Don’t Be Confused

2 Thess 2:1 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. 5Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 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. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. 

Down through the ages, there has been much confusion on the subject of the coming of the “lawless one,” the “son of perdition,” the “man of sin.”

Paul, for one, is constantly dealing with this confusion, because confusion on this simple subject always seems to abound. Paul is reminding those at the church at Thessalonica what he had spent so much time teaching them about when he had been with them. The Rapture of the Church is imminent, but it has not happened yet. Paul says, “Remember the things I taught you about this subject?”

It certainly appears the church at Thessalonica has been troubled by those who have come along after Paul, teaching them the Rapture has already taken place – and they have missed out. Alternately, perhaps they have been told, “There is no such thing as the Rapture of the Church.”

Essentially, they have been told whatever it takes to confuse the issue – prompting this note of clarification from Paul.

Bluntly put, Paul says you can know the Rapture has not yet taken place, because the anti-Christ has not yet been revealed. He WILL be revealed after the Rapture of the Church.

The Holy Spirit, present within the Church, is restraining the spirit of anti-Christ until the Church is removed – and then the spirit of anti-Christ will be revealed. This is easily pictured since we can imagine how evil a place the earth would be if the Church were not present. We are talking about unrestrained evil to a degree we can only begin to imagine – which is yet one more reason to desire to be taken out of here with the Church – when the Church is taken out of here. Paul says to stay ready, because it has not happened. Yet.

-  Pastor Bill