So let's start with the word of prayer. Father, we thank you for being able to gather again together. We always say that, it seems like earlier I do, but it's such a reality. Other places it's much more difficult. We think of, you know, want to just remember our brothers and sisters around the world, and some places, you know, China and whatnot, where they're just really difficult to meet together and couldn't meet this openly in a group. such a blessing that we still have, and it may be going away even, but we're thankful for it, and we're here, we're glad to be in your word and studying it. Help us to have a good understanding as we work through it, and that I communicate well, Lord, and be truthful to your word. So just guide us tonight, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So we're still in this passage of Second Thessalonians, Chapter two, working our our way through the definitions still is is how I decided to do it. And if you recall, my thought was to go through, look at all the main characters and the main events, players and events, I guess, that are in this section from versus one down to I don't think it was twelve or so. And we came up with six, six, I think. And so we've we've looked at being gathered together and we conclude, I think I conclude and I hope you're following along with me. But it seems pretty conclusive. It's the rapture of the church. We looked at that. And that's that's where pretty much everyone is on that as far as when you read. And then we looked at the difference between the rapture and the second coming and try to make a distinct difference between the rapture and the second coming. It was very distinct differences between the two. So and the next thing that on the prophetic agenda would be the rapture of the church, which we think could happen any time, really sooner than later. And then we just finished. Let's see. Looking at the day of the Lord. and went through that. And the Day of the Lord is a really big event. It seems to take place possibly right at the rapture. The rapture seems to come without any warning. It's an imminent return and the day of the Lord is said to come like a thief in the night. So it makes us think that the rapture happens and then what falls on the world is a very difficult time. There could be some gap there, which a lot of people think there could be a couple year gap before the day of the Lord actually starts. Not sure of that timing but after the rapture. And so we looked at that the day of the Lord, and it's a lot of events that happen that are scary, a day of darkness and doom and and mostly aimed at Israel at the time of Jacob's trouble. This seven year period of the tribulation is all fixed around finishing out the 70 weeks of Daniel. We've we've completed 69 weeks of Daniel, and that ended that 69th week ended when Jesus came into Jerusalem, and he was rejected, and he was cut off as the verbiage goes. And so, there is still a week left, a week of years, seven years that are left. And so, that is dealing with the Jews, with Israel. And so, it doesn't have anything to do with the Church. The Church is a separate entity that will be we believe taken out because we've got three good verses that really speak about you're not appointed to suffer wrath, to go through wrath. That's the position that we hold, a typical dispensational, pre-tribulational view that Lenten's taught for many years. So, this week what we're going to start looking at, we're in verse 3 now. We're just looking at the rebellion next. What is the rebellion? Okay, let me read the verse to you. 2 Thessalonians 2, 3, Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion, and you may have apostasy, comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed. We're going to look at him. the son of destruction. OK, so we're going to look at the rebellion first tonight and then we should get to the man of lawlessness as well. I think we'll get on down to him. So the definition of rebellion or apostasy in the Greek is defection from truth. OK, defection from truth. Falling away forsake. It's only used twice in the New Testament here and over in Acts 2121. I'll just read that to you. It has to do with Paul. And when he was he had come back to Jerusalem, he was teaching out in the. Temple area, I believe, and people that use came after him, but they have been told, no, the guys are telling about this. That's right. It's at the the meeting with Peter and the other guys, but they're telling them. They have told about you and that you teach all Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake, there's the word for apostasy, to forsake Moses, which in a sense was true, but not really, you know, and it's kind of twisting what Paul was teaching and telling them not to circumcise their children and walk according to our customs. And so that's the other use of apostasy. And then I'll give you another one that this, There's three of them in the Old Testament, in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was done a couple hundred years before Christ, when Alexander the Great conquered the world. He had a library set up in Alexandria, and he wanted all these good Greek texts in there, and he wanted all the good books or the major books or whatever translated into Greek. And so The Septuagint was created during Alexander the Great's