The Man of Lawlessness

In our December 2017 newsletter, “A Fall from Righteousness,” we looked at what Paul had to say about the end times. We saw that people will become lawless against God’s commandments and the laws of the land. I hope that you will read this entire newsletter and that it will cause you to think about what is being said.
We want to continue with that thought and take a closer look at the man who is called the man of lawlessness. Let’s start by looking at 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12.
“Now regarding the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to be with him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to be easily shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God. Surely you recall that I used to tell you these things while I was still with you. And so you know what holds him back, so that he will be revealed in his own time. For the hidden power of lawlessness is already at work. However, the one who holds him back will do so until he is taken out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the breath of his mouth and wipe out by the manifestation of his arrival. The arrival of the lawless one will be by Satan’s working with all kinds of miracles and signs and false wonders, and with every kind of evil deception directed against those who are perishing, because they found no place in their hearts for the truth so as to be saved. Consequently God sends on them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. And so all of them who have not believed the truth but have delighted in evil will be condemned.”
As we saw in the last newsletter, today we are in this state of rebellion.
In other translations the word apostasy is used regarding a falling away. A falling away from what? Grace!
Hebrews 12:12-17, “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.”
2 Peter 3:17, “Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.”
We see in Paul’s day that the spirit of Anti-Christ was already happening. 1 John 2:18 tells us, “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.”
The Apostles, in their Epistles, warned of false prophets and teachers. And as believers we are to beware of such people. Today with TV and the internet it is so easy for these kinds of people to have an audience. People think because they read something online or see a preacher on TV what they read or hear must be a fact. You have people calling good evil and evil good. We must beware of wolves in sheeps’ clothing. One must have discernment, and for sure, one must know his Scriptures. We must learn to walk by the Spirit and live by the Spirit.
So who is this man of lawlessness and how will we know him? 1 John 2:22 tells us that the antichrist is one who denies Messiah Yeshua/Jesus Christ and the Father. John calls him a liar. Of course, he would be since he is from the father of lies, Satan. John continues in chapter 4:3 to say that, “Every spirit that does not confess Yeshua is not from God; and this is the spirit of antichrist, of which you have heard that is coming, and now it is already in the world.”
We see again that the Apostles, and now John, were saying that the spirit of antichrist was at work even in their day. So if there are many antichrists and they were in the days of the Apostles, then the spirit of antichrist was a false teaching by false teachers. We see that there is a spirit of antichrist and the antichrist, the man of lawlessness. We see the spirit or the teachings, the ways of antichrist, is already here, but the man of lawlessness THE Antichrist is still to come on the scene.
In our last newsletter we saw that people would change from being godly to ungodly. We see today that there is a great deception going on in many churches. Most people do not probably realize that we are not being taught the whole truth of God’s word, that preachers are slowly not talking about the power of the blood of Yeshua, let alone the blood of Yeshua. They no longer speak of sin or holiness or judgement or hell. The Bible tells us in Revelation that there will be a One World religion. To do this, all faiths and creeds must come together and to come together, they must compromise their beliefs, so all may agree. If we realize it or not, this is happening today. The church has slowly been dumbed down. It has been happening for many years, so that the slowness keeps us from noticing the change. Little by little translations of the Bible have been changed. Many Pastors began preaching about the teachings that they believe in, such as, “God is loving and he will not send anyone to hell;” “If you belong to this denomination then you have salvation already;” “There are many roads to heaven;” “We must be tolerant of all people and faiths;” “We cannot judge another.” We see our Pastors never dealing with sin in the church because they do not believe in sin. Many Pastors do not believe in the literal translation of the Bible. Many believe in evolution instead of creation. Many pastors are for the One World Order and many belong to secret societies such as freemasonry. Many Pastors have pledged allegiance to the god of Baal and Mithra the sun god. This may be hard to believe, but this is unfortunately true. The church was put to sleep many years ago and that is why we no longer see signs and wonders and powerful moves of the Spirit. This has all been carefully planned by a crafty liar called Satan. When Yeshua defeated him on the cross and took the crown from him at the resurrection, there was no longer a place for him in heaven to accuse the brethren and he was cast down. He knew his time was short, so from the beginning he spewed lies and the truth had to be squelched. We see it at the resurrection when they said, “Say that his disciples took His body and hid it.” They could not have the Jewish people believe in their Messiah, so lies had to be told. Then when persecution came and the Gentile believers were being persecuted and martyred by such people as Caesar, then they no longer wanted to be associated with the Jewish faith and so lies had to be told. Today the church believes that God forsook the Jews and made the church His chosen people. If God broke covenant with the Jews, what’s to say that He will not break covenant with us? How can God be God and lie? We have been made to believe that the God of creation who sanctified the Sabbath and set it apart changed all that for the church to now celebrate Sunday as Sabbath. One, we no longer give witness to Creation or the God of Creation because we do not keep the 7th day of creation as a witness. We now are like the pagans who deny God as Creator. Second, we follow Sunday which was changed by Constantine and anti-Semitic leaders who did not want the church to resemble anything Jewish. We went from Jerusalem, the city of the great King, to Rome, the city of the pagan gods and the Caesars who thought they were gods. There are people today that do not know that Yeshua was Jewish and He kept Torah and never told one person to stop following God’s commandments, His teachings or His statutes. There are Pastors today that do not believe any of this, nor do they teach any of this, in fact they refuse to have the Hebrew roots of our faith even mentioned in their church.
