We read the Word of God in 2 Thessalonians 2. The text is lengthy. It begins at the end of verse 3 and goes through verse 9. We will not read that a second time. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first. And here our text begins, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. Then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders. and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. We read the word of God this far. Beloved Saints in Jesus Christ, not only now as we come to the end of another calendar year, but every day of our life as believers with the Spirit of Jesus Christ living in us, we look for the return of the Son of Man. It is the word about the coming of the Son of Man, the assurance that Jesus Christ Himself is coming and will appear, that is the heart of the message of the second epistle to the Thessalonians. That ye be not soon shaken in mind, Paul says in chapter 2, that that day of Christ is at hand, that's the practical purpose for which he writes the epistle. Yes, He's coming, Do not take your eyes off His coming, but do not make the mistake, Thessalonian saints, that He is coming immediately and imminently. The Apostle and the Holy Spirit through him would give the Church of Jesus Christ a sound understanding of all of the events that must transpire before Jesus Christ comes. Some of them include the preaching of the gospel into all the world and the persecution, great persecution and tribulation that the church will endure. And the Apostle has alluded to both of those signs of Christ's coming in chapter one of this epistle. But in chapter 2, it is the sign of apostasy and of the coming of Antichrist, especially, which he says, must be fulfilled before our Lord returns. In other words, before the Son of Man comes, the man of sin must be revealed. And that's the word of God particularly in our text. And speaking of the man of sin and of that wicked one, our text is speaking of Antichrist. It does not call him that using that word. In fact, the word Antichrist is used only in the epistles of John. But the reality of Antichrist, spoken of in Daniel and in Revelation, and of which Jesus speaks in his a message regarding His return, Mark 13 and Matthew 24. Of that reality the Apostle speaks also in our text. When the Bible refers to Antichrist it does so from one of two perspectives. Either it refers to that one man who will yet come And that is primarily the perspective of our text. Or it refers to the spirit of Antichrist, which is already working and will culminate in that man who will come. John, for instance, says, but now are there many Antichrists? And there's a reference to that in our text also in verse 7. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work. The spirit of Antichrist is present, but we are looking for the culmination of that spirit in a particular man. And after that man comes, then look for the coming of Jesus Christ. Then His coming is imminent. So in our text, God tells the church what Antichrist will be like, when he will come, why he has not come yet, and what Jesus Christ will do to him when Jesus Christ comes. And he tells the church these things in order that we not be deceived, in order that we have our eyes lifted up to heaven awaiting his appearing, in order that we aren't surprised when society and the world becomes even more evil than it is today when Antichrist appears, and that we also are not given over to fear or to despair, but that we look with comfort and uplifted heads to our Lord who will come. I call your attention to our text under the theme, The Revelation of the Man of Sin. Notice first his wickedness, second his revelation, and third his destruction. Then to Christ will be a man, that man of sin be revealed. And although this isn't the main way in which our text presents Him, the main way in which you and I will distinguish Him and identify Him as being different from Jesus Christ, let's begin here just a moment. He is but a man. The Scriptures speak of Jesus Christ coming on the clouds of heaven with angels blowing trumpets and every eye shall behold Him. And so if ever you hear of somebody say, I am the Christ, and you say, is he really the Christ? Because if so, I must give him my full allegiance. Then simply ask the question, has he come on the clouds of heaven so that every eye could behold him? Has he manifested himself truly to be God, though God in the flesh, or is he but a mere man? Has He arisen from below? This Antichrist will be nothing more than a man. About the man, the scriptures, especially in our text, do not tell us everything we want to know. Go to Daniel. Go to Revelation to learn that he is a political figure. Go to Jesus' words in Matthew 24. Go to the first epistle of John to learn that he will be a religious figure, an instructor, a teacher. Combining, in other words, what appears to be a prophetic office with a kingly office, and in that way imitating Jesus Christ. But our text presents him from one viewpoint, and that is the viewpoint of his wickedness. This is the main characteristic that is set forth here. Our text sets forth Antichrist as a wicked man in three different ways. On the one hand, it identifies him as a wicked man. In the second place, it speaks of the origin of his wickedness. And in the third place, it speaks of some of the wicked acts that he will perform. Let's notice those three points out of our text now. In the first place, it identifies him as such, that man of sin, and in verse 8, that wicked or that wicked one. When he's called a man of sin and a