That Day Shall Not Come, except…
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come the falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition… (2 Thessalonians 2:3 KJ2000)
I write this blog because I believe that the exceptions Paul gives here have occurred. Who can deny that the Christian world, that is, all of Europe and America, have fallen away from faith in Jesus Christ? Oh yes, they cling to a “form of godliness,” but all their actions betray their idolatry and lack of faith in the One who saved them. One can simply reach out his hand (after he looks it up on the internet) and indulge in any sin his heart desires today, all with State and Church sanction. America especially may still “go to church,” but her heart is far from the LORD. She has fallen away from He who made her great. She, like the rest of the West, is a nation who has changed her gods. So, the great falling away has been fulfilled.
Ah, but has the man of sin, the son of destruction, been revealed? Surely this is the antichrist for whom all Christendom has waited, is it not? But did not John tell us 2,000 years ago that many antichrists even then had already come? Paul here spoke not of one vile man who arises in the end time. He spoke of mankind en mass who would become as vile as in the days of Noah, the days when God had to destroy the earth or else no righteous seed would remain. Paul spoke of these days.
Another interpretation for the “man of sin” is “man of lawlessness.” First the Church threw away God’s Law with its relentless preaching of salvation by grace with no accountability. Years later prayer was removed from public schools. Then child sacrifice, i.e. abortion, became legal so that we could indulge our pleasures. After that representations of the Ten Commandments and the Bible itself became illegal in public places. Today our political leaders love to talk about the “rule of law” as if they actually believe in law. But they know and now we know, after seeing the banks and bankrupt corporations steal our money, that the law is nothing more than what they say it is.
Today we have no recourse to true law. We have no standard by which we can say this is right or this is wrong. Man himself has become the standard by which right and wrong is established. Hence what was once immoral has now become lawful (moral). We see this same principle working its way out in many ways. For example, Europe recently passed laws which make it illegal to own many vitamins and natural herbs for healing unless one gets a doctor’s prescription for it. Similar amendments have been added to American bills and it is only a matter of time until the same will be true here. To the lawless fake is always better. ”We can’t make any money off of what God created. We need to be able to patent it in order to line our pockets with your cash.”
Those who speak out for truth and true morality today are being condemned, imprisoned, and fined through new laws which lawless men promulgate. Thus the man of sin, the man of lawlessness, has been revealed. The two signs which Paul said must precede the beginning of the Day of the Lord have occurred.