Alright, let's go back to 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Now, we've been, as you know,
speaking on the subject of the last days for several weeks now. Included in that study, I wanted
to do an exposition of this chapter out of the second epistle of
Paul to the church at Thessalonica, Thessalonians. The believers
at Thessalonica were going through some hard persecution over the
gospel. Paul had preached there, he didn't
spend much time there because he got run out of town pretty
quickly. by the unbelievers, the unbelieving Jews, actually.
And he knew these people were going through some very tough
times of trial over the message of Christ, the message of God's
grace. The apostle told Timothy in his
second epistle to Timothy in chapter 3 and verse 12, he made
this statement. He said, "'Yea, and all that
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. The Lord told His disciples in
John chapter 15 and verse 18, He said, marvel not, don't be
amazed if the world hates you. It hated me before it hated you.
He went on to say that they will cast you out of their synagogues,
their religious services, over the preaching of God's grace,
salvation by grace, totally completely, exclusively by the grace of God
in Christ, which gives man no credit, which gives man nothing
in which to boast and brag. Christ and Him crucified and
risen again alone. That's the message of grace.
Salvation, forgiveness of sins totally by the blood of Christ. Not by your tears, not by your
confession, not by crawling on your hands and knees down the
aisle, but totally by the blood of Christ alone. Nothing added,
nothing taken away. Justification before God. Now
hear this well. That means being declared justified,
righteous before God, made right before God, a right standing
before God. based totally upon the righteousness
of another, not yours, not mine, not one we worked out or contributed
to, but totally the merits of Christ's obedience unto death.
His righteousness imputed, charged to me, given to me, laid to my
account. That gives man no room in which
to boast of his works, his accomplishments, or his efforts. And men by nature
hate that message of grace. You've got to throw some works
in there somewhere in order to attain or maintain salvation.
It's not good enough if the works are just the fruit or the evidence
or the result of God's grace. And that's what brings on the
hatred of this world. Because you see, when men by
nature rest in other things and that's exposed as being evil
and wicked in the sight of God, that's not a pleasant message
to receive. It takes the spirit of God not to be offended at
that. You remember when the disciples talked about the Pharisees. They
said, Lord, you offended them. Here they are trusting in their
connection with Abraham, their circumcision, their works under
the law, and you told them that's no good. You told them that's
evil. That's a false refuge. That will put a sinner in eternal
damnation. You've offended them. And the
Lord said, well, blessed are those who are not offended at
that, who know they're sinners, who know they have nothing to
recommend them unto God, who know that if they're saved and
secure and made right with God, it's totally, completely, exclusively
by grace. And that's what these people
here were being persecuted for, this message of grace. Yea, all
that will live godly. What is it to live godly? It's
to rest in Christ and follow Him. It's to preach and witness
His message of grace. Someone said maybe, you know,
I often thank the Lord and I'm not going to stop this and I
hope you don't either. I thank God that we live in a
day and in a country where we have the freedom to worship without
being persecuted by the civil government. because that's not
always been so in the history of the church, the true church.
But sometimes, and one commentator said this, that we need to think
about this, that maybe the reason there's not much persecution
today is because there's not really much real godliness. Do we stand firm, stand fast
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free as I read in
the opening of the passage in Galatians 5? But now when believers
go through hard trials, when they go through hard persecution,
and you remember this now, the Lord said in the Sermon on the
Mount, blessed are you when men persecute you for righteousness
sake. For that reason. It's totally
understandable that when believers go through hard trials and persecutions
that they desire the second coming of Christ. Go through some hard
trials. hard persecution. Picture yourself
like the Apostle Paul in jail or being whipped for preaching
the gospel. You're down there in that jail
cell. You could see yourself, couldn't
you, just looking up and saying, Lord, come back now. And so this
is the case with the Thessalonians. And in chapter 1 of 2 Thessalonians,
and I'm not going to go through it, but what Paul does in chapter
1 is he basically, he assures them, reassures them that Christ
is coming again. We don't know when, the exact
day and time, we've seen that in our study of Mark 13 and part
of Matthew 24, the parallel chapter there. We don't know exactly
when He's coming, but He is coming. But here's the problem in 2 Thessalonians. Look at verse 1 of chapter 2.
