2 Thessalonians 2:1-12: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Alright, church. Let’s talk about the man of lawlessness, a.k.a. the antichrist! Not your typical Sunday morning topic, but this is important. And you need to know about this. 

And I’ll tell you why it’s important. You might say to me, “Tony, come on. Do we really need this? Do we really need to know these details about the ‘man of lawlessness,’ ‘the antichrist’ and what takes place at the end of time? Can’t we just be surprised by all that?” Well, yeah, I’d be inclined to think that way or to dismiss this as a top-shelf discussion topic that not every Christian needs to know about. 

But think about this for a second. How much time did Paul have in Thessalonica with the Christians before he was kicked out of the city? Do you know? Do you remember when we talked about this earlier? At the most Paul had maybe a few months! Probably less than that—a few weeks! And yet, this is one of the most fascinating statements in our passage. Look at verse 5.

5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?


Paul was with them just a few weeks before he was kicked out of town by a mob uprising (see Acts 17:1-9). That’s not a lot of time, even if he was teaching them every day. And yet Paul found time in those few weeks to teach the Thessalonians (new believers, by the way!) about the end times and Christ’s return and even the antichrist. That’s fascinating to me. So, by extrapolation, I’ve got to think that Paul considers this important for even new believers. 

And the Holy Spirit considers it important for believers like you and me, because he recorded these truths to us in the Scripture that was just read to you. So, with that perspective in mind, knowing that the Holy Spirit thinks this is important for us to understand and reckon with… let’s talk about the antichrist! And actually, we’ll talk about more than just that. 

Here’s our outline for today. Go ahead and write this down as #1. 

What should we expect before Christ’s great victory?

Paul says in verse 8, that the lawless one, the antichrist, will one day be revealed, “whom the LORD Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.” Hallelujah! That will be an awesome day and I can’t wait for that to happen. But what can we expect before that? 

Well, you can expect this…

1) A prevalence of deception (2:1-2) 

This dates back even to Paul’s day. But we know that this deception will intensify and increase as we near Christ’s coming. We know that from Jesus’s own words that deception and deceivers will increase in the last days (Matt 24:4-5). 

Here’s the deception that the Thessalonians were dealing with. Paul says in verse 1. 

1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 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 [already] come. 

Apparently, there were false teachers running around Thessalonica, like Chicken Little, screaming, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling.” Actually, more accurately, they were saying, “The sky has already fallen! The sky has already fallen!” And from what Paul says there might have even been a “forgery” of some kind, a “letter” that seemed to be from Paul. That’s not surprising. People tried to forge documents “from Paul” in his day. Paul makes sure this doesn’t happen this time, because he says in 3:17: “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine; it is the way I write.” That was Paul’s way of authenticating 2 Thessalonians as a genuine Pauline document.

By the way, people still believe in forged documents as Scripture in our day. People think the Gospel of Thomas is somehow lost Scripture. And what Paul says here is, “Steady yourself, Thessalonians!” “‘Don’t be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed’ by these alarmists, these forgeries, saying, ‘Christ has already come… The rapture already happened, and you missed it! … Christ has already returned and established victory and you missed it.’” The whole idea of what they are saying is preposterous. But of course, that hasn’t stopped people in the past from preaching or even believing crazy things. 

Now let’s be clear here. I don’t want to over-preach what Paul is saying. Paul is not saying, “Don’t be alert.” He’s not saying, “Don’t be watchful and vigilant anticipating Christ’s return.” I know he’s not saying that here, because he and the Lord Jesus both tell us as Christians to be alert because Christ’s return could happen at any moment. Paul’s not saying, “don’t be alert.” He’s saying, “don’t be alarmed.” Everyone with me? And there’s a huge difference between being alert and being alarmed. 

“Yes, Christ could be coming back at any moment. I’m going to be ready. Let’s go, Lord. I’m ready! Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus.” And if saying that makes me sound like Chicken Little to some people, I don’t care. Jesus told me to be ready. But I’m not alarmed. I’m not worried that Jesus already came back and I missed it. And I’m not alarmed either by people who say that Jesus won’t come back at all (that’s more common in our day). People sometimes speculate that Christ’s return is meant to be a spiritual, mystical, metaphorical thing. Like maybe, he will just come back in our hearts? Like maybe he’ll just kind of come back figuratively, and it’ll be, you know, subtle? 