wicked one, The Apostle is not merely saying that he's guilty of sin. All humans are guilty of sin. The Apostle is not only saying either that he's a man who will live a wicked life. Every unregenerate man or woman lives a wicked life. But when he's called that wicked one, the apostle is emphasizing his ethical character. That is, yes, he lives a wicked life, but he does something even more. He brings wickedness to its highest, maybe it'd be better to say to its lowest, expression. He manifests wickedness to a degree and in a way that no other man has been able yet to do. He is called to seek the glory of God. That's the calling of course that comes to every creature. and especially to every child of God. But seeking the glory, called to seek the glory of God, he instead turns and does that which opposes God and opposes the law of God as blatantly, as readily, as openly as a man ever did. That's why he's called a man of sin. And so is that wicked one or that lawless one. He has a standard of living. If he's going to pretend to be the Christ, he must have a standard of living. He even convinces those who will be deceived that his standard of living is the right standard. But in fact, he is a lawless man, that wicked one. His standard of living is not what pleases and glorifies God, but what pleases and glorifies Him. The text identifies Him as a wicked man. But then the text speaks of the origin of His wickedness. On the one hand, He's a man, so the origin is to be found in His own corrupt human nature. But in the second place, he is called the son of perdition in verse 3. Perdition refers to ruin, to destruction, especially to the ruin and destruction of hell. But instead of saying now that his goal, his end will be hell, which of course is true, the Lord when he destroys him will send Antichrist to hell, the text calls him a son of perdition, not referring to the culmination and the goal, but to the origin and the source. He comes out of hell itself, as it were. He's born in his body. to an earthly man and to an earthly woman. But the spirit of which he is the culmination is a hellish spirit, a spirit of destruction and of ruin. For that is what Satan, the prince of the powers of darkness, works to accomplish. Destruction and ruin and desolation everywhere he goes. And so verse 9, also speaking of the source of his wickedness, says that his coming is after or the idea is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. The Antichrist will not be the person of Satan. In that sense, then, he's very different from Jesus Christ, whom we can say is the incarnation of Jehovah God. Jehovah Himself come in the flesh. We can't technically say that about Antichrist. He is not the person of Satan come in the flesh. Nevertheless, there is such a close connection between Satan And Antichrist, in a spiritual sense, Antichrist is the brainchild of Satan and Satan works to bring him to the fore that we can say that Satan is the origin of Antichrist, only we don't mean Satan apart from God's control, but more on that presently. His origin is in hell. And then thirdly, as it speaks of the wickedness of this Antichrist, the text gives us three ways in which that wickedness will manifest itself. There is first of all the context. Both before our text, verse 3, that day shall not come first except there come a falling away first. And then again after our text, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved, the Apostle speaks of apostasy. And in speaking of apostasy both before and after he speaks of Antichrist, he means to say that there is the closest connection between Antichrist and apostasy. Antichrist will be the culmination of apostasy. He will bring a turning aside from true faith and confession of the true Christ to its apex. This is the wickedness of Antichrist himself. Another way in which the wicked deeds of Antichrist will be manifest, verse 9 says, is that he will come according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. Once again, there's an outward correlation between this man and Jesus Christ. Not a true deep and inner correlation, but enough of an outward similarity that Antichrist will deceive those whom Jehovah God does not preserve by His Spirit. For Antichrist will do miracles. And all three of the words used in the New Testament to refer to the miracles that Jesus Christ did are used here with reference to what Antichrist will do. Power. Deeds, actions that demonstrate an amazing not human power. Signs, when Jesus Christ did miracles, they were signs, that is they pointed us to the saving work he was doing as the Messiah sent from Jehovah God and bringing his church and raising his church and every child of God to heavenly glory. Antichrist will do signs and he'll do wonders, things that leave men and women amazed and in awe. But whereas Jesus Christ did all of those in the service of the gospel, so that you could not say that his miracles were lying signs and wonders, and Christ will use them against the true gospel and in his own service to try to persuade others to worship him. And therefore they are lying wonders. But we haven't yet come to the main way. in which the text speaks of the wickedness of Antichrist and especially its expression. That you find in verse 4, "...who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped." It is true that Antichrist will himself speak against any form of idolatry which would detract from his own worship. And so he will oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God in the sense of every idol god, but even more. And that's