time. And so we have a Greek, a good Greek translation of the Old Testament. And so let me just read Jeremiah 219 to you. This comes from that Greek Old Testament says your evil will chastise you and your apostasy will reprove you. No one see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord, your God. The fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts. So you see apostasy is in a negative way. It's a falling away. And he you know, he critiques them for not having the fear of the Lord, which remember everyone run around with a shirt that said no fear. Remember Linton talking about that one time? It's like, you know. That didn't go over big with him, but it doesn't go over big with the Lord either. Fear is a very good motivating factor sometimes, and sometimes the Lord uses fear to get us back on track. I can testify to that. He just can rattle your cage when He wants to, anytime He wants to, any way He wants to. And fear is a good thing, a proper fear of the Lord. And He's not all just love. He can get your attention if He wants. So we always need to think of that. It also says, just finishing out this, declares the Lord God of hosts. And you can just take hosts out of there and put in armies. That's really what that means. He's the God of armies. He can back up what he's going to do. You know what I mean? We need to think of God that way. I mean, that's who he is. He is the God of armies. Okay, Barnes has a little note here about this apostasy. He says, it is evident that the apostle had a specific apostasy in view, some great system that would greatly corrupt the Christian faith, and the words here should be interpreted with reference to that. And it says, the falling away. And they make a point of that, that those words go together in the Greek, however you work out the Greek there. MacArthur says much the same. He says, the language indicates a specific event, not general apostasy, which exists now and always will. Rather, Paul has in mind the apostasy. Okay, so it's a specific event, and so we're gonna look for that a little bit, and we're gonna look at apostasy in general. There's lots of apostasy, as MacArthur just put, it's been going on right from, you know, from the time they told us that the apostasy was coming, you know, clear back in the first century. I mean, we're just gonna look at apostasy, and I don't think, I don't think I see the apostasy yet. I think I see maybe some things that could be, and we're gonna kinda look at those things as well as we just work through this, okay? So that's kinda where we're headed is the apostasy. What's that about? I'm trying to understand a little bit. So let's turn over to 1 Timothy 4, 1. 1 Timothy 4, 1. Now, the spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity or hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared teachings of demons. This is doctrines which are inspired by demons is probably the best way to think of that, OK? It's not like you can go down the street to another class here and have some demons speak to you. But there could be people that are influenced by demons. And certainly, we've seen that type of thing. Deception is a word. Of course, we know Satan is a deceiver, and his demons are all running on the same thread. Same fuel he's running on, I guess you'd say, using the same types of things. Insincerity or hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared. Their teachings are not in accordance with the truth of God's word. They know this and purposely deceive people. Okay, there's those types. They're making a buck or whatever they're doing, but they're doing it on purpose, okay? And then some teachers are just deceived and pass on their deceit, okay? So two kinds of deceit there, those that know it and those that are just deceived in teaching. Some of the things that get taught, and we'll just run through a little list here, starting with the ecumenical movement, if you've heard of that. It started, I didn't think it was this old, but 1910 is what I find, and basically it was ignoring doctrine for the sake of unity. It was just gathering churches together. Hey, we're all, we all believe the same thing. We all believe in the same God, you know, whatever. And it was a pretty big, this ecumenical movement. I remember my folks talking about it, but for the sake of unity, we're going to hold hands. And even, you know, you could say, tell them a cat bit of that going on with, they used to have joy night. all the churches would get together and sing or something, right? Promise Keepers is an ecumenical movement. Yeah, it sure was. Yeah. Ministerial Association, Linton said that was pretty ecumenical for some time. We're gonna separate on some of these things, it's important, we have to. Non-negotiables. Prosperity theology, okay, and we still see that today. Actually started in the 50s and sometimes referred to as prosperity gospel or health, wealth, and gospel. But you can get wealthy. Matter of fact, let me read this to you. gospel of success as a Christian, religious doctrine that financial blessings is the will of God for Christians, and that faith, positive speech, and the donations to Christian ministries will always increase one's material wealth. By the way, You see that on TV mostly, I think. Emerging or emergent church. They're actually a little different in reading about them, but rather similar. This is a trans-denominational movement that seeks to reshape Christian epistemology. which is the knowledge of the word. Doctrines and practices so they'll fit into a post-modern world. And basically they say, let's have a conversation about these things. And they get real ecumenical too. Pretty much everyone's included in. They just like to talk about these things. It's kind of cool and hip. Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Doug Badgett came around in the 90s. you know, they all draw people away. I don't think it's what we're talking about tonight. I mean, I think it's good to bring them up, but I don't think that we can point to any one of these and say this is the apostasy. But I think it's good. We just kind of look at it and work down through this stuff. OK, Hebrew Roots Movement. OK, emphasize the Jewish roots of Christianity and understanding of Jesus in the New Testament in the light of Old Testament observances and Jewish tradition. Started around 95 or so, and they would celebrate some of the feasts of Israel and candles and rituals, that type of thing. Probably not as popular, but we knew people involved in that. Is COVID-19 causing an apostasy or a rebellion from the truth? There's been a drop in church attendance. I tried doing some research on that, like with Pew Research and stuff, and they really didn't have anything any more current than March of this year, and the Delta pretty well hit after that. They seem to think that, yeah, there's a big dip, but it's coming back. Time will tell. But there was some interesting data in here from Pew that says, More than 40% of historically black Protestant traditionally churches, okay, say their faith has been strengthened by the pandemic. and a little bit less at 37% of evangelical Protestants. Their faith has been strengthened. That'd be us, I think, in their grouping. And then it declined quite a bit with the Catholics and mainline Protestants and those that are religiously unaffiliated. people who don't like church. But how much the COVID has done, it hasn't helped us. We've had people that have just gone, they're not coming back. But how bad that is, is it the big apostasy? I don't think so at this point. Who knows, maybe the next variant coming through will clean the house out. So it seems like the apostasy is bigger than that with what's in verse three that we're looking at. Here's another thing to think about is climate change. And part of the reason I bring this up is, you know, they just had the big climate summit. It just finished two days ago over in... Glasgow? Scotland? And some of the things that were said there are rather interesting. There's a researcher from the University of Strathclyde and climate activist, Fraser Stewart, also argued that the climate movement should not just be limited to environmental concerns, stating that climate justice is social justice. They're trying to bring those together, okay. And here's his quote, this is not just a crisis of climate or emissions, this is a crisis of justice, of inequality, of poverty, of racism, of classism, of workers' rights and women's rights and every intersection in between. a crisis go to waste, exactly. It is almost becoming a religion. Matter of fact, I read one article that said Greta Thornburg and Al Gore are the evangelists. Your carbon taxes are your tithes. And then they went on from there with a number of things. You know, some people, saving the planet is huge. I mean, they're just really very much into that. Of course, remind ourselves here, Romans 1, therefore God gave them up to the less of their, hearts to impurity to dishonoring their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. And we do see that in that whole movement is a worship of earth, a worship of creation rather than God. There's another thing going on which kind of goes along with this. United Nations 2030 agenda started in 2015. It was a 15-year plan to get carbon neutral type of stuff. They had 17 SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals. And you see that if you start looking at this stuff, you see these, that's how they put it, SDG, with 169 targets they were trying to reach. I don't know how that's going. And the World Economic Forum, we've talked about that a little in some other venues, but whatever, they have a climate agenda as well. And they seem to be really doing quite a bit right now, those guys. That's where all the elites of the world gather. And they have been for quite a few years now. They gather in Davos, Switzerland, and decide things about how they want the world to go. And what's interesting is these things seem to be coming together. This is a little off topic, but You know, Biden put out his mandate that, you know, you're going to be vaccinated by such and such a date. And he just finally got the paperwork going through the OSHA there. But it doesn't go into effect till January 4th. But now we just had some judges, a judge kind of stopped it, then three judges backed him up. It's the people that are making it happen are the businesses. It's the big businesses. It's the United Airlines. It's the major businesses that are enacting. The government really hasn't done anything yet. It's the businesses that are enacting it. And you wonder, OK, are the leaders of those some of the players that go to Davos? I don't know the answers to that. Probably some of them are, but it's interesting how it's being enacted. It's not being enacted by government. Some of it is. But I saw a headline today that said, Austria just enacted lockdowns for unvaccinated, and cops are going to be doing spot checks. And I don't know, I didn't get to read it, I don't know how, what those lockdowns entail for those people that are unvaccinated, but that's a huge thing. 