Who watched the coronation last night? Yeah. Many of us. It's a world event, isn't it? Definitely for the English speaking world.
And it is something that I think causes all of us to think about as Christians, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, as Dani prayed this morning. But we are also aware of just so many other world events happening at the same time. We are aware of a war in East Europe. We're aware of a resurgent Islam in the Middle East. Some of us are aware of the Euphrates River drying up.
Others point to a Catholic president in the United States who supports abortion. Others of us point to talks of microchips being implanted in the human brain. And to many Christians, and perhaps even some non-Christians, these are signs pointing to what the Bible calls the end. The question I wanna ask you this morning is, are we there yet? Does the new king preside over a fallen state, a fallen kingdom?
Is Jesus about to come with Russia and the Arab nations joining forces crossing the Euphrates River that has now dried up, that allows these eastern armies to cross? This morning, we're going to be looking at some of the events that lead up to the second coming of Jesus according to the Bible. This is what theologians call eschatology, a study of the end, from the Greek word eschaton, which means end. Now I wanna be upfront this morning. We're going to be looking at Scripture this morning because I believe that there are many people today who have a flawed understanding of the end.
They have a flawed understanding of what the Bible actually teaches when it comes to the details of the end. But perhaps more significantly than the details, the emotions that Christians should have about the end. For many Christians, the time of the end is in their hearts and mind a terrifying and anxiety laden moment. But the Bible shows us and will show us this morning the very opposite. We are going to be told this morning to have comfort, to take encouragement on, to know peace.
For perhaps some of us in this church and many Christians, I think, in the West, there is an obsession and a simmering fear of what is happening in the world with an overriding emotion that the Bible is saying we need to know in order to be saved. Now many Christians will say, no, that's not true. I know that I'm saved by grace, but the anxiety that you have about the end, the obsession to know about how it all unfolds, that points to a works-based salvation, a knowledge-based salvation. And that is not what God wants for you. He wants us to know some things and that is what we're going to look at this morning.
So let's look at 2 Thessalonians 2. We're gonna read the whole chapter beginning from verse 1 and finishing with verse 17. And what we'll see here are some of the big events leading up to the second coming of Jesus Christ, His second and final coming. We're going to hear about the antichrist. We're gonna hear about the state of the world at His coming, and we will hear about what Jesus does at the end.
But I want us to see that all these details given to us is not given to us for us to lose ourselves in speculation. It is to ground us in hope and in optimism. Because what we'll see throughout this passage is that God sovereignly controls every single aspect of the details. None of it is up for grabs. None of it is up for chance.
None of it is contingent even upon our knowledge or our ability to understand it. 2 Thessalonians 2:1. Paul writes, now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things?
And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of His mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan, with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.
Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this He called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
So far our reading, this is the word of the Lord. We've got an entire chapter here to unpack. So let's try to do that. We have a few themes that come up in these verses. Paul begins his message about the end time by assuring the Thessalonians not to be afraid of it.
He writes in verses 1 and 2, now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed. It seems people were stirring up all sorts of nonsense, the same sorts of nonsense we see today. Fearmongering about the end. In fact, Paul talks about spirits being shared to these people. These are prophecies, false prophecies about the end.
And like today, it causes the Christians in the church to be scared. Over against this, Paul wants to reiterate to the Thessalonian church what the main things are to be aware of, and he tells them three basic things about the end. Three things when Jesus comes. Firstly, there will be an unprecedented apostasy. Paul explains in verse 3 that Jesus won't arrive unless a rebellion comes first.
But this is not simply a rebellion, he says, it is the rebellion. It is something unique and unmatched. The Greek word there for rebellion is apostasia, referring to a falling away of those who once professed Christ. This is where we get our English word apostasy from. There will come a time, Paul says, when many who said they belong to the church fall away from the church.
We find the same sort of language in Jesus' teachings of His second coming in Matthew 24:9-11. Jesus said, then they will deliver you, faithful Christians, up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. So there's an overlap here between Jesus and Paul of this time, this apostasy.
It's a time when Satan will use both the frontal attack of direct persecution, of the taking away of certain freedoms, even of life, and then there is a subtle attack of false teaching that erodes the church. And both of these things happen to unsettle the believers in Christ Jesus and to try and steal them out of the kingdom. So on the one hand, we know from the Bible and from the reality that we live in that apostasy and a falling away from the faith is happening today. It has happened in the past. It has happened for two thousand years, a falling away from the faith.
But at the second coming, just before Jesus comes, as the day of the Lord draws near, Paul says, the church, whichever generation of the church that will be, will experience a flood of direct persecution and subtle erosion of false teaching. Once that era of unmatched apostasy arrives, we see secondly that the man of lawlessness will be revealed. Some early manuscripts of the Bible call him the man of sin. But perhaps our better manuscripts, the earlier manuscripts, translate it or have it written simply as the man of lawlessness. This is someone characterised by a disregard for God's moral standards.
