Well, okay . . . so that’s a lot. Scholars regard Paul’s two letters to the believers in Thessalonika as his earliest. The church there was concerned about the end, the Day of the Lord, the promised return. November always brings us to the end. When we get to December, to Advent, that season of expectant waiting, we begin a new worship year. In November, we consider the end.

In those early days, there seems to have been great uncertainty about the Day of the Lord. Some thought, and taught, that it had already come. Paul seems to have thought the day might come during his lifetime. With the perspective of all these many centuries, let us not be too sure that the day will not come in our own lifetime. Above all, let us not dread that day.

Yet much of what Paul writes in this chapter sounds dreadful! Final rebellion? Wicked One? Some translations say the Man of Lawlessness. He sounds powerful, scary, evil. He isn’t Satan. He will have the power of Satan (2:9), which, as we know, or ought to by now, is the power of deceit. Flip Wilson, if anybody remembers him, was famous for the line “The devil made me do it.” It was funny because everyone knew, and we should know, too, that the devil cannot make us do anything, anything we don’t already want to do, that is. The devil’s power is the power of temptation, the power of deceit. This is nearly co-equal with the power of sin: always offering things that look so good but that prove to be so bad, so harmful, so shameful, so empty. Beloved, when temptation comes knocking, let’s have the good sense to look it straight in the face and see it and name it for what it is: lies!

As Paul tells us, this Wicked One, whoever he may be, “will oppose every so-called god or object of worship and will put himself above them all. He will even go in and sit down in God’s Temple and claim to be God” (2:4). The one follows from the other. As the wicked one puts himself above all gods, the end result is that he makes himself the object of worship, praise, and devotion. None is more worthy than he! Arrogance, pride, self—clues.

Do I know who the Wicked One is? No, not for certain. Does any human being know? None can, for certain. Is he already among us? No, and yes. In what Paul writes, it seems as if a necessary condition for the arising of this Man of Lawlessness is rebellion, the final rebellion. We’ve been raised in a culture that idolizes rebels and adores rebellion—I mean, how can you beat James Dean and Han Solo? And now, apparently, the Joker. If you’re not a rebel, you’re a nobody, or worse than a nobody. There’s a huge market for rebel merchandise. Scripture never praises rebellion, never praises a rebel. Rebellion, in Scripture, is always rebellion against God. That’s worth thinking about.

Out of rebellion will arise the Man of Lawlessness, the Wicked One. Scripture seems clear about how to regard lawlessness and wickedness: these are other names for sin, for sinfulness, and for sinners. We know we are to turn from sin. We know it’s not always so easy to turn from every sin: some sins have gotten themselves deeply rooted in our hearts. It still astounds us. We know the power to turn from sin does not come from within us but from outside us, through Jesus Christ, the powerful Word of God. Spirit and truth work together in those whom God has chosen, and by the power of God’s Spirit in Jesus Christ, we embark on the long, difficult process of turning from sin. We aren’t fully there yet, and we all know it. And we know God is getting us there, praise His glorious name. Amen!

But there remains a mass of humanity mired in sin, without Christ. Some of them don’t want him, will never want him. Some wish to remain as they are, to bury themselves even deeper in sin. If you have a strong enough stomach and enough iron in your heart, listen to the news, and you’ll soon enough hear all about such people.

Humanity is actively in rebellion against God and has been from the moment Eve’s teeth first sank into that fruit of knowledge. What knowledge did it bring? The knowledge of shame, guilt, and death. Scripture tells us that shame, guilt, and death are the fruit of rebellion. The word Paul uses is even clearer: apostasy (2:3). Apostasy is not a word we use much, but when we do use it, we are referring to a falling away, a turning away from faith. That’s telling. Beloved, know for a fact that Christianity is growing, globally. The only places it seems to be in decline are in Europe, the Middle East, and perhaps here in North America.

If Christianity is declining here, what is filling the spaces being vacated, those wandering hearts? Another faith. Different beliefs. Christian culture critics are concerned about the rise of secularism. Secularism is not atheistic. Secularism has a god: mankind, or, more precisely, a vision for humanity, a powerful vision because it is a vision of power, of people wielding power to reshape the world into their vision. It’s all so old. Sin never goes away; it just changes its costume and adopts a new alias.

Who is the Man of Lawlessness, the Wicked One? It may turn out to be some one figure, figurehead, but we already know who it is: it is us, people, humanity without God, without Christ, still groping for our lost paradise and willing to murder millions to get it. We have seen the enemy, and he is us.