So the spirit of antichrist will bring about the One World Religion and is very close to completing the task. Whenever we see anything global we must run from it because God separated the nations at the time of the tower of Babel and we have been trying to put the pieces back together. The Babylonian religion has never died. This false worship and beliefs are alive and well today and most people do not even know that they are taking part in it. This rebellion has been taking place since the days of the Apostles, to deny the truth. Yeshua said that He was the Truth and the Way and the Life (John 14:6), and no one comes to the Father except through Him. So the way to eternal life is through truth, and Yeshua is truth. There is no other name except the name of Yeshua by which any can be saved. And yet, people think that they can find the way on their own. Christians believe once saved, always saved. We can live any way we please because we said a little prayer and now we are saved. No holiness, no commitment, no letting go of the world, no drawing closer to God. No crucifying the flesh. No picking up our cross and following in His footsteps. We can watch filthy programs. We can speak with filthy mouths, we can curse and we can live for ourselves and yet we think that a holy God will close His eyes and save us. We are deceived and this is what we have been taught, or should I say, this is not what we have been taught, but should have been taught. This is all part of the rebellion which we looked at in the last newsletter.
We must have an awakening and we must repent and cry out to God to open our eyes and let us see truth once again. We already have a global world. Everything is in place for the Antichrist to come on the scene, the one who will rule the earth. It could have been one of the Caesars, it could have even been Hitler, but the world did not repent, nor did it cry out to God. But soon, because we have come so far in globalizing the world and the One World religion, we can now say, that the time is close for the Antichrist to come on the scene. Matthew records Yeshua’s words in Matthew 24. Yeshua speaks of the many wars and how people will fall from the truth and the persecution of the saints, which we have seen increased dramatically over the last several years. He says the gospel will be preached around the world, which it has, but He says that this is only the birth pangs, the beginnings. He goes on to say in verse 15, “Therefore when you see the Abomination of Desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains….” Did we not see the fulfilment of this during the time of the Maccabees when Antiochus Epiphanes set up an idol in the temple? Yes, we did, and we saw it during the time of the Jewish revolt, but when we look at Revelation 13, we see that the Antichrist comes out of the Roman empire. So were the days of the Jewish revolts and people like Titus or Nero who persecuted the saints, fulfilling Yeshua’s prophecy? What we do know from Daniel and Revelation is that during the days of the great tribulation the One World Order will be the order of the day and the Roman empire will have returned and one ruler, the Beast, will arise to rule and one Beast, who will be like the false prophet, will proclaim like John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God,” except he will point the way to the Antichrist. You will have the government and the religion and both will be an abomination to God. Yeshua tells us to be alert and to be ready, for no one knows the day or the hour, but we can read the signs of the times, and they tell us that the Beast is most likely already on the world’s stage preparing for his time to fulfil scripture. Reader beware and be ready for such a time like never before.
Oh! And those Pastors that told you we will not go through these terrible times? Well they lied to you. People all over the world have been going through terrible times of persecution and martyrdom, and America will be no exception. God warns the shepherd, “Woe to you shepherds who did not prepare my people for the day of battle.” Read Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34. These readings are not just for Israel’s shepherds, but also anyone who shepherds God’s people.
The One World Order is already in operation. Everything is globally intertwined and the One World Religion is framed out and is slowly being executed, the Seal Judgements have been opened and the horsemen are riding across the globe. It’s time for the people of God to awaken from their sleep and prepare for a time like none other.