Please be seated, friends. Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. I'd like to read for us verses 1 through 10 again in preparation for tonight. This is an epistle. This is not apocalyptic. So it's not speaking in metaphor or simile. It's not giving us imagery. It's just laying out facts for us. It's telling us what we are to know, what we are to believe. Again, listen to the Lord's word. Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then, That lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. That is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but who took pleasure in wickedness. This is the Lord's word. Would you bow with me as we ask the Lord's blessing? Again, our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, and we thank you, Father, for the hymns of praise and the hymns of petition. And we do ask again, as we have just sung, we pray that you would come and visit us from on high by your spirit, that you will bless your servant that you will bless these, your people, those who have joined or may join, and those who may be perhaps in days to come will hear this sermon over the internet. Above all things, Lord Jesus, we would desire to see your name glorified, and we would desire so much to see your church full and your people resting in you, prepared and undeceived by the things taking place in our world. Bless, we pray now, our small efforts for the glory of Christ and for the good of your people, for the kingdom and its advance. We humbly ask these things now in Jesus name. Amen. Um, you must not lose heart in all that's taking place. I heard, uh, again, and perhaps you have to, there was another assassination attempt on our former president, Donald Trump. You can hardly escape a single day without hearing something like this taking place. And if you've probably said it once, you've said it 1,000 times, what's going on? And is this world not spiraling out of control? It is easy to feel at these times as though we are alone. As we hear about the saints in Africa and throughout the Middle East and the attacks that come upon them. It's fairly routine now that we would hear a small story or read a headline of huts and villages being burned to the ground by some Islamic militant group persecuting Christians. Satan is tricky. He knows how to play us to exploit our weaknesses and to exploit our fears. And that's my concern is that that's exactly what he will do. And you see this, just an easy parallel, is when we feel like the economy is going south and it's going bad, the first course or reaction is that we withhold money, we withhold these things. Jesus said in Matthew 24, when lawlessness abounds, the love of man grows cold, because we pull back into ourselves. And it's this mindset that has is destructive and I believe Satan knows this. Paul would say in 2 Corinthians 2 that he was not ignorant of Satan's schemes so that Satan would not take advantage of them. We need to be shrewd and we need to understand what Satan's schemes are. So friends, we don't want to be ignorant or forgetful of the truth about the second coming of Jesus Christ and it is easy to feel as though He will never come back. And this is just when, Lord? And we know that for centuries, for millennia, people have been saying, Lord, when? When are you going to come? Peter would say in 2 Peter 3, know this first of all, that in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation. Or as others have said in the past, and even some in our own day, the lie that was advanced in the midst of the Thessalonian church was that the day of the Lord had come. It had already taken place. Both have the same effect, and that is to disturb, to upset, and to shake you in your faith, to see you step away from your only hope through the stormy seas, and that would be Jesus Christ. Here, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, because they love these dear children of God, don't want to see their faith shaken. And they write for this purpose, to comfort and to encourage the saints by reminding them of the truth that they had taught them when they were with them. And so it is important that we stay in the truth. And when I say this, bear in mind, we'll get into this in a little bit. When I say this, I can't stress that point enough. that it is not what we experience that determines reality. It is what the word of God says that determines reality. And as I was meditating upon this passage, I was thinking about this, again, going back to the fact that Satan is a schemer. He has weaned us off the word in large part in the evangelical church here in the United States. And he has gotten us hooked on experience. so that the church that reads the scriptures less and less because it's tedious or it's boring and these old hymns. I mean, we say these things. It's not nearly exciting enough. Exciting, exciting, exciting. Everything's got to be exciting. Remember the Chuck E. Cheese? couldn't stand the place. It felt like a nightclub for toddlers. Drove me crazy. I'm half convinced the mafia has that, they're doing that to groom our children to become gamblers. I believe that. That's a little bit tongue in cheek. But this idea, this idea that we have to experience things before we will rest in something I think is a very, very dangerous thing. And in here, Sylvanus and Paul and Timothy, They're writing, and they bring them back to the truth, to the truth of Scripture. It is our foundation. And if you ignore the truth, if you push it behind you, if you set it aside, you'll experience all