“Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day [of the Lord] will not come, unless the apostasy comes first…” (2 Thess. 2:3).
Lawlessness is bred by contempt for God’s laws and God’s ways. It is the end result of God’s people turning away from God to their own devices, their own thinking, their own goals.
Lawlessness breeds deceit, as is what took place at the time Paul wrote the above to the Thessalonian Church.
Deceit easily holds sway where ignorance of the Word of God is exchanged for personal opinions about how things ought to be.
Deceit becomes the “new normal,” which gives away to more deceit, more misery, and more murder.
Paul wrote that “in the last days difficult times will come,” as “evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:1, 13).
It is what Paul predicted yesteryear that is occuring today, through a slow, steady, digression downhill into confusion and chaos that so many have chosen to call “political correctness.”
Paul wrote his “beloved son” in the Lord, Timothy, to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” Why?
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths (2 Tim. 4:2-4).
To apostatize is to rebel against doing the very thing Paul commanded Timothy, specifically, and Christians, in general, to do, which was to proclaim the inherent truth of God’s Word.
Yet, apostasy is the first “sign” of the introduction of the “man of lawlessness,” who is often referred to as the antichrist. More on him later.
Apostasy, though, is why a person does not have to go looking for earthquakes, famines, and various sorts of wickedness outside the Christian community to know of the nearness of the coming day of the Lord.
All one has to do is look at what is going on within the Christian community, to see how far it has walked away from the Bible, and know that the day of the Lord is near.
Today, it is rare to find the Bible as the centerpiece for Christian instruction and worship in any given location that advertises itself as “Christian.”
Typically, the Bible has been replaced with apathy, politics, fallacies, entertainment, fiction, mysticism, greed, narcissism, carelessness, genuineness, distortions, laziness, and self-help philosophy, all of which makes gods out of men, as lame as they are, while turning God into a man, as pathetic as that is.
With so many “gods” walking the earth, touting their own ignorant authority, conflicting ideas have turned to physical violence, with the most recent episode of 26 individuals losing their lives in a Southern Baptist Church in Texas being a classic example.
That is not to say the Sutherland Springs Baptist Church was involved in widespread apostasy or that its pastor or members invited Devin Patrick Kelley’s murderous rampage into its midst.
It is to say that whereas at one time, in America, committing mass murder in God’s House was thought to be off-limits, that is no longer the case.
It is also to say that whereas at one time, in America, the Bible was the guide for all things—including education, government, and law enforcement—especially among those who professed to be Christians, that is no longer the case either.
America is reaping what it has sowed for the past 50 years through its apostasy and neglect toward the Bible.
Americans are stupid when it comes to the things of God because of their unwillingness to listen to things taught and proclaimed in the Word of God.
Their stupidity has led to increased lawlessness, oftentimes leading to murder, which is now commonplace, with the “man of lawlessness” waiting at the door to be introduced as the solution.
Next, The Mystery of Lawlessness: Part 5, The Antichrist.
Previous: The Mystery of Lawlessness: Part 3, Deceitful Prophets
