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Guest (Male): There are passages in scripture that feel more like a gathering storm than a quiet devotional. And Second Thessalonians 2 is one of those: the man of lawlessness, a worldwide apostasy, a day of judgment unlike anything in human history. Unsettling? Absolutely. But it doesn't have to be confusing.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll brings his trademark clarity to one of the Bible's most prophetic chapters. And what emerges isn't dread, but deep and durable hope. Tucked inside this sobering passage is the greatest news a believer could hear: your king is coming, and he wins.

Chuck Swindoll: What earthquakes are to the regions they affect, the divine judgment of the day of the Lord will be to the whole world. Every person on earth during that time will experience its tremors and destruction. Think of that.

Paul had taught the Thessalonian believers about the day of the Lord and its terrors, but apparently the church members had become confused about the timing, fearing that the quaking of God's judgment had already begun. The focus of our passage today deals with Paul's attempt to steady the doctrinal legs of that church.

Before we launch into his explanation, however, it will be helpful for us to read this section of scripture. So turn with me in your Bibles to Second Thessalonians chapter 2, and I'll be reading verses 1 through 12.

Second Thessalonians 2 and verse 1 begins: "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God."

"Do you not remember that while I was still with you I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 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. Then that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming."

"That is, the one whose coming is in accordance with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence, so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness."

Guest (Male): You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into Second Thessalonians on your own, be sure to purchase our searching the scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message "Lawlessness: The Man and the Mystery."

Chuck Swindoll: Of all the calamities that we may have to endure, perhaps nothing is worse than an earthquake. It comes with such swift and sudden destruction. There is never even a few seconds warning, and we are always surprised. People from China to Chile could tell their horrible stories. From Indonesia to Africa and on into Alaska, and certainly from Italy to Mexico, the stories of terror and horror stun us.

I don't believe I know a native Californian who can't tell his or her own story of horror as you have endured on more than one occasion a quake. Sometime they are small, they are slight tremors, and who hasn't out on the west coast had supper with a family or friends on some occasion and someone at the table said, "Did you feel the quake today?" And you didn't, so you say, "No, I missed it."

And usually if you're at this kind of table where those veterans and those natives are sitting, they will get on the subject of there will be a quake in the future someday that you won't miss. It will rock the scales at 8.5 or more. Yeah, as a matter of fact, we are not safe from quakes like that. You're not even safe if you are at sea.

In a fine book entitled "The Genesis Flood," an old book now but a good one, Whitcomb and Morris spend some time describing a tsunami. The tsunami is what is created at sea when the epicenter is on the ocean floor. They write: "Probably the most destructive of all waves is that form of tidal wave known as the tsunami. Actually, these are not true tidal waves, although commonly called so, but they are caused by submarine earthquakes and volcanic eruptions or slides."

"They have been known to attain velocities of 400 or more miles per hour and heights of 130 feet and travel extraordinary distances. The great Krakatoa earthquake in the East Indies in 1883 created immense waves at least 100 feet high and traveling up to 450 miles per hour, inundating neighboring islands and drowning nearly 40,000 people."

"A tsunami from this quake was still two feet high as it passed Ceylon and nine inches high beyond the Arabian Sea. In 1946, a tsunami originating in a quake in the Aleutian Islands region traveled 470 miles per hour across the Pacific, creating a 19 foot high tidal wave on the shores of Hawaii with great destruction."

"Even more recently," they continue, "tsunamis generated by the destructive Chilean earthquakes of 1960 have demonstrated once again the power available in this type wave. A news account states the disastrous series of earthquakes that struck Chile late in May 1960 has brought death and destruction to countries on the perimeter of the entire Pacific. In the wake of the earthquakes, great tidal waves up to 50 feet high and traveling at jet speeds of 525 miles an hour caused extensive damage to Pacific ports from Japan to California, from Alaska to New Zealand."

Yesterday morning I was sitting in my little fishing boat off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean fishing with my younger son, Chuck. And we were having a great time, a mile or so from the shore. And then as things got a little quiet and we were pulling the kelp off our lines and thinking about this mammoth fish we were going to catch, I began to think about my introduction to this message today.

Suddenly I wasn't too concerned about fishing and the catch of the day, especially when he said, "Watch out Dad, here comes a swell." And I imagined this tsunami coming over me at that time. You're not even safe at sea. What the great earthquake is to the Californian, the Great Tribulation is to the whole world. You will not escape it.

Every person on the earth at the time of the Great Tribulation will experience its tremors and its destruction. Now if you're like me, you will treat that information sort of like you treat the information about the great quake. I know there are scientists with big thick glasses that hide out at MIT and Caltech and work with their voodoo figures in there and tell us it's coming, it's coming, don't tell us we didn't warn you. And all the while we live and buy and sell and die with hardly a thought that we'll ever experience it.