sorts of things, and you'll hear all sorts of voices coming at us. But they won't ground you. They'll lead you astray. Just keep an eye on this in the church, and watch and see what other evangelical churches are doing with their attitude towards the Word of God. I think that's a very important point. The Bible portrays and holds forth to us reality. It shows us what reality really is, and God is truth. He is true, and he cannot lie, and his Word is true. So in the midst of all of this worldwide upheaval that is going on, Knowing that you, like me, wonder what is going on, we approach the scriptures in order to be taught what they knew so that we, like them, may find comfort and encouragement in this very fact, that our God knows what he is doing. Because this whole thing, from the Garden of Eden to the end of history has been ordered by himself. And in this, we can rest. Isaiah 46, 9 through 11, Isaiah says, remember the former things long past, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there was no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things which have not been done, saying my purpose will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my purpose from a far country. Truly, I have spoken. Truly, I will bring it to pass. I have planned it. Surely, I will do it. He tells us in advance so that we will not be unnerved by events taking place. He tells us in advance so that our faith is not shaken, so that we are not deceived in regard to the truth. As we spoke about last week and there are We approach this in this way, and the reason I have come back to 2 Thessalonians for these few weeks is that we're preaching from Daniel 7 in the mornings, and we're looking now at this, and I find that the two passages dovetail quite nicely. You hear often people say that Jesus Christ can come at any time. I want to tweak that concept a little bit, because Paul tweaks that a good bit here. There are two events that must take place, that will take place prior to the Lord's return. There is first this apostasy, and I preferred, as I laid out last week, this word rebellion. The world will be in open rebellion against the Lord. Before the day of the Lord, before the day that Jesus Christ comes, the world Not just the church, but the world will be in open rebellion against the Lord. They will not, do not acknowledge God or his son, Jesus Christ. They will not or do not acknowledge God or his son, Jesus Christ. We might quote Romans 118, they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Or in Romans 125, they exchange the truth of God for a lie in worship and serve the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Again, if anyone was outside the Democratic National Convention butchering dogs, you know that there would be outrage in our streets. And as it was, there was no dogs, but there were babies. Oh, oh, they were just babies. I'm beating that drum a lot. I'm outraged. Again, in verses 28 through 32, we read this, Romans 1, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful, And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Rebellion against God is what we see before the day of the Lord. Before his day, they will be saying things like 1 Thessalonians 5.3, peace and safety. Matthew 24.38, they will be eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage. They will be enjoying, according to Hebrews 11, enjoying the passing pleasures of sin. Life will be grand for them, but not so much for the Lord's church, as we will remain always strangers and exiles on the earth. We don't fit. This world is not our home. So before the Lord's return, we see the world in rebellion against God, governments and individuals. in rebellion against God. We see this now, and it is only growing darker in regard to godlessness in the world. And it's not that Christ is failing, that people aren't coming to Christ. And I want to be clear that the gospel will not be stopped. Jesus said the gates of Hades will not prevail. The gates of Hades will not prevail. In spite of the darkness that's growing, we see also the gospel is going forward. You just think back to 1979 in Iran when they expelled, I believe it was Iran, when they expelled all of these Christians out of Iran. And guess what? The church is stronger than ever in Iran in spite of the persecution. They expelled in the Boxer Rebellion in China, they expelled missionaries. And again, we hear the stories of our brothers and sisters in China. Uh, the communist, the CCP will not stop the gospel of Jesus Christ and it has not been able to do it. We see the Lord is his kingdom is growing like that mountain cut out without hands, that giant rock that fills the whole earth. The Lord Jesus is winning. He's bringing home his people. But we don't hear about these things in the news. We don't hear of nations and leaders saying things like the King of Nineveh who urged the people of Nineveh to fast and to clothe themselves in sackcloth. When he says, let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger. so that we will not perish. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing to hear a national leader say that? Tomorrow we're calling for a day of prayer. We want you to fast and put on your sackcloth. We want you to sit in ashes, and we want you to cry out to God. