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Scary Stuff and Comfort
2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, 8b, 16-17 – Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. … whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of His mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of His coming. … Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Paul is comforting the Thessalonian Christians, who are being upset by people who are claiming that Jesus has already returned to earth—and they’ve somehow missed it! That’s not true, Paul says, and they know it, because Jesus’ return won’t happen until the “man of lawlessness” comes first—better known to us as the Antichrist-with-a-capital-A.
I put it that way because as John makes clear, there are more antichrists than just one in human history. John writes, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come …. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us …. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:18a, 19a, 22).
How do we recognize these people? John says, “They went out from us,” that is, they left the true Christian faith and denied Jesus. Paul calls them people of lawlessness and destruction, people who oppose every god and put themselves forward as gods. While such people have been around since the beginning of Christianity, at the end of human history a final rebellion against God will take place, when the final Antichrist appears, doing false miracles and teaching lies.
This doesn’t sound like comfort, does it? But comfort is coming—for it is Jesus, in person, who puts an end to this horror forever and ever. His mere breath is enough to destroy this evil, as Paul tells us. And then Jesus will gather His people from the ends of the earth, to be with Him forever. We are His people, if we trust in the One who loved us and gave His life for us on the cross that we might be forgiven, made new, and adopted into God’s family. Jesus has risen from the dead, never to die again—and He has promised to raise us from death, too. This is what we are looking forward to.
WE PRAY: Lord, when the power of evil frightens me, help me to find comfort and hope in You. Amen.
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