2 Timothy 4-3. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but will have itching ears, and they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. Okay, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. This word passions is a longing, especially for what is forbidden, okay? And then it goes into sexual desires, desire, lust, those types of things. And prosperity gospel feeds towards those types of things, and this world, the pleasures of this world, and you can attain those through those types of things. Again, Lots of apostasy, lots of ways to apostatize, fall away from the truth. Don't really see anything that is the apostasy yet, okay? 2 Peter 2.1. 2 Peter 2.1. And we'll just read a couple of verses here. It goes all the way through like to 22 or so on this theme. But we'll just look at a couple of verses up here, first three or so. The false prophets arose among the people just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies. You know, a couple of years ago, Holstein, he did an interview with King, Larry King, and It was interesting. I don't remember the question Larry asked, but as Olsteen answered it, we just worked through it. And I was like, that's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's hugely false. You know, we look at this here, secretly bring in destructive heresies. You know, there was a lot of truth in what he had said in that statement, but there was one huge area of falsehood that would really lead you down bad paths. Whether he knows that or he believes that, you know, you can answer the Lord for that. But we've got to guard, again, you know, we've got to guard our doctrines, our really important doctrines, that we stay with them. Even denying the master who bought them, continue on in verse one. And that, you know, denying the master who bought them, denying the deity of Christ, we've got a number of cults that do that, just Jesus is not. you know, God incarnate. He's something less. He's, we got the son of, or the brother of Satan. I don't remember who teaches that. We got a number of things that are just really take the deity of Christ away. And that would be denying the master who bought them, who paid the price for them, okay? Bring upon themselves swift destruction. Remember that word. And many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed, they'll exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle. And their destruction, again, is not asleep. So following sensuality, again, the material desires of prosperity gospel. But also, we remember Bhagwan over there in Antelope. It was free sex. And he attracted a lot of people and a lot of money. He had 93 Rolls Royces. He had bought a turboprop. I know he was thinking of buying a helicopter because I went out to lunch with a couple of his mechanics and they were looking at buying one of our helicopters and we were talking about the maintenance and all that on that. There's a lot of money there that came into that place. Free sex, I guess, gets it there. I don't know. But it was quite a following. So it was following sensuality. People just hear what they want to hear and follow it. Like in Corinth, where they had the temple, and they had 1,000 prostitutes. Well, boy, does that not attract many. Again, not seeing the great falling away, a great apostasy that stands out in any of these things, but we do see that there's apostasy all around us. One more verse here, go to 2 Peter 3, 3. Knowing this, first of all, the scoffers will come in the last day with scoffing, follow their own sinful desires. And this, too, draws away people who are professing Christ. No one wants to be caught on the wrong side of history. And, you know, if everyone's scoffing, you know, and Christians, you know, if if they're just professors in our churches and it's been a comfortable place, well, when it gets too uncomfortable, you know, the professors move on, okay? And those aren't professors with plaques on the wall, these are just people that profess Christ but don't know Christ, okay? So the summary wise for the rebellion or the apostasy, it's definite, it's distinguishable time of falling away from the truth. And I just don't think we're seeing it yet. We may see it tomorrow. You know, we could see it. And I'll just say this, too, as we we're going through looking at all these, as I said, you know, player, we're going to get a player next. OK, the man of lawlessness. and events, and then when we get done with this, we're gonna go back through, having had the definitions kind of work through, and try and figure out the timeline, okay? And I struggle, honestly, with where this apostasy is. Is it before the rapture or after the rapture? Are we gonna see it or not see it, I guess would be my question, and where to place that. So that's something that we'll be looking at later. Alright, back into our text of 2 Thessalonians 2, going to