They live apart from the law of God. Paul qualifies him with another phrase that he is the son of destruction. That phrase son of is a Hebrew expression that again says that he is characterised by destruction. It's interesting that Jesus uses the exact same phrase, son of destruction, to refer to Judas Iscariot in John 17. In other words, both Judas and this man of lawlessness are individuals who cause destruction, but they are also the objects of destruction.
They will be destroyed. Who is this man of lawlessness? That is the big question. It's a topic of fierce debate amongst end time watchers. I won't enter into any of that speculation today other than to say that every single generation of the church for the past two thousand years have thought that they were the last generation and that some evil tyrant in their generation was this man of lawlessness, this antichrist.
And for two thousand years, we've been wrong. It's important for us to be a little bit cautious about the claims we make ourselves about who this man or this woman might be. Paul doesn't give us many details other than the following. Firstly, the man of lawlessness is a pseudo messiah. He is a fake messiah.
Paul uses the same language of the appearing of the man of lawlessness as he does interestingly for the appearance of Christ. For example, in verses 1 and 8, we read of the coming of Christ. Have a look. Verse 1, now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in verse 8, and the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of His mouth and by the appearance of His coming. Both words there is the Greek word, His arrival, His coming.
But then in verse 9, when we read about the coming of the lawless man, it is exactly the same word, parousia. Incidentally, we read in chapter 1:7 that Jesus will be revealed. The Greek word apokalupti, where we get the word apocalypse from, the revelation of Jesus Christ. But here in verses 3, 6, and 8, the lawless one is also apocalyptode, revealed. In chapter 1, Jesus is revealed in a display of power and glory.
Verse 7. Here in 2:9, the lawless one will come with all power and false signs and wonders. In other words, this person is a parody of Jesus Christ. This man is the antichrist. And importantly for us to take note of, it's a parody specifically of the second coming of Jesus.
In fact, the threatening thing is not that he will be an evil person who rebels against God's morality. The concerning thing is that he will be mistaken as Jesus Christ Himself. So firstly, he is a pseudo messiah. Secondly, we are told that he will be personally empowered by Satan. With what end?
To promote a false religion, to promote widespread deception, lawlessness, and rebellion against the Lord Jesus. Paul says in verse 4, he opposes and exalts himself against every so called god or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God proclaiming himself to be God. But this opens another curly interpretive question. What does Paul mean by the temple of God? Again, there are some speculators who believe that it must refer to the physical temple in Jerusalem.
The man goes to Jerusalem. He sets himself up in the middle of the temple and declares himself to be God. The problem is no temple exists. It was destroyed in 70 AD. And not only does it not exist, there is a giant mosque built on top of it, the Dome of the Rock.
Muslims built that a thousand years ago when they conquered Jerusalem. So what is the temple that is being talked about here where he sets himself up as God? Greg Beale, in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians, points out this same phrase, the temple of God, is found another nine times in the New Testament outside of 2 Thessalonians. And each time, it always refers to either the church of God or the church of Christ. The temple of God is the body of Christ, the church.
Not once in Paul does it refer to any literal temple in Israel in the past or in the future. Paul, when he says temple of God, talks about the church. That is significant. Notable scholars like John Stott, F.F. Bruce, George Ladd believe Paul is talking metaphorically here. So that this man of lawlessness sets himself up to rule over the church, to have gained so much following in the church that he's sort of this leader of the worldwide church.
Now, of course, God can obviously destroy a thousand year old mosque in Jerusalem, and He can allow the Jews to rebuild a temple there. But a final problem exists. The Jewish temple doesn't mean anything to Christians. Why do we care? This man of lawlessness apostates the church.
He steals people away from the true faith. So why would he try to pretend to be a god that Christians don't worship? God doesn't live in temples. He lives in the body of Christ through the Holy Spirit. So there's, I think, all sorts of problems with that literal view.
The third insight we have about this enemy of Christ, this lawless one, is that he will want to take over the church and rule over the temple of God, the body of Christ, as a false messiah with an agenda. Verses 10-12 tell us that by his satanic rule, this man of lawlessness will come with all wicked deception, verse 10, with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, verse 11, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false. Literally there, they will believe the lie. Because they have rejected the gospel, Paul says, on account of taking pleasure in wickedness, false believers and unbelievers will believe the lie that the man of lawlessness has told them that he is the Messiah, that he is God himself.