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing to hear? But we'll never hear that from our leaders unless they are touched by the spirit of God from above. So this great rebellion. is one event that will occur prior to the coming of the day of the Lord. And I believe we see that rebellion fomenting now quite readily. You older saints, older than me, you who lived through the 60s, and I've always liked to ask these things, what were the 60s like? Was it worse then or is it worse now? It's worse now. And that's always the answer I get, that you've seen and you grew up in a patriotic, United States where you'd go to church on Sunday. And that doesn't mean everyone believes, certainly. But the church was an esteemed institution, and it carried weight. And now it's belittled. Look what has happened. The church has become belittled. Ministers are belittled frequently. Oh, they're just out for money. Oh, they don't have any kind of education. You don't need to listen to them. They're just buffoons who are social programmers, right? Nonsense. Everything to tear down, everything to tear down what is good and holy and right and needful for society. Satan does these things. So this great rebellion is occurring before the coming of the Lord. The other event will be the appearance on the world scene of the man of lawlessness, also known as the Antichrist. This is, again, not an apocalyptic text. And it doesn't use the word Antichrist. It says man of lawlessness. I believe they are one in the same. There are many antichrists today in the world. John said it in the first century. He said that there were many antichrists, people who wouldn't and didn't acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. But there will be one individual who personifies and embodies this lawlessness. We don't know who he is. We are not told in scripture who he is. But we are told what he will be like. Again, we touched on some of these last week. First of all, he is a man. He will be a real man, not a movement and not a philosophy. Again, now this would be the fourth time I have quoted this, and bear with me, but I thought it was so remarkable. In Daniel 7 verse 8, we're told this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts. And Jerome said that we are not to think of this horn as a devil or a demon, but one of those men in whom the whole of Satan is to dwell bodily. We are to think of this horn as a actual man in whom the whole of Satan is to dwell bodily. So the man of lawlessness is an actual man, a real person. Secondly, he is lawless. He is against God and he is against Jesus Christ. One commentator said, he embodies all that the Lord opposes and will attempt to usurp the place of God himself. I want to read that again for you. He embodies all that the Lord opposes and will attempt to usurp the place of God himself. He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called God, we are told in verse four, exalt himself above every so-called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God displaying himself as being God. Scholars are not united on several points in this text of scripture. Some would say that this is the Jewish temple. You've heard people say, well, the Jews are going about rebuilding the temple in Israel. They've bred the red heifer. I've heard some of my dispensational friends will say this, that they've got the golden implements ready to go, and so there's going to be a temple, and it's going to be set up. But you have to remember, too, that Peter would refer to us as the temple of God, that we are the church is the temple of God. So is Paul talking about the Jewish temple, the one that was and has been torn down? Is he like our dispensational brethren saying that the temple is going to be rebuilt and this guy is going to set himself up in it? Personally, I don't think that's the one because I don't see how the Antichrist is going to be satisfied with a double wide trailer. Little bit tongue in cheek, but there's a glory that this man is going to have on this world scene. Is he in the church somehow set up in the visible church? Or is he in some pagan temple somewhere? Scholars are unsure. However, the net result would be the same. He will be one who is down with God, with the God of the Bible, and a pro himself. He will denigrate the God of the Bible, and he will be exalting himself. He will lord himself over the earth and over the Lord's people, demanding allegiance in exchange for life. And again, quoting from Daniel 721, that this little horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them. Now, we've seen this through history. Leaders who have established themselves as being gods. I want to turn back to Daniel chapter 11 verse 36. If you'll listen here, it says, then the king will do as he pleases and he will exalt and magnify himself above every God and will speak monstrous things against the God of gods. And he will prosper until the indignation is finished for that which is decreed will be done. And so here, um, that is typically understood to be Antiochus Epiphanes who sacrificed a pig in the temple Ezekiel 28.2 speaks of the King of Tyre like this. Son of man, say to the leader of Tyre, thus says the Lord God, because your heart is lifted up and you have said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God's in the heart of the seas. Yet you are a man and not God, although you make your heart like the heart of God. Hear this man, the man of lawlessness is an evil man who will come with an appearance of goodness, acceptable to the world, but arrogant, blasphemous, blasphemy will roll off his lips. Again, I thought about reading Revelation 13. I won't, but if you would read later at some point, Revelation 13, again, you see, now that's apocalyptic literature, so bear in mind it's