He says, Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
that you be not soon shaken in mind, that is, distressed or
stirred up or worrisome in your mind, or be troubled neither
by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us, as that the
day of Christ is at hand. He says in verse 3, let no man
deceive you by any means for that day, that day of Christ's
return shall not come except there come a falling away first
and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition. Now I've
entitled this message this morning by these two terms, apostasy
and antichrist. and Antichrist. And I want to
do an exposition of 2 Thessalonians 2, but I'm going to do it in
two or three messages. And I want you to think about this. Now,
what Paul was actually telling them here, he says, he's recognizing
and exposing the fact that false preachers, false apostles, false
teachers had somehow crept into this church at Thessalonica And
these false apostles, these false preachers, were telling these
people one of two things. Now, this term, when he says,
the day of Christ is at hand, he says, now let no man deceive
you on that issue. Somebody says, the day of Christ
is at hand. Now, what were they actually
saying? We say the day of Christ is at hand in the language that
we understand, but what were these fellows actually saying?
It's one of two things. And it could be translated in either
way. They were either telling these
people that Christ had already come. He's already come. Well, He has the first time.
He came the first time. He came the first time to redeem
us from our sins, to redeem His sheep, to redeem His church,
to redeem God's elect. He came that first time. But
they're talking about His second coming. They're saying, well,
that's already come. Or they were saying this. They were saying,
He's coming in our lifetime. And that seems to be the gist
of what they were saying. The reason is, is because Paul
has a lot to say to the Thessalonians about work. You say, well, what's
the connection? Well, what happened was, these
people were being told that Christ was coming soon, in their day,
before they die. And many of them were quitting
their jobs and going out and living in a cave or someplace
like that and saying, well, we're going to wait for his return.
We're not going to work. Well, he didn't come. And you know
what happened? They got hungry. What did they
do? They went to their brethren and
said, feed us. And Paul said, oh, no. If you
don't work, you don't eat. You go to work. You do what your
responsibility is every day until he comes. You don't have, listen,
we wait for the hope of righteousness, Paul wrote there in Galatians
5, by faith. We believe God. That means we
obey the word of God. That's what he's talking about.
So we don't have any warrant to go out here and quit our daily
responsibilities because we think he's going to come tomorrow.
Somebody asked one time, a fellow one time, he said, if you knew
Christ was coming back on Tuesday, what would you do? He said, I'd
go to work on Monday. You would? Yes. Why? Because the Word of God tells
me to. And when He comes, I'll be gathered with Him. All who
are looking to Him for all of salvation. All who are resting
in Him for all righteousness and all life and all forgiveness
and all glory will be gathered unto Him. So these fellows were
saying Christ is coming back in our day. And so Paul writes
this to set the Thessalonians straight. And here's number one.
Here's his purpose now. I'm probably going to get through
about the first three or four verses today. But I want you
to study this with me. And I think it's so important
that we have a right approach to this. Let's approach it prayerfully.
Let's approach it diligently. Let's see what the Lord has for
us here. What message does he want us
to know? Well, here's Paul's purpose in
writing to them. Let's read it again, verse 1.
He says, Now we beseech you. That's a plea. It's almost like
Paul's saying, I'm begging you. Don't get tied up with these
fellas who are talking to you about Christ coming at this day
or that day. Don't do that. I beg you. Brethren, he's talking to believers
here. those who have the same Father,
the God who justifies the ungodly through the blood and righteousness
of Christ, the God of all grace, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, those who are saved by the grace of God in Christ, who
is our elder brother. And he says, I beseech you, by
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, in lieu of the fact that
we know He is coming. It's a fact. There's no argument
there. Anybody who tells you that He's
already come and He's not coming again, don't argue with them
there. Just get away from them. It's not so. He's coming again. In fact, the reason that we know
that He's coming again is because He came the first time. You know
that? His, listen, His first coming
is the basis and ground and insurance of His Second Coming. Let me
read you a passage of Scripture. This is Hebrews chapter 9 and
verse 28. Hebrews 9 and verse 28. Let me
just read it to you. It talks about how Christ was
once offered to bear the sins of many. Now, how was he offered
to bear the sins of men? That's speaking of the ground
of salvation. That's talking about the sinner's
salvation. That's speaking of the redemption
of his people. That's speaking of his substitutionary
work. He was offered like a sacrifice,
a sin bearer. He was made sin, the scripture
says in 2 Corinthians 5.21. All the sins of God's elect,
Christ's sheep, the church, were made to meet upon Christ. He became responsible for the
demerit and the penalty of all the sins of all His people. He
was once offered to bear the sins of many. How many? I don't
know. That's not my business. That's
not what God revealed. He just says to bear the sins
of many. Who are they? They're his sheep.