what our scriptures are telling us. He will oppose and exalt himself above God, the one true God himself. How can a man do that? The one true God who sits enthroned in heaven The one true God who is the creator of the world, who alone upholds, sustains, preserves, how can one man show himself to be above that God and opposed to that God? And I'm not able to answer the question finally and give you in specific ways how Antichrist will, but the text says he will. Now let's remember what this word Antichrist means. Even though not found in our text, the idea still comes out in the first part of verse 4. This Antichrist will come in the place of Christ, and he will come in the place of Christ because he opposes Christ. If you send a messenger to a person, And you give that messenger specific instructions on what to say. And if I overhear you in another room giving those instructions, and I come before that messenger arrives, to the person you intended him to go to, and I deliver the message, and I also claim to deliver that message on your authority, then I both am coming in the place of that messenger you are sending and am coming because I oppose that messenger you are sending. In other words, my very doing so shows my hatred of you. And so it is that Antichrist shows that he is opposed to God and Christ by claiming the preeminence, the glory, the worship due to Christ alone, and saying it's fine because he is Christ, but he is not Christ. He opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God. In some way then, the second part of verse 4 says, that he will sit in the temple of God manifesting himself to be God. Now go back to the Old Testament because the word temple here brings up the imagery of the Old Testament tabernacle and temple. Not just the courtyards. The word translated temple here refers to the building itself, the holy place and the Holy of Holies. And especially remember that inside that Holy of Holies was a mercy seat. That wasn't just serving a practical purpose of covering the Ark of the Covenant. That mercy seat was a symbol to Israel of Jehovah God's throne. He is exalted in heaven and He reigns on high. But in the Old Testament, exalted in heaven and reigning on high, He ruled all in behalf of His people Israel and He was their King. And that mercy seat in the Holy of Holies was a reminder that Jehovah ruled. And the picture that's presented here in verse four of this Antichrist sitting in the temple of God, showing himself or manifesting himself to be God is a picture of him sitting on the mercy seat itself. You understand the presumption of any man doing such a thing in the Old Testament. And you understand that Jehovah God, who delights in holiness and will have no fellowship with sin, would have punished severely any man who attempted to do so. If King Uzziah was struck with leprosy because he came into the priest's courtyard and was going to go to the altar of burnt offering, but he couldn't and mustn't because he was a king. If God gave such explicit instructions to the priests, and especially the high priest, how he was to go only one time a year, into the Holy of Holies, and there sprinkle blood in front of him, and have incense burning in front of him, a smoke as it were, so that he could not see the glory of this God who symbolically dwelt on that mercy seat, that any man who ignored all that and simply said, I'm gonna sit on it, would be punished. This Antichrist, in some New Testament way, is so bold as to claim that he is sitting on the throne of God himself. Why does the text at length set forth this characteristic of Antichrist? And the answer is in the first place that here God is giving to His church and saints of all ages the concrete way in which you see that He is distinct from the true Christ. There are outward similarities between Antichrist and Christ, but inwardly and spiritually they are as different as night and day. For our Lord Jesus Christ was not a son of perdition, and a man of sin, and a wicked one. But our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of Righteousness, who arises with healing in His wings. The Son of God, who is sent into the flesh. The Son of God who shows Himself to be the Son of God by loving the Law of God. He did not promote wickedness, but righteousness. Read again the Sermon on the Mount and his insistence that the law of God was that which governed membership, citizenship in the kingdom, not how one becomes, but how one shows oneself to be a citizen of the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ promoted righteousness, proclaimed righteousness, died on the cross to demonstrate righteousness, rose again the third day to show that the righteousness that He earned for us on the cross had been earned in full and is ours and proclaims now through the preaching of the gospel everywhere through messengers that He sends that He is the righteous man. He and Antichrist are so far apart ethically. And therefore, practically, the scriptures tell us about the wickedness of Antichrist so that you and I can detect and identify him when he comes. Not only will it be a mere man arising from below and not coming on the clouds of heaven with glory, but he'll be wicked. Now, there's something very sobering yet that we must press home on this point. The very reality and nature of apostasy which will accompany the coming of Antichrist, is such that men won't be able to tell the difference between what is truly wicked and what is genuinely righteous. That would be part of what falling away involves. And many who follow