LEARNING DAILY

 

2 Thessalonians 2:7-9, 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. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is in according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,

 

I must clarify the role of the Holy Spirit as written about in the last page of the blog. The Holy Spirit is restraining the lawlessness that is increasing in the world and all around us in these days. He is working in and through the faithful Church who is seeking diligently to walk the narrow way with the Lord Jesus Christ! When the Church is removed from the earth that restraint will be lifted, the man of lawlessness will come into power and evil and lawlessness will grow even greater. The Holy Spirit will still be here because He is God and is omnipresent. His role will still be to save the lost and empower them during the tribulation. The Holy Spirit will no longer be restraining the works of Satan; Satan will then work through the Antichrist to perform all the signs and wonders he wants in order to deceive those in the world after the Church is removed.

 

“In the twinkling of an eye” millions of people will disappear from the earth. Can you understand the confusion, chaos, and disorder that will cause? Can you relate the lawlessness you are seeing in the world and in this country growing many times worse than what you see because the Holy Spirit is no longer restraining evil? 

 

Can you imagine the confusion in government and economic systems? What control will government have in order to restore control over people able to do anything they want because so many have disappeared and are not there to prevent those left behind to do what they want. How successful have city governments been today in preventing the looting of stores, preventing the number of killings we see in cities? Remember those people who are not taken in the rapture are those people who have never accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior! They are self-centered, greedy, conceited, braggarts, unloving, and worldly thinking people who blaspheme God – in other words, they are not very nice! This is only a partial list of the description Timothy gives of people in the last days in his second letter, chapter 3. Do you think they will all of a sudden change their behavior when Christians are removed, or will they see opportunities to feed their desires?

 

Think of the economic impact when so many Christians are gone! Is there any question about the economic stability in the world right now?  If we think we are seeing banks fail and high prices now, consider how stable financial institutions will be when millions of people are removed from the earth. We are already seeing banking problems, the uncertainty of the value of money, high inflation, and the possible replacement of the U.S. dollar as the basis for world currency. After the rapture, loans for all sorts of items will not be paid back, companies will not be able to make their budgets, pay employees still there, and stocks will fall in value. Economic chaos and collapse!

 

In The Revelation, chapter 6, John saw four riders on horses that created world-wide conflict, death, famine and scarcity on the earth. If governments around the world are in chaos and not stable how can this all be resolved? “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is in according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders”! The lawless one, the Antichrist comes with the solution.

 

I am not establishing a timetable nor a particular sequence of events. Observe the lawlessness in the world right now and consider that the rapture of the faithful Church could happen at any time. The question each of us needs to ask ourselves is are we being diligent about our own walk on the narrow way. Are we eagerly anticipating the trumpet to sound, calling us to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds? If not, you need to do so! You do not want to be left behind!