You know I read to you last week that passage in Revelation 19 that describes “the Day of the Lord.” Remember that? Christ comes riding in on a white horse, leading his army from heaven, with a sword coming out of his mouth. He’s got “King of kings” emblazoned on his robe, and “Lord of lords” tattooed on his thigh (19:11-16). The last word that I would ever use to describe Jesus’s coming pictured there is subtle. 

So, here’s the application for you, Verse By Verse Fellowship. Christ is coming back. He is! And it will be unmistakable. It will be a physical, literal, bodily return. So, don’t let anyone convince you that Jesus has already come back or that he maybe just comes back in a spiritual way or that some little dinky thing happening in the Middle East right now is Christ coming back. It will be unmistakable when he returns. 

And like I’ve said already, my view is that Christ will rapture his church out of the world, and we will meet with him in the air. And then we will await the end of the seven-year tribulation, and then we will ride in with him to conquer his enemies, like John Wayne in a wild west epic. And Christ will set up his millennial kingdom à la Revelation 20… a kingdom of justice and peace and righteousness. This is what awaits us when Christ returns.   

So, what should we expect before Christ’s great victory? Well, we can expect a prevalence of deception. People will be deceived like apparently some of the Thessalonians were deceived into thinking that the day of the Lord has already happened. And by the way, some in our day are deceived into thinking that they know the exact timing of Christ’s return. Don’t fall for that deception either. 

Here’s something else we should expect. 

2. A man of lawlessness (2:3-5) 

Paul says this:

3 Let no one deceive you in any way. 

People are running around Thessalonica telling people, “Jesus has already come.” Paul says, “NO!” 

3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion [apostasy] comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 

4 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. 

5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 

Alright, let’s talk about this antichrist figure, this “man of lawlessness.” There are a few different names for this person in the Bible. In fact, Paul never actually calls him “antichrist.” That’s the Apostle John’s language. Paul calls him “man of lawlessness” or “son of destruction” (2:3). He’s referred to also as “the beast” in Revelation (13:11-18; 16:13; 19:20; 20:10). He’s the one who was prophesied even in the book of Daniel as the “little horn” 500 years before Christ’s first coming (8:9-12, 23-25; 11:21-23). Daniel also calls him the “desolator” (9:27). This person is not Satan, but he is Satan’s instrument empowered by Satan’s spirit. 

And just to be clear there is “the antichrist,” but there are also (plural) “antichrists.” That’s clear from Scripture too. John spoke of many antichrists that come and oppose the truth about Jesus (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). Jesus spoke of pseudo-christs that will impersonate him and try to usurp him especially as the time of his coming draws near. And some of these antichrists have been especially active in the church. You know, it might surprise you to know that there are a lot of famous people that grew up in the church and espoused faith in Christ before they became cult leaders. I’ll give you a few examples of this. 

David Koresh claimed at one time to be a born-again believer and was part of a Southern Baptist church. Jim Jones was a student pastor at a Methodist Church in Indiana. Brigham Young and Joseph Smith were both Methodists from Vermont. Smith went on to write the Book of Mormon. He was actually killed in Carthage, Illinois, by a mob because he was a well-known cheat and scoundrel in that community. Mohammed grew up around many Arab Christians and Jews. So, a lot of deceit has proliferated around churches. That’s why Paul says to watch out for wolves in the church” (Acts 20:29-31; Rom 16:17-19). 

I read recently about a man named José Luis de Jesús Miranda. While growing up in Puerto Rico, de Jesús was a petty thief and a heroine addict. But after professing faith in Christ, he became a Pentecostal pastor, and he was later a member of a Southern Baptist church until angels supposedly spoke to him and told him that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now de Jesús believes that he is God. He refers to himself as el Jesucristo Hombre, “the man, Jesus Christ.” In fact, he even believes he is greater than Christ. He says, “I am greater than Him. I teach better than Him. I won’t die even if you try to kill me. I will be the president of the biggest government this earth has ever experienced. And I am going to change the whole world.” By the way, just a footnote on that… de Jesús died in 2013. 