But one of these days, one of these awful days, we will. We will. But by comparison, the terrors of the Great Tribulation are stunning. And I find people, even Christian people, who hear information like that and pass it off as if it weren't meant to disturb their peace. And for a Christian, it shouldn't. For we'll never know the horrors of it. But many of our friends will. Dare I say, most?

Now what does all of this about earthquakes and tsunamis and tidal waves and Great Tribulation, what does all of this have to do with the Thessalonian letter we're studying? Well, everything, as a matter of fact. Everything. In fact, that particular subject is precisely the reason Paul wrote them two letters instead of one.

You see, they had been carefully instructed about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the sky to catch believers off this earth, whether living or dead, and to sweep them from time into eternity. First Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 to 18. A great section of scripture on that marvelous Day of Christ, when believers the world over will be taken from earth to heaven in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

Listen to these wonderful words, First Thessalonians 4:13. "We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who have fallen asleep."

That is, we will not precede those who have died. And now the order of events. "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." Mark those two prepositional phrases: in the clouds, in the air. That's where we'll be caught up. "And thus we shall always," mark that one, "in the clouds, in the air, always be with the Lord. Comfort one another with these words."

Well, I don't know about you, but there are times in my life where I draw great comfort and hope to go on from First Thessalonians 4:13 to 18. Paul even went on to describe the difference between the Day of Christ and the judgmental Day of the Lord. Keep reading in this same book, chapter 5 verse 1. "Now as to the times and epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you."

I take it that he spent a lot of time during his four to six weeks in Thessalonica describing these events. So he said, "I write these words just by way of review, you hardly need the reminder. For you yourselves know full well that the Day of the Lord," now there's a difference between the Day of Christ and the Day of the Lord.

The Day of Christ is a day of great relief. It is a day of great release. It is a day when believers in Jesus Christ, whether living or dead, are caught up together in one great reunion to be forever with the Lord. That's the Day of Christ. Having trusted Christ and having believed in him with all of our hearts, he who began a good work in us will perform it until when? The Day of Christ. That's our end of life on this earth as Christians.

But that isn't the end of life on this earth. For on this earth will remain only unbelievers or non-Christians for a period of time. And he writes of that Day of the Lord and some things that will transpire beginning at verse 2. "The Day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, 'Peace and safety,' then," you'd think an earthquake struck, "destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape."

This is the kind of thing that ought to keep the unsaved awake through the night. This is the kind of information God gives in his word designed to bring a person, if by fear, to the foot of the cross. They shall not escape. "But you, brethren," now he's back to the Christian, "you are not in darkness that that day should overtake you like a thief. You're all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night or the darkness. So then let us who are, let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober."

Your return to Christ is soon to come. It's the next event in the prophetic calendar. And we don't know when it will be. Now everything is well and good as you read through the rest of this letter because you and I don't live in Thessalonica and we're in the 20th and not the first century.

But for some untold reason, persecution began to break upon the Thessalonians. Being in one of the metropolitan areas as Rome, or as Philippi, or perhaps as Athens, one of the major centers of population in the first century, when persecution began to spread, it struck Thessalonica with heavy blows.

And some of these very Christians, some of these who received this letter, began to lose their family members, lost their jobs. Some of them were martyred as families and they paid the ultimate price for their faith in Christ. And other Christians who lived through it began to wonder if they had missed something in God's plan. And you would and I would too.

We thought Paul said that we would be taken up to be with our Lord and then there would be destruction. And look at the destruction. We've missed the coming of Christ. We're into the Day of the Lord. And so he wrote Second Thessalonians. And he says in this second Thessalonian letter, "You haven't missed it. You haven't missed a thing. What you are experiencing is a few little tremors, but the great quake hasn't yet struck."

In fact, he begins this second letter, you may recall, by affirming them. He tells them, verse 3, "We give thanks to God for you." Verse 4, "We speak proudly of you." Verse 11, "We pray for you." I hope you have those three lines marked in your Bible as I do. We give thanks for you, we speak proudly of you, we pray for you. Those are three things you do for people who are really going through hard times. Nothing more affirming and encouraging than hearing from a believer who loves them and is praying for them through it and is available to help wherever.

Now Paul's affirmation and encouragement turns to clarification and explanation in the next section of this passage. Chapter 2, take a look. "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him," that's the Day of Christ. That's when we are swept from this earth into the presence of Christ as a body of believers in the church. "That you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or to be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us."

You see, this is what happened. As the bottom fell out of their lives, the rumor began to spread that they had in fact miscalculated or they had somehow missed the event that God had promised them through Paul's teaching. And they were sure that they had tumbled and plunged into the tribulation time. They had moved from the Day of Christ, somehow they missed that, and they were now into the Day of the Lord.