verse 3, if you want to find that again. And so we've looked at the rebellion And we'll just read it from one down now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and are being gathered together. And we're calling that the rapture to him. We ask you brothers 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 is coming. We've looked at the day of the Lord. It's a big. a big deal, a big time, and it's not a single day. You've got to remember that. You've got your little timeline. We're going to say the day of the Lord goes pretty much from the rapture clear to the end of the millennium. So we'll say it's a thousand and seven years long, at least. I mean, that's the way I think about it. OK, it's it's his day. It's his time. OK. Verse three, let no one deceive you in any way for that day, the day of the Lord, will not come unless the rebellion or the apostasy comes first. And we just looked at that. And then the man of lawlessness is revealed. That's what we're gonna look at next. The son of destruction. We were just talking about people that were going to destruction in that last verse, okay? 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. Okay? So, paramount there on him. Has someone got man of sin or man of lawlessness? Either would fit their sin equals lawlessness and just this verse here. First, John three, four. Everyone who makes it practices sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. OK, so interchangeable. OK, well, a man of sin, man of lawlessness and also the son of destruction. So. Another name for lawlessness, and we'll just see this as we work through it, is Antichrist. And John's the only one who uses that name, and only in his little epistles, okay? But let's take a look at those, 1 John 2, 18. So we're moving on to the man of lawlessness. Who is the man of lawlessness? First John 2.18, children, it's the last hour, and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour, okay? And again, we get this one, this verbiage, the last hour, okay? Said 2,000 years ago, what do we do with that? And again, I just think if we're thinking with the mind of Christ, time just goes away, and it's the last hour, okay? And there's, Antichrist is coming, and there are many Antichrists. And we see that spirit of Antichrist in all these things that we've been looking at, okay, in this apostasy that we've been looking at that's going on, not the apostasy, but apostasy that's been going on down through the ages. OK, and then drop down a year and 18 drop down to 22. Same chapter there. Who is the liar? But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist who denies the father and the son. And we spoke about that just a little bit about, you know, that not believing who Christ is, not attaching deity to him or not connecting the father and the son together. That would be another spirit of Antichrist. And then MacArthur has this to say, it is a proper name, Antichrist, and refers to the coming final world ruler, a man energized by Satan. who will seek to replace and oppose the true Christ. And when we think of anti, we think of oppose. But we need to think of replace, okay? That that's his desire. He is against God. I don't mean to diminish that at all. But he wants to replace him. He wants his place. And let's go over to Matthew four and take a look at that. This is the temptation of Jesus. Matthew four, and we'll just pick it up in eight. It says, and again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. There's that replacement, okay? He believes in replacement theology there, okay? He wants to replace God. He wants the worship to come to him, okay? And of course, the Lord replies with scripture, begone, Satan, for it is written you shall not, for you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. So that would be the Antichrist's desire would be to replace, but he's totally against as well. Here's a question to ask, what kind of things in our lives threaten to replace our worship of Christ? Now, I could have a big list, but I don't. I think we've all got our own lists, and probably what comes first to your mind is the first thing we need to work on, huh? Okay. But what threatens to replace our worship of Christ? There are things in our lives that come up, and it's just something to think about. Things that distract us. How easy is it for us to find a reason to forsake the assembling of the saints? And then that verse finishes out, and all the more as you see the day approaching, which it would seem like we see the day approaching. And then a verse just to finish this little thought out about things that would replace our worship. Luke 18.8, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? So he asked the question, that was his verbiage. Okay, Luke 18.8, it's at the end of that section about the widow who was trying to get the judge to give her justice. And she keeps hounding him and hounding him, hounding him. It's really a whole passage on prayer. We should just go there, Luke 18.8. Let's start in verse one. And he told him a parable to the effect that they ought to always pray and not lose heart. So that's the subject. And he said in a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him saying, give me justice against my adversary. We don't know anything more about what's going on there. For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. I don't think the Lord has that attitude towards us, but I think He is telling us that we need to keep coming to Him in prayer. Just keep coming to Him in prayer. It doesn't mean we get what we want. We get what He wants in His time. He'll take care of the situation, but we need to keep coming to Him in prayer. 6. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says, and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, will he give justice to them speedily? Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Have we got the faith enough to pray, I think is what he's saying. Are we still gonna be praying people when he shows up? And that's something we really need to examine our own hearts about. Are we spending the time in prayer that we should? I know it's a weak spot for me. It's something I always have to, like Frankie, you got out of the house this morning, you didn't spend any time in prayer. You know, I mean, you read your Bible, but you didn't pray. What's that about? You know, and that's just just me. But it seems the Lord's concerned about it because he's the way he puts it here. So things that distract us from worshiping God and Satan would certainly have that happen. And he wants to be worshiped. OK, continuing on with a man of lawlessness, Matthew seven, Matthew seven. 721, you know, to me, this is one of the scariest passages in the Bible. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. We ask ourselves that question, am I doing the will of my father? On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Okay, you're working on Satan's team. You know, essentially, a man of lawlessness. And this appears to be leaders in the, what we call, professing church. Okay, they profess, but don't have a relationship, clearly, don't have a relationship with the Lord. And Satan has those guys right where he wants them, because they're leading others away. Okay. And that's why, you know, we need to divide over doctrine. You know, we gotta, we gotta stay true to the Word of God and watch our doctrine carefully. And, you know, as the Bereans do, examine the scriptures, you know, daily. They went home and examined the scriptures to see if what Paul was telling them was true, you know. We're seeing a foreshadowing of lawlessness today. OK, and back to this COP26, this this thing in Glasgow that just finished off last week on the climate activists. Here's one of the things they're yelling. We must abolish prisons and the police. Now, we had the whole Baltimore thing and all that, and it jumped the pond. And of course, when they voted in Baltimore, it was like 57, I think, is what, to keep the police. And that city, there was big sections that got burned and stuff, downtown sections and whatnot. we are seeing a foreshadowing of lawlessness. As a matter of fact, start watching the news. Watch the news for lawlessness. No, I get my news from Britbart, and I keep seeing lawlessness. Or the President says, this may not be constitutional, but we're going to do it. Well, if there's any question, you swore on the Bible to uphold the Constitution. And it just happens, you know. So lawlessness is, and I think it's just a foreshadowing of things to come. I think we're just, you know, we see so much of it. Matthew 24, 12, let's go there. This is that passage on, you know, all that discourse, the end times. And we'll just read the one verse here, 24, 12. And because lawlessness will be increased, and we're certainly seeing that, the love of many will grow cold. And that's a reason for us to glue together in the church and to extend grace to each other. That's important. But let me just give you a little story here. I got this from my wife. She's got a couple friends up in Yakima. They went probably grade school all the way through high school together, graduated and all that. Well, these two gals, this doesn't have anything to do with Lori, but she knows the two of them, they've been getting together since high school. This is over four years now. Twice a year, and they celebrate each other's birthday. You know, I take you out for your birthday, you take me, and they get together. They've been doing this for four years. So this friend of Lori's called up, hey, it's getting close to your birthday, da-da-da-da-da-da. Have you had the jab? Have you gotten your shots? No, we're not going to get our shots. Well, my husband and I decided we're not going to associate with people that haven't had the shot. Quick. 40 years friendship is gone because they made a decision they didn't feel comfortable with getting the shot. And it's not about whether you get the shot or not get the shot. It's about 40 years of friendship are just, you know, the love of many has gone cold. I mean, how do you just walk away from that? You know, it's just like really sad. The shot's a personal decision. Figure that out, you know, what's best for you. But lawlessness is causing the love of many to grow cold. And I think we see that. I think that's evident. I think this thing here, too, has caused a lot of that because we get so focused on this, especially our young people, that they're not spending time even communicating. And that's scary. It's not good. It's not healthy. Don't know how to talk to people and interreact and relate. Not good. OK. I'll just read this to you, John 13, 35. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And again, it's so important that we, yeah, we got our ugly spots and we offend and we do things to each other that shouldn't happen, but we need to extend grace to each other, we need to love each other, we need to be quick to say, man, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I was wrong, you know, and likewise extending grace to someone who did offend or whatever, you know, you think of the grace that's been extended to us. I mean, we're all sinners. We don't deserve anything. You know, the Lord has extended grace, put his son on the cross, paid the price for us. We need to do that. The things when we get to having the things that we argued about are going to be so trivial. I mean, they're just In light of eternity, there's just a little blip, not even a blip on the radar. Not even that. I'll throw a little thing in there on that. When I was growing up, my dad used to say, I'd get very upset about something, and he'd say, Jonathan, is that going to matter in 50 years? Nope. That's good. Yeah. Right. Yes. OK, we've got some additional names for the man of lawlessness. We're going to look at some of them, some of them we won't, but you can turn over to Daniel seven. Daniel seven, verse eight. And this is apocalyptic-type verbiage here. This is a vision about four beasts that Daniel had. And we're not gonna go through all these, they take quite a bit of time and stuff. But here we see that he's called the Little Horn. Daniel 7, verse 8. I considered the horns, these 10 horns that had come up, And there came up among, and these 10 horns would, I think would relate to the 10 toes of the statue that was also in Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar saw. But I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, the little horn, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. You guys got different words than great? Boastful. I like that better. I mean, I just think that expresses a little bit more than great, but boastful things. So this is another picture of the Antichrist. Again, the Antichrist is a man empowered by Satan who will come about I don't think we'll ever see him. I don't think we'll ever know him. I mean, he could be alive today and he's Joe politician or something, but we're not going to know that he is the Antichrist. I don't think the knowledge of that is going to happen till after the rapture. OK, if if we can peer over the rails of heaven, which I'm not sure we can, we might look down and go, oh, it was so-and-so, you know, but I don't think we'll know him. I think we'll be gone. And I don't think the Lord lets us peer over the rails, but that's just Why would we want to do that? To see how our eschatology works out, that's why. Okay, here's another name in Daniel 9. You can flip over there, Daniel 9, 26. It's the prince who is to come, okay? And this is pretty important. This is in that prophecy of the 70 weeks of Daniel. And you know, you got it. It's time consuming to work through all that. But after the 62 weeks, OK, out of the 70, 62, an appointed one shall be cut off. That's Christ coming into Jerusalem and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come. OK, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary that happened in 70 AD. The people of the prince would be the Romans and the prince to come is the Antichrist. OK, the people of the prince to come shall destroy the city in 70 AD. It happened and the sanctuary, they burned down and then they totally just leveled the place trying to get all the gold out because the gold melted down through the rocks and they just peeled every rock back to get to all the gold. I mean, that's that's that's how I leveled it. It's end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war, and that's now we're going past 70 AD. Desolations are decreed, and He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week. Now that's the Antichrist as well, and he makes this Covenant with many and this brings peace to Israel and Israel says hey, this is good. We got a peaceful time now Okay, so it seems like it has to be someone the Antichrist has to be someone that the Jews will accept a lot of people put forward that it's a Muslim and you know, I listen to a mere tarfati tarfati his name's hard to pronounce He's a Jewish guy, he just says, we're not going to accept a, Jews are not going to accept a Muslim peacemaker. We don't trust them. You know, he says, and I tend to agree with that. I mean, I see where he's coming from for sure. Anyway, and he 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. Okay. The one who makes desolate and the desolator is the Antichrist. And he makes this this deal for seven years and halfway through, he breaks the deal. That's three and a half years. And that's so well articulated as we look through all the scripture in that times, times and half a time. But we also got 42 months and the twelve hundred and sixty days and three and a half years all stated in those three ways. We know I feel very confident that it's to the day. OK, because Christ came in on the day. OK, that he was supposed to come in on at the end of the 69 weeks. OK. And that coming prince book talks about that. I've been reading that as much here and there. It's pretty cool. OK. Who are the people who will destroy the city and the sanctuary? It