Confusingly, de Jesús also referred to himself as the Antichrist, which is just about the truest thing he ever taught. So each of those individuals – David Koresh, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, de Jesús – is a kind of antichrist or pseudochrist. But none of them is “the antichrist.” None of them is “the man of lawlessness” that Paul refers to here. According to the books of Daniel and Revelation, that antichrist will arise in our world and harness the power of Satan to rule a one-world kingdom from Babylon. That one-world kingdom will last for seven years during what’s called the Great Tribulation. It’ll be a time of unprecedented evil and persecution in our world. Paul calls this “the rebellion” in verse 3. And as part of this rebellion, the antichrist will, verse 4, oppose and exalt 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.” Part of the antichrist’s reign will involve a defiling of the Temple in Jerusalem similar to Antiochus Epiphanes in the OT. Daniel 9:27 says that this antichrist, this so-called prince, “shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

And here’s what Paul is saying in this passage. Here is how he’s assuring the Thessalonians who were afraid and shaken up by false teachers. Paul’s saying, “It hasn’t happened yet, Thessalonians!” He’s saying, “Christ hasn’t come back yet, because the antichrist hasn’t been unleashed yet!” “You think you are suffering now, Thessalonians! You ain’t seen nothing yet.” “You think Nero or Caligula, or some other Roman emperor is a kind of antichrist. You ain’t seen nothing yet!” “The antichrist to come will make those guys look like Mahatma Gandhi.” “So, don’t be alarmed! And don’t be duped into believing that the end has already come. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” 

It’s really kind of funny how Paul argues here. Paul’s like, “Relax, Thessalonians! Christ hasn’t come back yet, because the world hasn’t turned into utter chaos yet.” “So, don’t be alarmed. It’s going to get a lot worse than this.” 

“Whew!” “Thanks, Paul!” “I thought I had missed something.” 

Which leads me to think two things here. One that’s crystal clear. And one that might be a bit speculative. 1) The clear part is that Christ is going to conquer everyone and everything. Paul says as much in the next few verses. Look at verse 8.

the Lord Jesus will kill [the lawless one] with the breath of his mouth and bring [him] to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 

Everyone see that? That sounds like Revelation 19. That sounds like the 2 Thessalonians 1 which we studied last week. Yeah, the antichrist will come, and it’ll be bad. But Christ will destroy him with his breath! So, relax, Thessalonians. Relax, San Antonians too! God has everything under control. 

And 2) the other thing that this leads me to believe is that possibly, just possibly, the church, will be raptured out of the world before the Great Tribulation comes and before this “man of lawlessness” is revealed. And that’s why Paul is encouraging them to “not be alarmed.” I know there’s debate on when that’s going to happen. But maybe that’s why Paul is so encouraging here, because he knows that the church is going to miss out on the worst that happens in our world during the Great Tribulation. 

Write this down as #3. Here’s another thing we should expect before Christ’s great victory. 

3. A satanic upsurge (2:6-10) 

Paul says in verse 6, 

6 And you know what is restraining him [the antichrist] now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

So, there’s a mystery of lawlessness that is already at work. There’s an “antichrist spirit” you might say already at work within our world. But something is restraining it. John said, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 1:8). John said in 1 John, “Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already” (1Jn 4:3). 

Paul says similarly… 

7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

So, the spirit of the antichrist is already at work. This mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But something is restraining it. What is that? Who’s the restrainer? 

Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about this “restrainer” in verse 6 and verse 7. The Greek word used here for “restrain” is the word κατέχω which means to “prevent, hinder, restrain.” And the question is this: who’s doing this restraining? And honestly this is something that’s difficult and to be frank a little discouraging for us. Because Paul says in verse 5,

5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 

And then he says in verse 6,

6 And you know what is restraining him 

Here’s what’s difficult for us. The Thessalonians must have known what Paul was talking about here. He says, “you know what is restraining the antichrist!” He must have told them explicitly who this restrainer was. But he doesn’t say it explicitly here! And I really wish he would have. Because there has been a lot of speculation about who this restrainer is. 

