Building on the Foundation

  In recent blog posts, we’ve analyzed the mystery of lawlessness mentioned in 2 Thessalonians. The mystery of lawlessness describes human attempts to change or abolish God’s appointed times and laws. It describes a counterfeit gospel — the one preached by mainstream Christianity! As we’ve seen, mainstream Christianity is the spiritual descendant of pagan Israel and Samaria . It pays lip service to God the Father and Jesus Christ, but teaches men to disobey God’s Word. And, as we’ve also seen, it mixes paganism with God’s truth. At the end of this age, the mystery of lawlessness culminates with a man that the apostle Paul described as the “man of sin,” “son of perdition,” and “lawless one” (2 Thes. 2:3, 8). A man “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thes. 2:4). A man elsewhere called the Beast or the Antichrist. This Antichrist, and the system he represents...