Seas at the beautiful holy mountain in Israel (Daniel 11:45). Now let’s read on…
(Vs.9-10) “…that is, the one whose 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, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”
Counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders accompanied by spiritual deception and seduction in an apostate Christendom will pave the way for the man of sin. Today in the wider Body of Messiah there is so much emphasis on signs, miracles and wonders. Multitudes of Christians today are flocking to hear men preaching another gospel yet they still go to their meetings.
The Lord Jesus said that it was “a wicked and sinful generation that seeks for a sign” (Matthew 12:39). He also said that these signs would follow the preaching of the Word and not be the main focus. (Mark 16:17) Today just the opposite is happening. Multitudes of Christians are emphasizing signs, miracles and wonders, false prophecies, dreams and visions of one sort or another above the preaching of God’s Word.
Today you have many so called prophets who are saying, “I have a word for you” and many Christians want to hear “a word” rather than hear the Word of God. Signs, miracles and wonders do not validate a man’s ministry. Even among Mormons and African witch doctors and in other religions people prophecy, speak in tongues and perform healings. These things are not unique to Christianity.
Jannes and Jambres the magicians of Pharaoh’s court that were practitioners of the occult were, up to a point, able to counterfeit the miracles of Moses and Aaron by occult power. In the end they were exposed and defeated as all false prophets will eventually find (2 Timothy 3:8-9). False apostles, prophets and teachers are using the occult in the Church today to counterfeit the miracles of Jesus.
False prophets and teachers will always resist and persecute those who are faithful to the Word of God and seek to live godly lives in the power of the Messiah our Lord Jesus. As we read; “In fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in Messiah Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and imposters (enchanters) will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:12-13). They believe in their own publicity! Just watch them perform their enchantments on TBN and online over the Internet.
How many Christians today watch the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) with its string of false prophets and false prophecies, with its late founder once saying publically that “doctrine is excrement.” What a contrast to what the Apostle Paul tells Timothy when he says to that young pastor to “watch his life and doctrine carefully” and wrote to Titus “to teach what is in accordance with sound doctrine.” What do these so-called ‘peddlers for profit’ on television and the internet really know about sound doctrine? While they deceive and enchant gullible Christians, and suck them in and take their hard earned money the world laughs at them knowing it is in reality a “con job” and they are right!
When you look at the laughing revival also called the Toronto Revival which burst upon the church scene some years ago now it was a form of Kundalini Yoga. If you watch the video tapes of the meetings you will see people falling over, rolling along the floor and laughing uncontrollably. You see even Pastors sliding down the seats in a semi-mesmerised hypnotic state while others stagger around as if intoxicated.
You see the opposite of a Spirit of love, power and self-control (sound mind). In fact people including the leaders were out of control. Then the two leading false teachers promoting this ‘laughing thing’ began speaking to each other out loud in tongues while laughing and clowning around on stage while they received applause from the audience! What do you think the Lord Jesus thinks about this? It is an insult to His intelligence!
The apostate Super Church of the last days will be a so called supernatural Church filled with all kinds of lying pseudo signs, miracles and wonders. Those into this kind of thing will be deceiving others while deceiving themselves! Jude and Peter in their letters in the New Testament had much to say about these kinds of leaders prominent in the Church in the Last Days. What is there to laugh about when you see our faithful brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus all over the world being crucified, beheaded and imprisoned for their faith in Him?
Notice also in our text that those who perish do so because of this “wickedness of deception” they embrace. What is this wickedness? What is it centred in? Well we are told; “They did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved”
Today people perish because they refuse to love and obey the truth or receive the love of the truth of God’s Word and his ways and so be saved. The Lord Jesus said men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil and that they will not come to the light because their evil deeds will be exposed (John 3:19-20).
But this is equally true of multitudes of professing Christians in the Church today. They would rather chase after signs, miracles, wonders, dreams, visions, emotional experiences, false words and false prophets rather than hear the solid preaching of God’s Word. Preachers who “cherry pick” the scriptures are false teachers and prophets, and in doing so are in God’s sight “practitioners of the wickedness of deception.” Often it is not so much what they are teaching but what they are not teaching.