pictures and what have you, but you see how that dovetails quite nicely with what we've been looking at. The last characteristic, we jump ahead to verse nine, then we'll go back to verses six through eight. The last characteristic spoken of in this text is that he is coming, that is his presence is in accord with the activity of Satan with all powers, power and signs and false wonders. Again, his activity is in accord with the activity or his coming is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders. When the lawless one comes, his coming will be in step with Satan. Satan will energize him. He will be the power behind what this man can do. He will do by the power of Satan provides all power and signs and false wonders. He will have power to perform miracles. Jesus performed miracles, remember, signs, attesting miracles, and these things attesting to the truth of the gospel that he preached. He was who he said he was. The Antichrist will do miracles as well in order to deceive. To give you some idea what I believe that is, if you turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 13. Moses is given a litmus test. Listen to what he says in chapter 13 verses one through five. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or wonder, and the sign or wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you, saying, let us go after other gods whom you have not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or the dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow the Lord your God and fear him, and you shall keep his commandments, listen to his voice, serve him, and cling to him. But the prophet or the dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery to seduce you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk so you shall purge the evil from among you." Do you understand what's going on there is that this prophet comes He performs a sign, he performs a wonder, and the people who are listening and reacting to experience say, ooh, he must be legitimate. So this prophet comes, he does these signs, he does these wonders, they come true, and then he says, now that I've got your attention, let's go over here and rebel against God. And what's the standard? It's not the fact that he can do a sign or perform a wonder. It's what does he say and how does it square with the scriptures? This is why going back, I caution us about experiential Christianity. Not that Christianity shouldn't be experienced, but that we base our Christianity upon experience rather than the word of God. Right? The gospel should touch our hearts. The gospel should make us weep, it should make us rejoice, it should be all these wonderful things because it's reality and it's truth. But I don't base my faith or hold my faith as valid because when the guy on the keyboard struck the strings, I felt tingles all over my body and it must be real because I felt things when he hit that synthesizer. This is the kind of thing that we see grabbing a hold of the church. And it's not good. And it's really hard to compete with experiences. It's hard to compete with experiences. Notice Moses, he reminds them, don't follow him, even if you've experienced and witnessed this thing for yourself. If he counsels rebellion against the Lord, he needs to be put to death. I'm not suggesting we would go and put anyone to death for that, but we should get rid of him, we should not listen to him, we should not follow him. This antichrist will do miracles in order to deceive, signs, supernatural feats, which point away from themselves to the one who performs them wonders, things which cause astonishment. Understand, he will be impressive and the world will go after him, thinking he will deliver and love them, but he won't." So then we come back to verses six through eight. He is, again, there is a great rebellion that occurs. He's a man of lawlessness, the son of destruction. He is doing things by the power of Satan. Satan provides these powers to him and he performs these deceptive miracles and signs. Where is he? Where is he now? Is he here? Is he living among us? And all I can say is quite possible, but I don't know. And the scriptures don't tell us that he's here yet. He was not among them at that point. He was being restrained. The Thessalonians and the apostles knew what restrained him. We do not. Listen again to verses 6 through 8a. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth. Let me start back. And you know what restrains him now so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth. We know that his appearance is immediately prior to the Lord's coming. Again, while there are many Antichrists, we know that the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, will appear before the coming of the Lord. He has not yet come upon the world seen as of the preaching and the writing of this text. There was a textual comment which has flummoxed scholars. And if you look at verses 6 and 7, we read this. And you know what restrains him now. That is, what's restraining? Something is restraining the man of lawlessness. You know what restrains him now so that in his time, he will be revealed. And then in verse 7, we read, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. The difference being in verses six and seven is you know what restrains him, and then in verse seven, only he who now restrains will do so. The question is, how is a what also a he? And that has scholars, again, baffled. As of the writing of this letter, and I would argue a little while longer at the present time now, Something, that