I read some of the church fathers on this issue. And some think that this restrainer is the Holy Spirit. Some think it’s Michael, the archangel. Some think it’s the Roman Empire. Some think it’s Satan himself who’s restraining the antichrist… that just seems ludicrous to me. The great reformer, John Calvin, thought that this was a reference to God restraining world-wide rebellion and the worst impulses of man until the gospel could spread to all corners of the world. I think there’s something to be said for Calvin’s view, but I’m more inclined to see the restrainer as more simply, the Holy Spirit. 

And it’s not that God will remove the Holy Spirit from the world. That’s not possible, because God is omnipresent. Instead, a certain aspect of what the Holy Spirit does will be removed from the world, specifically his work and presence in the church. I think that will be removed in the last days, because the church will be raptured, and all the worst impulses of man will be unchecked by the presence of the church. 

Here is Warren Wiersbe’s take on this. I think Wiersbe is right. He says, “Many Bible students identify this restrainer as the Holy Spirit of God. Certainly, He is ‘in the midst’ of God’s program today, working through the church to accomplish God’s purposes. When the church is raptured, the Holy Spirit will not be taken out of the world (otherwise nobody could be saved during the Tribulation), but He will be taken out of the midst to allow Satan and his forces to go to work. The Holy Spirit will certainly be present on the earth during the Day of the Lord, but He will not be restraining the forces of evil as He is today.” 

Wiersbe also says this, “In spite of its weakness and seeming failure, never underestimate the importance of the church in the world. People who criticize the church do not realize that the presence of the people of God in this world gives unsaved people opportunity to be saved.” 

I was listening once to John Stonestreet (president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview) and his “Culture Friday” segment on “The World and Everything In It” podcast. And one thing that John Stonestreet is fond of saying is that our world is going to miss Christianity and Christian influence when they are gone. Because our country keeps trying to legislate religion out of the public sector, even with government agencies like FEMA. And Stonestreet said about that, “if you have received any assistance from FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency], it likely came through the hands of somebody faith-based, a Christian, a Methodist, a Lutheran, a Southern Baptist. It’s amazing. That’s what Christians do. That’s what they’ve always done. It’s just kind of part of the gig… Do you really want Christians to keep their faith to themselves? That’s what we hear when culturally unpopular beliefs—like our belief about sex and marriage and gender and those things which tend to be more controversial—but if Christians kept their faith to themselves, we wouldn’t have seen nearly the progress we’ve seen in dealing with global poverty, for example, or the AIDS crisis… And it doesn’t just go through our lifetime, it goes back to the beginning of the church.” 

Stonestreet says, “When there’s a tragedy, when there’s a disaster, when there’s a plague, when there’s a famine, if you look for the helpers, by and large you’re going to find an awful lot of Christians.” 

You know Mister Rogers was asked once, “How do you help kids understand great tragedy?” And he said, “I tell them to look for the helpers.” And you know what, there’s a lot of Christians among the helpers. And that goes back to the very beginning of the church. Christians were those people who were rescuing babies and opposing slavery and fighting for equal treatment of women. Christians were those people who were building hospitals and schools and fighting totalitarian regimes. You really want to force Christians to keep their faith to themselves? 

And so, here’s why I mention this. Here’s what’s scary about 2 Thessalonians 2. If I’m right about who “the restrainer” is in that passage, that means that the greatest force for human good in our world will be removed from the world. The Holy Spirit’s restraining power and his work through the church will be removed, and all hell will break loose on this earth. Men will give way to their worst inclinations. 

Now, that’s coming. Paul says that this is coming down the pike. Even from our vantage point we can say, “that’s coming.” But what Paul is also saying right now is that it hasn’t happened yet. Even though there’s great evil in the world and the Thessalonians particularly are suffering greatly, the end hasn’t come yet. It’s going to get worse, before it gets better. 