These will be individuals who perhaps have pretended to have been Christians in the church, but they never understood the gospel, the truth that Paul is talking of here. If you read those words here, when Paul talks about truth, it's not truth about the end. They don't fall away because they don't understand the end. The truth here is the saving grace of God encapsulated in the gospel message. They haven't believed the truth of Jesus, what Jesus has done on our behalf.
That's why they believe the lie. But notice again, the overriding point that Paul is making. God is in control of all of these things. God is the one who sends this deluding power to delude and deceive people. Did you notice that?
Therefore, it says, God sends a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false. God, at this point, has run out of patience. Because man has hated righteousness for so long and has loved wickedness, this man of lawlessness becomes their champion, their false god, and he finally locks mankind into eternal judgement. So when does this man of lawlessness arrive? Well, verses 6 and 7 tell us, not until the thing restraining him is removed, which is another great ambiguous phrase.
This is our third and our final detail of the end. The restrainer will be removed. Paul writes verse 6, and you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. Paul seemingly has had a personal opportunity to talk to the Thessalonians about this restrainer, but what he said to them is lost to us. He's referring to something that we actually don't know what he said.
He writes in verse 5, do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? Paul assumes, therefore, prior knowledge when he refers back to it. The problem is we don't have that knowledge. This is exacerbated in the language of verses 6 and 7 because on the one hand, Paul refers to the thing that restrains the lawless man now using a neuter participle, which is a verb that describes an impersonal thing. It's a force that restrains the lawless man that contains him right now.
But then in verse seven, Paul uses a masculine participle, which is often a reference to a person, an actual human being. So on the one hand, it's a force that can contain him. On the other hand, it's a person that is restraining this lawless man. And so you can expect so many interpretations have come from that. Across the history of the church, people have suggested that the restrainer is the human government that restrains lawlessness.
Can make sense. Secondly, it is the binding that contains Satan, where in revelation, Satan is set loose for a time. This is whatever binding that contains Satan. Thirdly, the restrainer is the providence of God. God is holding on to that until he releases it.
Fourthly, some have said it is the Jewish state. Fifth is the worldwide church. The church itself is restraining the lawless one. Sixth is the Holy Spirit. And then even seven, it's Michael the archangel.
Kim Riddlebarger, who's a theology professor at Westminster Seminary in the US, he writes almost exclusively on eschatology and end time stuff from a reformed perspective. He takes the position that the restrainer is not so much a person, it is the power of the gospel itself. And if I have to place my hat anywhere, I'd probably say that's where it is because I think the passage explains that. He argues that given what is said here about people giving up the truth for a lie and seeing how this antichrist attempts to rule over God's church, how could that be possible if the gospel of truth still existed, if the gospel of truth is still in place? Riddlebarger argues that the gospel itself has always restrained sin.
The gospel has always advanced the kingdom in the midst of the prince of this world, Satan himself. The word of God, in other words, the message of Jesus has been proclaimed by the church all the way along human history, but now in the final lead up to the second coming when all seems lost because even the gospel has been silenced. All of a sudden, this person is set up as God himself. The antichrist rises to declare a new gospel, a false gospel, and many people begin to believe it. His interpretation makes a lot of sense because the true gospel has been lost.
But again, whatever you decide the restrainer is, I want you to notice the language that is being used here again, the context in which it is placed. The restrainer himself or itself is said to be removed. Who removes it? God does. The verb to be taken away in verse 7 is an aorist middle subjunctive, which suggests that an external actor has acted upon that restraint.
The restraint is removed by God Himself. The restrainer doesn't have a power in itself to remove themselves. God sovereignly determines that whatever restraint this is on the man of lawlessness, that it has to be removed so that this man of lawlessness will be revealed apocalyptoid so that the end may come. One final thought just to share is this man is revealed in the same way that Jesus was revealed. Who knew that Jesus was the Messiah when Jesus was around?
No one. He had to be revealed. Everyone's eyes were blind until Jesus the Holy Spirit said, okay. Now you understand. Again, I think that's cause for warning for how much time we spend trying to figure this thing out.
He will be revealed apokaluptode like Jesus was revealed. So with all these amazing details of the end in 2 Thessalonians 2, what's the point of the passage? Why has God given this to the church? Well, here's the main point. Don't be anxious.
God is in complete control. In God's sovereign timing, we are told that Jesus is returning and that He will easily conquer this antichrist, this man of lawlessness, and He will usher in the kingdom of peace by removing all who oppose Him. That's the main purpose of this chapter. Paul begins the chapter in verse 1 by saying he doesn't want anyone in the church to have anxiety. He begins in verse 1 saying, do not be shaken in your mind or alarmed.
Now as a Christian, the singular thing we have to understand is not who the man of lawlessness is. Otherwise, God would have told us. But He hasn't. He's given us something, but He's left out the details. You don't have to know who the restrainer is.