He said, I laid down my life for the sheep. Now who are his
sheep? He said, my sheep hear my voice. Now, what voice do
they hear? Well, look down at 2 Thessalonians
2 and verse 13. I'll get to this later on, but
let's just read this. He says, but we're bound to give
thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the Spirit. Now, what he means by that is
the Holy Spirit sets you apart. That's what that means. Sanctify
means to set apart. It's what they would do when,
for example, the vessels in the tabernacle were sanctified. They
were set apart and they were to be used for one purpose only. That's what that means. There
wasn't any holiness infused into that vessel. just like that golden
candlestick that was in the holy place. That golden candlestick
was never to be used just as to provide light for somebody
who needed light in their tent. It was to be used for that one
purpose, and that is in the holy place, to picture and symbolize
Christ, the light of the world. And it was never to be used in
any... And whenever foreign governments
like the Babylonian Empire, when they destroyed the temple and
they carried the vessels off, and they used those vessels in
unholy ways, in ways that they were not intended, they defiled
those vessels. What they were showing is their
contempt for the true and living God. So that's what that means.
Now, when a sinner is sanctified by the Spirit, that sinner is
set apart by God, the Holy Spirit, for a particular thing. What
is that? We'll look at verse 13 again.
Through sanctification of the Spirit, now listen to this, and
belief of the truth. To believe the truth. What is
it? That's faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works. That's the new birth. That's
what he's describing here. This sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth is the new birth. That's when you were
sanctified by the spirit, when you were born again by the spirit.
And how did he do it? What means did he use? Verse
14, whereunto he called you by our gospel, the good news of
salvation in Christ. The good news, that gospel which
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, for
therein, in that gospel, is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith, as it is written, the justified shall
live by faith. What is that righteousness of God? That's the entire merit
of the whole work of Christ in His obedience unto death to redeem
us from our sins. That's His righteousness charged
to us. And he says, to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. When did you obtain the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ? When you saw the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 talks
about our gospel being hid in them that believe not, in whom
the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe
not. Well, what happens when the Holy Spirit comes in on the
scene and takes over in His sovereign work in the new birth? He opens
our understandings. He gives us eyes to see and ears
to hear and hearts and minds to know and love and receive
Christ in the truth. And we see the glory of God in
Jesus Christ. And that's what that is. Now,
His first coming is the foundation for His second coming. So Christ
was once offered, Hebrews 9, 28, was once offered to bear
the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear
the second time without sin unto salvation. Now you see what that's
saying is this, in His first coming He bore our sins and died
on the cross and was buried and rose again the third day. In
His first coming, He established righteousness whereby God could
be just and justify the ungodly so that we could live in Him
and with Him forever. In His second coming, He's not
coming to bear our sins. He already did that. He put our
sins away. He drank damnation dry. As the
book of Daniel chapter 9 and verse 24 talked about. We read
this several weeks ago in study Mark 13. It talks about how he
finished the transgression, made an end of sin, brought in everlasting
righteousness, sealed up the vision and the prophecy, and
was anointed as the Most High. See, all that's accomplished.
That's a finished work. We talk about the finished work
of Christ. You know, there's a lot of people
today talk about the finished work of Christ, but when they
preach, they don't preach about anything that's finished until
you finish it. You don't finish the work of
Christ. You don't make the work of Christ effectual or complete.
That's already done. He did that on Calvary. And so
that's what He did the first time. He bore our sins. He finished
that. And when He comes the second time, He's going to come without
sin. He's going to come as the Lord
of glory. He's going to come as the sovereign conqueror. And
what's he going to do? Well, back in 2 Thessalonians
2, he's going to gather us together unto himself. He's going to gather
his people unto himself. And he's going to judge this
world in righteousness. Gathering together, this great
gathering. Oh, I want to be gathered together
with Him in that day. Well, let me tell you something.