And part of that, as Paul alludes to in this passage, is that this antichrist figure will actually be completely controlled by Satan. Paul says in verse 8,

8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 

Now here’s the saddest thing in this passage. Paul alludes to this in verse 10, but he gets really specific about it in verses 11 and 12. This is the saddest thing that will happen as we draw near to Christ’s return, and it’s something that we need to be aware of. Write this down as #4 in your notes. One more thing we should expect before Christ’s great victory. 

4. A strong delusion (2:11-12)

11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 

There will be, as we near Christ’s return, an increase in false belief. There will be, as we near Christ’s return, an increase in unrighteous pleasure-seeking. There will be, as we near Christ’s return, an increase in delusion! There will even be fabricated signs and wonders. “Signs and wonders” sounds like what Jesus performed. That sounds like the book of Acts! But these signs and wonders are false signs and wonders. They promote a lie, not the truth. They might even be really impressive. But don’t get duped by them! 

Can I just say this, church? Don’t get duped by false belief and false teaching as we near Christ’s return. When is Christ coming back? I don’t know. I have no idea. We’re on a need-to-know basis with God, and he has determined that we don’t need to know this. We don’t need to know the exact timing of Christ’s return! 

But God wants us to know this! There will be a satanic upsurge as his return draws near. And there will be a strong delusion among those who disbelieve. It’ll be like Pharaoh in the OT. Pharaoh hardens his heart, and then God hardens his heart. Pharaoh hardens his heart, and then God hardens his heart (cf. Ex 8:15; 9:12 et al.). It’ll be just like that as we near Christ’s coming. People reject Christ, and so God gives them over to delusion. People refuse to love the truth and be saved, so God sends upon them a strong delusion. And they follow a psychopath, the antichrist. 

So, here’s my advice, Verse By Verse Fellowship. Love the truth! Love it! And stay the course, Christian. Hold fast to the truth. And don’t be alarmed when people do vile things and believe vile things about God and when unrighteousness and unbelief and even violence towards Christians increase in our world. That’s going to happen. But Christ will emerge victorious after all that. And so will we, if our faith is sincere. 

Is it sincere? Do you really believe that Jesus is your savior… that he died on the cross for your sins and is coming back again? Or do you just “believe it” because it’s expedient in our day? It’s not always going to be expedient. 

So, let me close with this. I know a message like this can be kind of unnerving. And maybe you need to process it some more and think through the implications of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. There are some questions here for you in your notes to do that. And some of you can do that with your Small Group this week. But as you think that through, let me give you a few final statements about hope. Can I do that? Can I give you some hope?

Some of you might say, “Ok Tony, things are going to get really, really bad, much worse than they are right now. That’s discouraging. What’s our hope in that? What do I hang my hat on as things maybe degenerate in our lifetime?” Well, here are three things that offer us hope in the here and now. 

What’s our hope in the here and now? 

1.  God is sovereign over all human history 

God knew all the things that happened in the past. God isn’t surprised by anything going on in our world now. God won’t be surprised by anything that happens in the future. God is sovereign over all of it. He’s got the whole world in his hands. And he’s got human history in his hands. 

And God never says “oops.” He never says, “How’d that happen? I didn’t see that coming.” Never! He is never surprised by what happens in our world. 

2.  Satan’s victories are temporary 

Satan will have his victories. Satan had a momentary victory in Paul’s life; he blocked him from going to Macedonia (1 Thess 2:18). Satan will have his victories in your life. God has given him latitude even in our day to wreak havoc. That will intensify as we near the Tribulation. But that will come to an end.

Think about what I said earlier about the tribulation, a period of seven years. Compare those seven years to ten thousand years and then forevermore. That doesn’t even compare. 

3.  Jesus is the eternal victor

And he’s going to make everything right. He’s going to settle every score. He’s going to return in power and glory (Rev 19). He’s going to establish a millennial kingdom (Rev 20). And then he’s going to establish a new heaven and a new earth with a New Jerusalem (Rev 21-22). 

Jesus is the eternal victor. Put your faith in him. Put your hope in him. Bow your knee to the victor, King Jesus.