was the Romans. OK. And the thought is that the Antichrist comes out of the revised Roman Empire. I know John struggles with that, don't you? I thought you did. I heard you say something about it once. I'm going to go on here. The Roman Empire was unique. This is interesting. I just Googled what was unique about the Roman Empire. This is the very first thing that came up, but I found out a number of other places, and I thought this was interesting. The Roman Empire was unique because it espoused the principle of moderation in politics. Its distinctively Republican civic form became propagated by the Roman Empire as it spread across Europe. That's a quote by a guy named Christopher Moronzi. He's a historian type. But I didn't realize this. They used three branches of government. They had an executive branch, a judicial branch, and a Senate. And that really worked into Europe. That's what we have. And that's why a lot of people think that we are part of that, the Tentos of Rome that are in that statue. They're mixed with clay, of course, with the Roman Empire. you know, fell away and died, but there's this revised Roman Empire is what's thought, okay? I think that gives some credence to it, but that's probably more opinion than you wanna know. Here's another name, it's called the Wealthful King, and you can see that in Daniel 11.36. We'll say this about Daniel 11. It's a tough chapter to read, and you're not going to understand it without a commentary probably. But it's an extremely accurate portrayal of what took place after Alexander the Great died. He died kind of unexpectedly, he was pretty young, I don't know 28 or 32 or something like that, pretty young. He conquered a lot of the known world. And when he died, he didn't have any heirs, and the four generals, his four generals took what was left of his kingdom and split it up. And this Daniel 11 is the counting of all the interaction, they didn't exactly get along with each other, and all the interaction that went back and forth of fighting here, fighting there, fighting there. And it's so accurate that A lot of people, secular scholars and whatnot, have said Daniel could not have been written in 530 BC when we think it was written about 530 BC. It had to come much later after all this happened. And all that took place in the 200s, probably B.C. Okay, all this interaction that you're gonna read, if you read down from like verses, chapter 11 of Daniel, over five through 35, it just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to you unless you know all that history. But you get a good commentary, and they tell you what all the history was, and it's so detailed, the stuff that went back and forth, everyone just goes, oh, that couldn't be prophecy. Well, we know it can be with the Lord. And so, we get down to verse 36, and there's a little bit of a change in tone. And the king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt, and this is talking about the Antichrist now. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god and shall speak astonishing things against the god of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished, for what is decreed shall be done." Meaning, you know, the Lord says, you know, you've got your time, I'm giving you your time, and then... When I come back, you're done. So the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, Littlehorn, Prince to come, Roman Empire, willful king. He's got quite a few names. He's the beast out of the sea. We'll say that out of Revelation 13. man of lawlessness, man of sin, son of destruction. Here's a summary, a man from the revived Roman Empire, which a lot of commentators hold that, OK, who is energized by Satan. He will seek to replace and oppose the true Christ. He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week. And then we didn't get to this, but who can fight against him? That comes out of Revelation 13. You know, that's the world's attitude is like we can't oppose this guy. For whatever he does, it demonstrates. We know the second beast makes fire come down from heaven. I don't think we're gonna be here for this, but he is an opposing force. He's considerable, and the world just falls in line with him. So that's our man of lawlessness, the Antichrist. All right, let's just close with prayer. Father, we just thank you for your word and for this bit of scripture, looking at these two, you know, the rebellion or the apostasy and then the man of lawlessness, Lord, and trying to decipher in your prophetic timeline, when these things are gonna take place, who they're gonna be, how it's gonna happen. And Lord, we look, as we spoke of Daniel 11, and the prophecy is so outstanding and so detailed that many look at it and say it can't be. And yet, Lord, we know that you have fulfilled prophecy after prophecy after prophecy in detail. All the prophecies fulfilled in your coming and going to the cross and rising, you know, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, so many prophecies fulfilled in detail. No one else does this. There's no other religion doing this, Lord, and you are to be praised and glorified for that. And we just thank You for what a mighty and awesome God You are. We just pray You'd go with us this week in the things that we do and just protect us along the way, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.