Antichrist will be convinced that he is righteous, that his deeds are righteous deeds, that he serves the one true God. And you ask, how can they be so blinded? But you know, I know, how we all by nature are that blind. And therefore the reminder that his wickedness is his chief characteristic and by it he shows himself opposed to Jesus Christ must make you and I earnest in prayer that we be able to know the difference not just between Christ and Antichrist but between truth and lie and righteousness and sin and beloved. We don't only want that grace in that day. We need it today. If I can't tell the difference between sin and righteousness, between unbelief and true faith today, then why do I wonder how I will be able to tell the difference in that day. And when I show that I can tell the difference today by the grace of God, fruit of the life of Christ in me, between faith and unbelief and between righteousness and unrighteousness, let us show that we can do it in our own life with regard to our own actions, our own words, our own thoughts. If you are guilty of a sin, and when accused of that sin and confronted by a brother or sister in Christ, deny that you are guilty of that sin. If you show yourself so unable in this life, in your own life, to distinguish between truth and lie, between righteousness and unrighteousness, Don't wonder about how you'll know the difference then. You're not in any position to know the difference then. Thus, the importance of examining ourselves, of praying that God give us to see our sins, the deepest, darkest sins of our own hearts, as well as those that are manifest outwardly in our conduct, and repent now. If we are not able to tell the difference today, we will not be able then. In other words, hearing this word puts us on our knees. We pray for the enlightening grace of the Holy Spirit. We pray to be able to discern right and wrong in our hearts and lives and to confess wrong when we have sinned. But in addition, the significance of the text's emphasis on the wickedness of the Antichrist is that it relates it again to his filling up the cup of iniquity. It relates it to that apostasy. It's in this way that the coming of Antichrist is a sign of the coming of Christ. When wickedness has reached its zenith or its lowest depth, you and I might think it has already, but evidently it has not because the world goes on and Antichrist has not been manifested. When that happens, then lift up your heads for the Son of Man will come soon. And so our text speaks in connection with the coming of Jesus Christ of the coming of Antichrist. And it uses two words that are used also to refer to the coming of Christ, to refer to the coming of this Antichrist, the word revelation and the word coming itself. That latter word used both with regard to Christ in verse 8 of the text, he will destroy Antichrist with the brightness of his coming, Christ's coming, and then even him whose coming, now referring to Antichrist's coming, which is after the working of Satan. But even the word revealed, verse 4, verse 3 rather, and verses 6 and 7 and 8, though not in this text used to refer to Christ, are elsewhere used to refer to the coming of Jesus Christ. So what do the two terms mean, and in what way can they be applied to Antichrist? Something is revealed which existed and you knew it existed, but it was hidden to your eyes. And in a winter in Michigan, it's very easy to use the sun as an example. Many a winter day, you know the sun exists. You know the sun has risen. The clouds cover the sky from east to west and north to south and stay there almost all day long, but you know the sun has risen. The sky, after all, is not pitch black. But that sun is revealed when the clouds break and the sun shines forth in its light and warmth and glory and splendor. That's the meaning of the word revelation. Jesus Christ already exists. He sits at the right hand of God. There will come a time when He is revealed. When coming on the clouds of heaven, your eyes see Him. I mean your earthly eyes. And so it is also with Antichrist. The mystery of iniquity doth already work. Mystery refers to something that's hidden. It relates to this idea of revelation. Whatever is revealed is a mystery until it's revealed. Not a mystery that it's a puzzle, that we can't make sense of it. The biblical use of the word mystery is to refer to something that's hidden and you don't see. And so Antichrist operates now. Lawlessness, wickedness is working now. But one day he will come. Similarly with the word coming. that Jesus Christ is coming. The scriptures don't say He will come. They don't put this in the future tense. They say He is coming. That Jesus Christ is coming means that throughout the whole New Testament history He is governing all the events of history with a view to His arrival. Everything that happens, your birth, The various events that happened to you in my life and me in our life are part of the coming of Christ. And so with regard to the coming of Antichrist, everything throughout history is moving toward the moment when he will finally appear. In this way, too, he mimics the true Christ But the real reason why we can draw this similarity between His coming and Christ's coming is because His coming is a sign of the coming of Jesus Christ. Now let's take a survey of history and see how this has been true and is true yet today. The mystery of iniquity doth already work. In the first place, our survey of history will lead us to every attempt of Satan to establish a worldwide, universal, anti-Christian, ungodly kingdom. So