The only way you can know that you'll be gathered together with
Him in that day is to be gathered together with Him right now under
the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. You see, there's not going to
be divisions here. Not going to be as one preacher
said, one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's
nest. No, it's going to be a gathering together under Him, under Christ. We're
to be gathered together under Christ right now if we're His
children, if we're sanctified by the Spirit and belief of the
truth. Look at verse 2. He says that,
"...you be not soon shaken in minor trouble." These people
were upset over what these preachers were saying. They didn't know
any better. They didn't have the Scriptures
as we have them today. They may have had a few morsels
of Scripture, and the Apostle Paul had not been able to stay
with them a long time, so they were troubled. Why would anybody
say that? Why would anybody who claims
to preach Christ say that? There's three ways they tried
to teach these people. Number one, by spirit. By spirit,
he says. Now, what that means is this.
These preachers who were telling this lie were claiming to do
it by divine revelation. This is something God has revealed
to me. and revealed it to you. But He's
revealed it to me and I'm the conduit through which He'll reveal
it to you. That's what you're saying here.
And see, that's what you have to be careful. That's what it
means to do it by spirit. I have a revelation. And I want
to tell you something now. You know, now, we do have a revelation. But that revelation is founded
in His revealed Word. And there's no place in this
Word from Genesis to Revelation where it tells us He's already
come the second time. That's not in this Word. But
some guy comes along and says, well, I've seen... You know,
now, I know as I study Scripture, and as you study Scripture, you
may see things that you didn't see before. But be careful there
now. I've heard preachers say, well,
I saw something I didn't see before, and then they go off
on a tangent, and as one old guy said, they go into noise
new ground, whatever that is, wherever it is. and they never
come back. Yeah, we'll see things we've
never seen before, but be careful. Nothing that I will ever see
or learn from this scripture will ever confuse, deny, or rival
the gospel of God's grace in Christ. If it does, I'm going
to throw it out. I didn't see it right if it does.
So they do it by spirit, and he says, nor by word, that is
preaching. That's what he's talking about
there, by sermons. They must have preached sermons on this.
I don't know what they said specifically in their sermons, but by word.
This is what I'm telling you. And then he says, nor by letter
as from us. They did it by forgery. They
brought letters that they said Paul had written or Peter had
written that proves what they were saying. They forged letters
or had forged letters as by letter as from us that the day of Christ
is at hand. Well, as I said, we know Christ
is coming. We don't know when, as far as
the day and the time. We can know that His coming is
close. We studied that in Mark 13. We'll study it here. But
here's the thing about it. We are to live our lives in expectation
and anticipation of His return. He may come any time now. I don't
know. i'm a it may not be in my lifetime may not be in your
lifetime but he's coming i believe so and i'm and i know his coming
is closer than what it was because we're headed toward that But here's the second thing,
and this, like I said, I'm not going to get all the way down
into this now, and a lot of things I'm going to say you may be curious
about, and I'm going to come back now. Don't think I'm going
to leave you hanging on this thing. I told you this message
is entitled Apostasy and Antichrist, and when you use that term Antichrist,
everybody perks up, you know, and you know what you're talking
about. All right. Now, my suggestion to you is
to go to the Word of God. All right? Go to the Word of
God. Let's see what the Word of God
says. But here's the second thing. Here's Paul's reminder for correction. And listen to what he says for
this. He says in verse 3, "...let no
man deceive you by any means." Don't let them deceive you by
spirit, claiming to have divine revelation. Don't let them deceive
you by word. They may be eloquent. They may
be powerful preachers. They may be able to sway a lot
of people, but don't let them deceive you that way. and don't
let them deceive you by letter. As from us, forge letters. Paul
said, if they've got a letter from me that says, Paul, you
rest assured I didn't write that letter. All right? So let no
man deceive you by any means, no matter who they are, what
they are, what their reputation is, how eloquent they are, how
charismatic they are, how much of a pulpit presence
they have, don't let them deceive you by those means. For that
day shall not come, that day of his return shall not come
except or until, okay, until, there's going to be some things
that happen here before he comes. And here's the first thing he
says, there come a falling away first. Now that word falling
away, All right, that's apostasy. And what he's saying here is
first that before the Lord's return, there will be, now listen
to this, there will be a wholesale, universal, falling away, apostasy,
departure from the faith within the visible church. Now what
do I mean by the visible church? I mean that which is known as
the church here on earth, what we see in religious groups that
call themselves church, or churches of Christ, or Christian churches.