In his departure from Ephesus the apostle Paul said that he had not held anything back that they needed to hear to help them and that he was innocent of the blood of all men because he had not hesitated to proclaim the whole will (counsel) of God. He also warned them that after he had left them that other false teachers would come in and that even from among their own assembly members they would spring up. Those who refuse to love the truth and be saved will themselves receive a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. Let’s read on…
(Vs.11-12) “For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”
If God sends a deluding influence upon those who do not receive the love of the truth God Himself will enable them to actually believe what is false in order that they might be judged. He does this because in their greed for prosperity, money, fame, fortune, popularity, adulation and self-aggrandizement and first and foremost because they did not believe or practice or preach the truth consequently God calls this “taking pleasure in wickedness.”
We see this deluding influence by the LORD in giving permission to a wicked demonic spirit to become a lying spirit in the mouths of Jezebels false prophets to deceive Ahab who had constantly rejected the Word of God under the influence of his wife Jezebel. She was a witch and deeply entrenched in the occult.
At the end of his life Ahab was mortally wounded in battle after following the advice of the false prophets he had gathered around himself (1 Kings 22:19-22), and as he lay dying in his chariot being mortally he died in the evening. We are also told that the sun was setting (1 Kings 22:35-36). When this phrase is mentioned it reveals that Ahab died an unsaved man. The sun was setting on his wicked life and then afterwards on his wicked wife! In the Bible when we see sunset it can also metaphorically represent death and when we sunrise it can also metaphorically represent resurrection.
Epilogue
If, according to the pre-tribulation rapture proponents the faithful Body of Messiah was to be taken out of the world seven years before the end of the age then why did Paul tell the believers at Thessalonica about the final apostasy, the revealing of the man of sin, and the infestation of all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders if the Body of Messiah was no longer on earth?
If the Church was removed before the Antichrist was revealed then to whom is Paul speaking to? Undoubtedly Paul expected the man of sin to be revealed to the faithful Body of Messiah. The plain meaning of the text is clear. We will not be caught up to meet the Lord in the air until we know who the Antichrist is.
Already we see the beginning of the ultimate apostasy and the false signs, miracles and wonders and only after the Antichrist has been revealed will we be taken out of this world to meet the Lord Jesus in the air at His Second Coming. The rapture and resurrection is our hope as Christians, and if we seek with the help of the Holy Spirit, to love and obey God’s Word in our lives and in doing so receive the love of the truth, then the Lord Jesus will rescue us from the coming wrath.
We are not destined for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus; The Messiah. We will never experience the wrath of God if by the power and help of the blessed Holy Spirit we remain faithful to our Triune God and to His Word (1 Thessalonians 1:10 5:9).
If we are attached to this world and to the things of this world then we will not be ready to meet the Lord Jesus when He comes back. Remember Lot’s wife! She looked back because her heart was in this world and she perished in the fire. She valued the pleasures of society, the approval of the world, relished the fashions of the boutique shops in Sodom and undoubtedly curried the favour and company of the famous and the rich, and it was her love for these pleasures more than her love for God that saw her turned into a pillar of salt just as she was escaping out of Sodom.
At the end of this age it will be a miracle if any of us make it out of here because of the increase of wickedness. Lot was feeling the effects of wickedness as it continuously and without letup assaulted his soul and spirit and in the end he had to be dragged out even though he was a righteous man living by faith.
As we also read; “If He (God) rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)-if this is so, then the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment” (2 Peter 2:7-9). As the apostle Peter writes; “And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?” (1 Peter 4:18)
If we do not continuously through the strength of the Holy Spirit seek to maintain a love of the truth and to embrace it by faith, then we will ultimately believe the lies of the Antichrist. If we say we love the Messiah our Lord Jesus but do not love His Word then we do not love Jesus. God Himself will send us a delusion and in the end we will no longer be able to love and obey the truth even when we hear it!
