2 Thessalonians 2:1-4

2 Thessalonians 2:1-4  Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.  Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for [that day will not come] until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Paul writes this letter to the Thessalonian Christians because he heard they were unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from him, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.  He assures them this kind of message did not come from him.  He also reminds them of his former teaching about the second coming of the Lord.  To reassure them that the Lord has not come already, he states, Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for [that day will not come] until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  It is interesting to note that this rebellious man will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped as God.  This man who will be revealed is, of course, the embodiment of the antichrist spirit which is endemic in mankind--all that is egocentric and anti-God, all that rejects the Son of God and continually cries out, "Crucify him."  Consequently, when this man is finally revealed and he commits the final abomination of setting himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God, there is nothing left for him but God's sure destruction.  People sometimes wonder why a God of love can allow evil in the world.  Evil is the rejection of God.  We all have free will: we all have a choice.  As long as people have the right to choose to go their own way, we will have evil.  God did not make us automatons.  The Bible says, There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.  (Proverbs 16:25)  When we reject God's best, all we have left is our own way, the way that leads to death.    

Mankind since Adam and Eve's fall from the Garden has been in continuous rebellion against God.  We have gone our own way, willfully devising gods in our own image for our own purposes.  We fail to comprehend the Light from heaven, God's own Son: In him [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  (John 1:4-5)  Rather than worship and glorify God, we have made him into a pet to do our biding.  We think He should serve us when we want him to serve us.  He will be faithful to us whether we are faithful to him or not.  He will be waiting at the door for our return when we desire to return.  We think God will SERVE US, NOT WE WILL SERVE HIM.  We create God in our fleshly image, according to our human desires and needs.  Even in the ancient times when the people worshipped images of wood and stone, their gods were to do their bidding.  Oh yes, they would bow down to that manmade god or have to sacrifice something dear, even their children.  But in the final analysis when they had done it all right, they expected their god of wood or stone to bless their crop or to heal their bodies or to give them victory over their enemies.  If they did their part, their personal idol would take care of THEIR NEEDS.  He made life easier.  But as it is today for so many people, the focus was not on serving the god but on getting all they could get.  Human beings seek gods who will do our bidding.  We are to be served, not serve.  We seek the gifts and not the giver  No wonder God said that we must not allow man to eat of the tree of life.  If he eats of the tree of life, he will live forever, and then this awful cancer of self-worship would spread throughout the universe.  If men and women lived an eternal existence as self-oriented, self-serving individuals, they would corrupt heaven itself.  Man's lawlessness, his lack of obedience to the only true God, would open up heaven and existence to continued lawlessness and upheaval.  Man's self-will brings disharmony into the harmonious and peaceful existence of God who is in control of all things.

Someday this antichrist or anti-God spirit will culminate in A MAN placing himself in the temple of God, demanding that all people serve him.  He will not be a just leader, bringing peace and prosperity.  His spirit of disunity and self-interest will bring great corruption, leading to widespread upheavals and unrest.  His spirit causes wars and rumor of wars, divorces, arguments and fights between neighbors, violence in once peaceful communities, and stirs up all kinds of evil as it spreads across the world.  The anti-God spirit is a disquieting spirit, a spirit of constant commotion and disruption.  When we consider the orderliness of God's universe, the many natural and physical laws that make existence as it is, we can understand fully what disharmony and disorder brings into human existence.  The antichrist spirit brings a destructive cancer to God's creation.  This disharmonious rebellious spirit, birthed in the Garden of Eden by disobedience, is part of fallen man's DNA.  The desire to be worshipped and to take control that will motivate the man who takes over when the Antichrist is reveal is part of every person's personal existence outside of Christ.  When we serve our unregenerate old nature, we want others to serve our personal god: to see the world as we see it; to bow down to our decisions, our ways, and our perspective.  If they don't see it our way, we are upset, angry, bitter.  We want to be served, but they have their own self-serving god; therefore, they want the same selfish attention to their needs that we want.  This spirit is a spirit of darkness, dissension, and division that leads to unrest, discord, and eventually hatred and violence.  

Even in the Christian church, this bold spirit of self enters the temple of God when Christians decide they deserve the best, and they should have first place because they are the King's kids; they have paid their spiritual dues, and God should come across with the blessings from above.  Protestantism has split into thousands of different churches.  Everyone demands his or her own way because each knows he or she is RIGHT.  Bold spirits of self-interest have entered the body of Christ in the past, demanding their perspective of God's will or the Trinity or else they will put the dissenting people to death. This gives the church a very bad name, and unbelievers who study history say, "Why would I want to become a Christian when they have persecuted each other with such horrible results?"  We have to deal with such questions.  Peter wrote: Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  (1 Peter 3:15)  Christ came to bring us light, to cast aside these dangerous spirits of darkness.  The disciples wanted to stop a man from casting out demons in Jesus' name because he was not one of them and Jesus said to leave him alone.  “Master,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”  “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”  (Luke 9:49-50)  In other words, anyone who is doing the will of the Father is one of us.  Today, we have a living faith: we can say, "I was blind but now I see."  Each of us is called to walk in the light, to knock down the idol of self, to say by faith, "I will not worship there anymore!  I will bow to Christ alone."  Bless you dear ones as you worship God and serve your Savior by the power of the Spirit.