What somebody in history called Christendom. And so what he's
talking about here is that, and this apostasy, this falling away
now, it's a conscious, it's a deliberate abandonment of something that
men formally professed in their position, in their allegiance,
or their commitment to Christ and His truth. What's he talking
about here? He's talking about false Christianity. He's talking about false professors.
He's talking about the church leaving its profession. It's
a falling away from true Christianity to false Christianity. In other
words, what he's saying here is what's going to be commonly
known as Christian will be Christian in name only, but in reality,
it's against Christ. That's where we get the term
anti-Christ. And this is what he says, look
at verse 3, that falling away first and that man of sin be
revealed. Some translators translate that
a man of lawlessness. Doesn't matter, it's the same
thing. He said the son of perdition. Antichrist. Antichrist. Now, you may remember that when
we were talking about this in Mark chapter 13, when we studied
that, I hope you remember it anyway. That when the disciples
on Mount Olivet were asking Christ these questions about different
things, you remember the first thing that happened is that when
he come upon the Mount of Olives, that one of the disciples looked
out over the temple in Jerusalem. That was the Temple of Herod.
That was a sort of an elaborate restructuring of the second temple,
the Temple of Zerubbabel or Nehemiah. Herod was rebuilding it. It wasn't
finished yet. And, in fact, it wasn't finished
when it was destroyed in A.D. 70, but it was impressive. And
one of the disciples said, look how beautiful. Remember that? Look how impressive this is.
And remember what the Lord told him? He said, every stone in
this impressive religious structure will be torn down, leveled. And then you remember what he
said next? He said, and there will come many who will deceive,
claiming here's Christ, there's Christ, I'm Christ. And he said
this is the beginning of sorrows. In other words, this marks the
beginning of the last days. The last days being that time
period between His first coming and His second. Well, here's
the beginning of it. The temple, Jerusalem is going to be destroyed.
That was a God's physical sign that the Old Covenant is totally,
completely finished and over. It's abolished by way of fulfillment,
never to be brought back again. That yoke of bondage that Paul
spoke of in Galatians 5, don't bring that up again, that's destroyed.
It's finished, Christ said in John 19. It was finished on the
cross when he gave up the ghost and the veil was rent in two
from top to bottom. What was that signifying? That
man cannot be saved by his works. Man cannot be justified before
God by a law works righteousness. The only way a sinner can be
justified before God is by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
by the grace of God. You see, this is the issue between
true Christianity and false Christianity. It's really the issue between
true Christianity and all other religions. How can God justify
a sinner? How can a sinner be made righteous
before God? That's the issue. And there's only one way, by
God's grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5.21, As sin hath
reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. No other way. And that whole covenant that
God gave to Israel for 1,500 years was a testimony to the
failure of the best of men on earth to be saved by their works. And when Christ came and accomplished
redemption for His people in the establishment of righteousness
through His obedience unto death, that temple eventually was destroyed. It wasn't destroyed right that
day, but it was destroyed right after. and Jerusalem was destroyed. And that's the beginning of the
last days, Christ said. The second thing he said is the
deception of false Christianity. That's what Paul's talking about
here. That great falling away. That deception of false Christianity. There's going to be a falling
away. People will call themselves Christian, but they've fallen
away from the truth. Now, most individuals who do
that have never even known the truth, but he's talking generically
here. He's talking about how the church started in that first
part of the last days to where it's going to end up, you see. Well, everybody's a Christian,
aren't they? Are they? Find out by looking
here. Not by giving your opinion. Not
by taking a census. What does Christianity really
mean? What is the issue of Christianity? I just told you. It's how can
a sinner be saved? How can a sinner be made righteous
with God? And let me tell you something
right now. I'll tell you, you know, people talk about all these
issues in Revelation and Daniel. We're going to look at some of
those things. But I'll tell you what the mark of the beast is.