Paul is not writing to focus upon the Wicked One or the apostasy, however. Paul disposes of the Wicked One definitively when he writes that the Man of Lawlessness is “destined to hell” (2:3). This foe of God will appear at the proper time, the appointed time, already arranged by God. None of this happens apart from God, without God’s permission: it is all part of God’s plan to make His glory known to all people, whether or not they want to know.

Paul tells the faithful—nearly two thousand years ago he told them—that the secret power of lawlessness “is already at work” (2:7), this Mysterious Wickedness. By that, he doesn’t mean wickedness just stumps us (“It’s a mystery!”), or that we have no way of knowing where it comes from or how it operates. We already know all of that! Wickedness comes from the heart and works by deceit, by telling lies and by accepting lies, loving, and worshiping lies, by building lives upon and around lies. The lies are self-serving, self-justifying. Sin has been at work a long time.

Paul speaks of a someone or a something that, for now, holds back the full force of this wickedness already at work (2:6). Some commentators believe Paul had the Roman Empire in view: a pagan force, certainly, but a force that took law, justice, peace, and civil order seriously. Well, the Roman Empire no longer exists. Paul may have had it in mind, but I wonder if he also didn’t have in mind the Church, the growing body of Christ. Beloved, laws are only as good as the people who make them. What stands in the way of wickedness is not law but a system of beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad, true and false—faith, in other words. All of those ideas are under constant attack, particularly in our times. For nearly two thousand years, the Church has been the wall, but the wall is under attack from both sides, from outside as always, and from within . . . as always.

Paul outlines what will happen, but he doesn’t elaborate. I think it’s because he’s not finally very concerned about it. He writes to encourage the faithful not to become preoccupied with it, not to let those matters weigh them down, or become a hobby, or call their attention away from their proper focus: growing in faith and growing in love.

Paul has already told us that the Wicked One is destined to hell: his doom is sure. To reiterate this, he then tells us that, “when the Lord Jesus comes, he will kill [this Man of Lawlessness] with the breath of his mouth and destroy him with his dazzling presence” (2:8). If with the breath of his mouth, the Word he speaks, Jesus can kill wickedness, the victory of Christ is sure. If his victory is sure, then his victory in us is sure, and if his victory in us is sure, then our victory is sure. That’s really all that needs to be said about the matter. That’s power we long to see, and power that we do see, every time we contemplate what God has done and is doing in us, every time we consider what God promises He will yet do for us. The dazzling presence of Christ. How I long to behold that glory! O day of victory! O day of fulfilled longing!

And Paul is candid about what will happen. There will be those also who will perish. Scripture has never hidden this. Jesus himself spoke quite openly and plainly about it. Our own experience tells us the undeniable truth of it. Many will be saved, and there will be those who perish. They will perish because they want the deceit more than the truth, the sin more than God because their god is sin: self-justifying, self-satisfying, self-adoring sin. These “will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved” (2:10). Ah, but what is truth? Quite right, Pilate. Satan loves that question. And what are we to say? Let us continue to read, study, and share the Word of God.

Truth is a curious thing. There are those who love the truth, and those who say they love the truth. Truth demands a decision. The truth, truth be told, is almost always exactly contrary to our sin-addled heart’s wishes. The truth is in conflict with our fallen will, our fallen vision, our fallen values. You want evidence of miracles? Your faith. God overcomes our love of lies.

Should God override the will of those who would perish rather than accept the Truth? Evangelist and author Ravi Zacharias, quotes C. S. Lewis: “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who bend their knee to God and say to Him, ‘Your will be done,’ or those who refuse to bend their knee to God and God says to them, ‘Your will be done.’” “The result is that all who have not believed the truth, but have taken pleasure in sin, will be condemned” (2:12). Is this not as it should be? Is this not the logical, the necessary result for those who worship sin, who never have and never will turn to God? If you seek death avidly, eagerly, continually, you will find it. But who seeks death?

Paul is blunt, maybe too blunt, yet he also wants to reassure the faithful that they are safe in Jesus Christ, safe no matter what happens, no matter whatever apostasy, no matter whatever Man of Lawlessness, in spite of the secret power of wickedness even now at work in the world. We are safe, safe in Jesus. “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (2:13).

It’s all in God’s hands. Why us? Why me? Why you? I can’t answer that, except to say it’s somehow all for God’s glory, as we will know in God’s time. In the meantime, Paul encourages, exhorts, expects us to “stand firm and hold on to those truths which we taught you” (2:15). Live your faith, every day. Rejoice in God, every day. Keep your Bible close. Keep praying. Have patience. Have faith. Have humility. Whatever may come, whenever it may come, it’s all in God’s hands.

          ^“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word” (2:16-17).