is what, is restraining the man of lawlessness. And to restrain him means that he's being held back, he's being hindered. If the man of lawlessness is on this planet at this time, he is being held back. Something is restraining him from moving on to the world scene. Again, the struggle comes here from the fact that the writer says in verse six, you know what, to verse seven, only he who now restrains. Something, and we're not sure what, prevents the adversary of God from coming out in open opposition to him for the time being. Ancient interpreters believed that the what of verse six was the Roman Empire, and the he of verse seven was the Roman Emperor. Others believed that the what was the preaching of the Christian missionaries, and the he would have been the Apostle Paul, or I imagine some other minister or apostle preaching. In any case, the concept of the temporary restraining of the forces of hell is in place. We are told, friends, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. And we find that though we don't know yet who the Antichrist is, yet we see that spirit already greatly at work in this world, even at this time. Where is he? Again, he is restrained at the present, I believe. And I do believe that this is the most likely option, that based on scripture and understanding from the past, but certainly not with certainty. Some of these passages are like sorting through a bowl of spaghetti noodles. You leave them out on your counter overnight, and then they become extra sticky, and you're trying to pull them apart This is the way some of these passages are, and you read. I mean, I end up, after working on these sermons, I end up with stacks of commentaries reading everyone's thoughts. And do you know, not a single person agrees with one another. Which tells me this, that if the Lord wanted it abundantly plain, he would have made it abundantly plain to us. And if he doesn't, we do the best we can, and we keep our we keep our minds open to possible other things that it could mean. In my estimation, I believe that he is restrained currently by law. By law. The righteous revelation of God in this world by societies informed by the gospel, and dare I say, by the church. I was reading an author and I was trying to check this reference I was unable to find it, but I'm fairly certain I'm correct in what he wrote. This gentleman wrote that the evil has always existed in the world, and the thing that keeps evil at bay has been the church. It's been the church, her influence, right? The city on a hill can't be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel. It's the gospel. It's the preaching of the word. It's Christians who are not putting up with lawlessness and they're voicing their concerns, raising the banner and saying these things are wrong. We shouldn't do it. And this man, his book, he says, when we see evil rising in the world like this, it's because oftentimes the church is no longer doing her responsibility of preaching the gospel. I think that's true. I personally believe that is true. And I say that, again, I'm not as old as some of you, but I do say this because I remember as a young man that everyone, when I was five and six, I remember everyone went to church. I remember that. And I remember towards the end of the 70s, the Bible thumpers were getting a bad name because they're Bible thumpers. And the church, wanting to distance himself from that image of Bible thumping, decides to be soft. And now we don't want to be judgmental. Judge not, you know, lest you be judged. And so you don't want to be like that. You don't want to be like them. And so we go soft. And so now we're no longer saying, thus saith the Lord. We're saying, how are you feeling about yourself these days? And we turned the gospel into a counseling session for masses. We don't want to make people feel bad. The whole self-esteem movement, where did this come from? My children always loved themselves. I had no doubt about that. And it was training them to start loving other people even more than themselves. But you see these things, and I don't have, certainly don't have a grasp on how this works, but I can imagine that as we We started to belittle the church, and we started to undermine the message. And as we started not to discipline and not to deal with our sin in our midst, the witness of the church went dim. And as the witness of the church goes dim, we see evil in society rise. That phenomena, I believe, is what we're seeing here, that the man of lawlessness is restrained by law. the righteous revelation of God in this world by societies informed by the gospel. It is the light of the gospel, friends, which has slowed and even reversed the decay of societies. When people repent, when people turn from their sin to turn to Christ. You see why the work of the church, the work of the gospel, and why witnessing and evangelizing is so, so important. They've pushed us into a corner, they've tried to silence us, maybe not intentionally, maybe intentionally, but shaming us into being quiet. As this mystery of lawlessness abounds, as men love darkness and prefer it to the light of the gospel, prefer their lusts and flesh to their creator, God hands us over, and the darkness becomes very, very dark. like speed bumps, slow moving vehicles in parking lots, or levees hold back a raging current of water. So when these things are removed, when levees are removed, when speed bumps are removed, harm and destruction come. When the rule of law is removed and men do whatever they want with sanction