It's self-righteous works religion. Now you mark it down. That's
what it is. When people call themselves Christian
but they interject their works into the mix as to attaining
or maintaining salvation or making a sinner righteous before God,
that's the mark of the beast. It's not a barcode on your forehead
or arm. It's not a political thing. It's
not an economic thing. It's a religious thing. And there's
that great falling away. This falling away coincides in
accordance with the abomination of desolation that we read about
in Mark 13, 14, taken from Daniel chapter 9. You know, the abomination
of desolation refers historically and specifically to the defiling
of the temple. All right? It started out when
Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army, they defiled the temple
of Solomon, they destroyed it. And then later on there was another
defiling of the temple. But that temple's gone, that
temple's destroyed. What does the Bible tell us is
the temple of God today? The church. You're the temple
of God. And what he's saying here is
that which is commonly known as the temple, the church, will
fall away and it will be defiled and that man of sin... Now look
at this, verse 3. He says, "...that man of sin
be revealed, the son of perdition..." He's called the man of sin. And
the sin that he talks about, the sin that's being talked about
here, I'm convinced, is the sin of false religion. Now let me
show you what I mean by that. Look down at verse 7 of 2 Thessalonians
2. Now I'm going to get to these
details later on. But look at this. He talks about the mystery
of iniquity. Now you know what a mystery is
in the scripture? It's something that we don't know until God
exposes it or reveals it. That's what a mystery. He's talking
about iniquity here that men and women by nature don't recognize.
until God shows it. Well, how does He show us? Look
back at John chapter 3. Now look back with me real quick. Here it is. He's talking about
iniquity that men and women by nature do not know and recognize
until God exposes it and God reveals it. In John chapter 3 and verse 19,
Christ says, This is the condemnation, that light is coming to the world
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. Their deeds there, he's talking
to Nicodemus, a religious Pharisee, their deeds there are their religious
attempts to make themselves righteous, to save themselves. And he says
in verse 20, for everyone that doeth evil hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light, lest his deed should be reproved
or discovered, uncovered, exposed. Here's Saul of Tarsus doing his
dead-level best to work his way to be righteous before God. Doing
his dead-level best to be religious, to be moral, to be diligent in
all the things of religion. And Christ stops him on the road
to Damascus and puts him in the dust and exposes, Paul, Saul,
what you're doing is sinful and wicked and evil. It's self-righteous. It's unbelief. It doesn't glorify
God. That's the mystery of iniquity
right there. It's uncovered. Paul said of Israel in his day,
they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge for they
being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
one of their own have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God. Romans 10 4, for Christ is the end, the fulfillment of
righteousness, fulfillment of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believe it. When this mystery of iniquity
is exposed and revealed to us, what does God the Holy Spirit
show us? He shows us that the only way of righteousness and
salvation and glory in life is Christ and Him crucified and
risen again. Anything else is iniquity. You
look to anything else to save you or to keep you or to recommend
you unto God, it's iniquity. Go back to 2 Thessalonians 2.
That's what he's talking about. So he's talking about religion
that comes in the name of Christianity but does not totally, completely,
exclusively rest in Christ and Him alone for all salvation. Now I'm going to conclude right
there and I'm going to pick up there next week. Let me tell
you something. It's not important that you or
I get caught up with trying to find out who this man of sin
is specifically as far as one individual. In fact, I don't
believe it's one individual. I believe it's a succession of
individuals. I think it's a spirit, and I'll show you that next week.
But here's what's important. It's important that we know that
our only hope of salvation of life and righteousness and forgiveness
and glory right now and forever is Christ and Him alone. Crucified. Risen again. That I have no other
hope but Him. Because if I have no other hope
but Christ, if I'm truly resting in Him alone, then I won't be
deceived by this mystery of iniquity. I won't be deceived by this man
of sin, whoever or whatever he is. You understand what I'm saying?
As long as I've got my eyes set on Christ and Him alone for all
of salvation, then I can comfort, I can take comfort and assurance
and peace in my heart from the Word of God. And that's important.
So you come to Christ, you run to Him. If you haven't before,
you do it today. Run to Christ and rest in Him,
hoping and believing in Him.