Otherwise, God would have told you. Nothing about your salvation, your hope, your eternal future is tied up in knowing those details. What is very clear, however, what is repeated again and again in this passage is that God is dominant. God is in control of the whole process. In His time, He allows the man of lawlessness to be revealed, to come onto the scene, to deceive those who refuse to love the truth and therefore be saved.
In God's timing, Christ appears and He kills the lawless man, and He judges all who, verse 12 says, did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness. Now, thinking for a moment that Jesus kills this lawless man is almost a shock to the system because Jesus' first arrival was marked with so much peace and grace. He comes as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem. He dies as the suffering servant on the cross. He prays, Father, forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing. Jesus never kills anyone, and yet He comes this time and He kills the antichrist. Book of Revelation paints a picture of Him and it's truly terrifying. Jesus is a conquering beast with fire in His eyes when He comes again. But notice how easily even this powerful satanic pseudo messiah of the antichrist is simply killed by Jesus with a breath.
Jesus just has to breathe a word and the guy is destroyed. This is an Old Testament reference actually to Isaiah 11:4, which says of the Messiah that He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips, He will slay the wicked. In a similar way, the apostle John describes Jesus at His second coming in Revelation 19:15. From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. Jesus simply has to say a word, and the strongest forces on earth and in hell are destroyed.
Christ's battle against the Antichrist, therefore, is not a nail biter. It doesn't hang in the balance. We don't wonder who wins. The Lord Jesus wins, and He wins effortlessly. All who have opposed Him will be judged, and they will be slayed forever.
And all who have believed in Him will be delivered to live with Him in glory forever. They share in His glory, and that, friends, is the main point. Paul writes to these Thessalonians because they are anxious like you are. And he tells them there is no need to be. And he doesn't ease their anxiety by giving them all the details to pore over and analyse and mystify and confuse them.
Paul begins with the words, don't be shaken in your mind or be alarmed. And he finishes chapter 2 after all this talk of lawless times and Christ's judgement and so on. How does he finish? With thanksgiving. Have a look.
Verse 13. But we always ought to give thanks to God for you brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved. Through sanctification, which means through being made holy by the Spirit and through your belief in the truth. To this He called you through our gospel so that you may obtain, what, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.
And then he finishes with this blessing. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace. May this God comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. Christian, your comfort even as you sense the evil in the world, whether you believe Jesus is coming soon or not, your comfort is that you are beloved by the Lord. Your future is secure.
You shouldn't worry about what is happening to the world. You shouldn't worry about what is happening just before Jesus returns because it's all locked away. None of your worry, none of your understanding, none of your mystical knowledge changes anything. In fact, I wanna tell you with love, you're probably wrong with all of your interpretations about the end. It's going to be too wonderful for you to understand.
So what is it that we need to know? We need to know that we are the ones that are being saved through being made holy by the Holy Spirit. You are saved by your belief in the truth, which is the gospel. You have to understand that you are the ones that obtain the glory of Jesus Christ. You are the ones who Jesus Himself and God our Father will give an eternal comfort and a good hope through the grace that was accomplished for us in the cross.
It is our hope in the gospel that saves us. Remember that this is the gospel that Jesus uttered on those very lips by which He will also utter the destruction of all His enemies. It is the same power that saves us. This is the hope of our comfort. It is what strengthens up us, Paul says, for every good work while we wait for the blessed hope of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul famously wrote in 1 Corinthians 16, Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus. And so we pray again this morning with peace on our hearts. Lord, come soon. We long for Your kingdom. Come soon.
Let's pray. Lord, our hearts belong to You. Our hope belongs to You. Our thoughts, our souls are with You already now in eternity. While our bodies are here, while our life is here, our hope is secure.
We have received an eternal inheritance. And so Lord, even as the world goes the way it has to go, there is no fear for us left. There is no uncertainty about how we will be saved. Our salvation is already at hand. And so Lord, whether You come tomorrow or whether You take another thousand years, we hope in the thing that You have given us to hope in, which is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, which is a done deal.
It has taken place. That is where our hope is cemented. And we thank You Lord Jesus that that is where we can place our flag. Lord, whatever must take place will take place. And we trust and we know that even then Your church will be protected.
If it is to be us, we pray for Your grace to be strong under that persecution and temptation. We pray for Your church to even then be a shining light. But we trust, Lord Jesus, that whatever lies ahead in the future in that glorious kingdom, Lord, is going to be so much better than any of the evil, any of the darkness that may exist. And so, Lord, we say come soon. Let those things pass by so that we may have eternity with You.
Give us understanding where we need understanding. Give us peace where we need peace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.