from the government, then we will see the Antichrist appear. He's a man of lawlessness. He's anti-God. He's anti-God's law. It was my experience in Mississippi that when we turned our lights off in the kitchen, the cockroaches always came out in full. I believe this is William Hendrickson had this to say. Accordingly, the sense of the entire passage, that is verses 6 and 7, seems to be this. that Satan, while perfectly aware of the fact that he cannot himself become incarnate, nevertheless would like to imitate the second person of the Trinity also in this respect as far as possible. He yearns for a man over whom he will have complete control and who will perform his will as thoroughly as Jesus performed the will of the Father. It will have to be a man of outstanding talents, but as yet the devil is being frustrated in his attempt to put this plan into operation, someone and something is always holding back the deceiver's man of lawlessness. This, of course, happens under God's direction. Hence, for the time being, the worst Satan can do is to promote the spirit of lawlessness. But this does not satisfy him. It is as if he and his man of sin abide their time, At the divinely decreed moment, the appropriate season, when as a punishment for man's willingness to cooperate with this spirit, the someone and something that now holds back is removed, Satan will begin to carry out his plans. Now this makes sense to me because we see a great rebellion. We see lawlessness abounding in our land. And we are priming ourselves to be taken over. And when we come to the end, verses 11 and 12, we find that we didn't love the truth. And so God gave them over to a spirit of deception. When he is taken out of the way, when it is removed, then that lawless one will be revealed, Paul says in verse 8. Then that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. This is how it is going to happen. That's what we are to expect. And that does align itself quite beautifully with Daniel chapter 7 and that fourth kingdom and those 10 horns and that one horn who comes and displaces three horns And it offers up great boasting and blasphemous words. And then God comes, and he judges. He opens the books, and he judges. He judges that horn. He judges that kingdom. And he judges the thoughts and intentions of the hearts of men. Now, we do not need to worry. We do not need to withdraw from the world or hold up in our houses. Once again, The apostle encourages these saints, reminding them of the truth. Again, these are the things you will see before the great day of the Lord. And this is to be the end. Take heart, really, we could say, and be of good courage. Things do get darker. The stops are pulled out. This terribly evil man will step onto the scene and will oppose Christ, will oppose Christians, all that we hold dear, the Lord and his people. But again, the Lord, we are told, will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. My friends, when our Savior returns, our mighty King, the lawless one will be finished with the breath of his mouth. The Lord will merely blow upon him, so swift will be his destruction. And all he stood for, all that he represented, will be finished. It won't even be a battle, it will be over so quickly, there will be no contest. So friends, we are not to be unaware of what is coming, and we must not allow ourselves to succumb to the spirit of our age, the spirit of despair and fear. But rather, we must continue to serve and love our Savior. I want to close with reading just a couple of verses. Again, these are wonderful verses. Now to ponder, Jude was a letter that was written. Jude writes this. Again, this is not apocalyptic language. This is very black and white, what he says. It was about these men, I'm in verse 14 of Jude. It was also about these men that Enoch and the seventh generation from Adam prophesied saying, behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and all of the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And then finally, in 2 Thessalonians 1, 6 through 10, listen again for your encouragement. For after all, it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted, and to us as well, when the Lord Jesus, will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. When he comes to be glorified in his saints on that day and to be marveled at among all who have believed, for our testimony to you was believed, to this end also We pray for you always that our God will count you worthy of your calling and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Be encouraged, friends. Be encouraged. But be watchful. Be watchful. Let's pray. Again, our Father, we thank you for this evening and for your word and pray We pray that you will give us wisdom and insight as we mull over these words, this instruction that you have given to your people. We pray that we will not overly complicate things, but that we will have discernment in applying and understanding what you have written. We pray that you would help our faith not to be shaken. We pray that we will not be afraid of what we see going on in the world, but to remember that vengeance is yours and you will repay. We pray that our hearts would be glad because no longer do we fear condemnation because Christ himself has taken on himself the punishment that we deserved and he has soothed your wrath against us. We thank you now that we may call you our father, We may rest knowing that you care and love your children. Bless us as we would go from this place tonight. And I humbly ask this in Jesus name. Amen.