And Paul says, "No, that hasn't happened." And those that passed the rumor around said, "Haven't you heard about this special revelation? I mean there was some kind of signal in the sky, or we heard about a message that Paul had spoken and he talked of this occurring." And some even said, "We have a letter that he wrote. Here's the letter." And it was obviously if it was a letter, it was a forgery. Paul never wrote such a letter.

He says in this passage, there has been no revelation, there has been no message preached, and I have written no such letter. So stop worrying. Go back to your business. You haven't missed a thing. As though the Day of the Lord has come.

By the way, I don't want to just hurry over this. I want to say something about heresy and how these rumors spread. It's been my observation that when heresies develop into cults and gain a following, they do so because of the claim of these same three things. Someone either has a spirit about him or her or a message as if from God or a letter, some divine document that God has written or led some man or woman to write.

And now with this inspired, so-called, text, we have the basis of a new religion and we're to follow it because this is special revelation from God. And invariably, Christians who are weak in theology are disturbed and shaken from their composure, invariably. There is nothing to give you confidence and a solid footing like good theology, sound understanding of your faith. These Thessalonians were really new Christians and Paul had to assure them that there had been no such letter or special revelation.

One more thought on this before we jump into the other. We need to bask in the joy and the relief of our Lord's soon coming. How long has it been since you've even thought of it? Most people think of it right after incurring an enormous debt. They think, "That's going to be my answer. I'm going to leave it in the tribulation, let them work it out."

I thought of it a lot when we redecorated our home. I prayed for it more than ever that his coming would be swift and sure, especially swift. Take me out of this mess. But without any of the extras, when is the last time you began the morning saying, "Lord, it may be today. I'm going to live like it is."

See, never once is the return of Christ given us as a bracket for carnality. As a matter of fact, if my study is correct, if not every time, most every time our Savior's return is mentioned, "clean up your act" is associated with it. Be ready. Be clean. Be pure. You're the bride, ready for his coming. But there is another part of the story that isn't answered by our leaving. And that part of the story has to do with those who are left.

Verses 3 through 12, we have an explanation not of the Day of Christ but of the Day of the Lord. I'm going to give you four words, and though they are not original with me, I have found a lot of help in allowing them to be a mental outline for the 3 through 12 verses of Second Thessalonians 2. They all begin with D-E: defiance, delay, destruction, delusion. All right? Defiance: verses 3 and 4. Delay: verses 5 to 7. Destruction: verses 8 to 10. Delusion: 11 and 12.

Let's take them one by one and see if we can unravel verses that for some people seem terribly confusing. First, the defiance, verse 3. "Let no one in any way deceive you." You know why he says that now, don't you? Some had deceived them into thinking that they were already in the Day of the Lord, that judgment was sweeping across the world, that tribulation was occurring, that the mark of the beast was upon them.

No, no, he says, "No. Let no one in any way deceive you. For it," that is the Day of the Lord, the time of earthly judgment, "will not come unless, number one, the apostasy comes first and, number two, the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God."

Guest (Male): Paul's letter to the Thessalonians while written 2,000 years ago steadies our hearts even today. The tremors we feel in our own world, the uncertainty, the unrest, the sense that things are coming undone are not signs that God has lost control. They're reminders that he's still on his throne.

To hear today's message again, download the Insight mobile app where you can listen for free. Chuck Swindoll's eight-part series is called Steadfast Christianity. If you'd like to study today's passage more deeply, we invite you to purchase the complete series from Insight for Living by calling us at 800-772-8888.

As a companion resource to our study in Second Thessalonians, we're offering a classic book from Chuck that deals with a common theme. And that theme is leadership. If you think about it, no matter the capacity, everyone is a leader to someone, whether it's your congregation, your staff at work, or your little ones at home. So this book about Nehemiah applies to everyone.

Maybe you're carrying a heavy load right now, the work is hard, the critics are loud, and some days you wonder if it's worth it. Nehemiah felt the same way, but he kept saying, "Hand me another brick," and the wall around Jerusalem went up. Chuck's book by that same name will remind you why the work matters, how to lead through opposition, and where to find the strength to finish what God called you to build.

We'll send you a copy of "Hand Me Another Brick" when you make a generous gift to Insight for Living. Our address is Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas, 75034. Whatever amount you choose to send Insight for Living will be channeled toward reaching more people, folks just like you, with Chuck's Bible teaching. In hearing these programs, others learn to walk with God just as you have. Call 800-772-8888. Or to give a donation and request the book "Hand Me Another Brick," go to insight.org/donate.

Bill Meyer: I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll continues his study in Second Thessalonians called Steadfast Christianity, Friday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "Lawlessness: The Man and the Mystery," was copyrighted in 1986, 1991, 2002, and 2024. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2024 by Charles R. Swindoll, Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited. Insight for Living is the Bible-teaching ministry of Chuck Swindoll.