we start with a man named Nimrod and a tower that was going to reach up into heaven. Men and women would rally around that tower. That would be their unifying point. They wouldn't spread over the earth as they were told to, but they would say, no, we will live together as one great civilization. We will be a kingdom on earth. And then climbing that tower, they would conclude, if the Lord would let them, He even speaks of it this way before he confounds the language. They would conclude that there is no God and nothing would stop or be stopped with regard to their carrying out their own will and plan. So you have the kingdom of Babel, then you have Babylon and the Medes and Persians and the Assyrians and the Egyptians. You have the Greeks and the Romans and every subsequent New Testament attempt at a world power. The Dutch, the British, the French, the Spaniards, all at one point in time thinking they could be it. The United States more recently and China and Russia and other such large countries. The mystery of iniquity has been working. Satan has been saying Let us be one kingdom on earth. But even though God hasn't allowed it to happen yet, you see development. And you see development even in the last 50 or so years. To a 10-year-old boy or girl, 50 years is an eternity. And a 10-year-old isn't able to say, I can see development and progress in my life. But many of us are 50, or 70, or 80, and we can. There used to be something called an iron curtain, but it's gone. A Berlin Wall, but it's gone. A Cold War, but it's been removed. The European nations all used to be individual nations in their own right with their own currency and checkpoints as you cross from one nation into another. But it's all gone now. There is the European Union. Commerce and finance is global as we are all too aware of in this time and age. The mystery of iniquity is working all things with a view to the coming of Antichrist and then Christ. Besides, a second tour of world history will remind us that increasingly sin develops. Adam and Eve, having fallen to sin, were depraved. You can't get more totally depraved than Adam and Eve were and than you and I are by nature. But the outworking of that depravity grows, develops, and increases. And God gives societies and has given our society over to the most blatant and heinous sins. You know full well that what God hates, men approve. That more and more, both states and federal government in our own country approve of and call good that which God prohibits. Abortion, homosexual relations, bestiality, and others. This development of wickedness. shows that the mystery of iniquity doth already work. And again with what speed. It was in 1969 that the first state of the 50 states approved a no-fault divorce. That's just 51 years ago. and look at what has happened to the family as an institution in the whole country as a consequence. 30 or so years ago, sodomy, homosexuality still was not a thing to be widely spoken of with approval, but how quickly that has changed. The mystery of iniquity doth already work. The third tour of church history will remind us that through it all, Satan has put increasing pressure on the Church of Jesus Christ to abandon the worship of Jehovah God. That's what Satan's after, verse 4 of the text said. whether it be to abandon that worship by leaving the principle of the second commandment that tells us how to worship and introducing new acts and ideas into worship, whether it be to abandon the worship by becoming engrossed with a wrong theology so that we no longer rightly understand the true God, or in other ways. Satan's goal is to keep the church from worshiping the one true God. All of this makes a survey of history perhaps a bit frightening, but it need not be. For Antichrist is coming not one moment sooner and will arrive not one moment later than Jehovah God himself permits. That's one aspect of the gospel as it comes out of our text. I refer to what we read in verses 6 and 7. And now ye know what withholdeth, what holds him back, that he might be revealed in his time, There is a time at which the Antichrist must be revealed, not Satan's time, that's not what the text has in mind, God's time. Something is holding him back so that he does not come before God's time. And then verse 7, for the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. He who now is restraining He who is in the path holding back the force of wickedness, he'll stay there holding back the force of wickedness. That's the idea of that word let. Until he be taken out of the way, until he move, and that force of wickedness can proceed in full speed. Ye know, Paul says to the Thessalonians, leaving some commentators to suggest that they knew something you and I don't. and had some information that we never will have. But I suggest, beloved, that you know who, and you know how, and you know why. Who stands in the way of Antichrist? It must be somebody who is stronger than him, and therefore must be our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ himself. as he realizes the counsel of God and governs all of New Testament history and says to Antichrist, no, not yet, you try, but I will overpower it and thwart it. And you know why? Jesus Christ stands in the way and holds him back so that his church can be gathered and the gospel can be preached throughout all the nations and all of the elect brought. to the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. And you know how? So many means that God uses. At Babel, He confused the tongues. Not yet, Satan! It is not your time. When Nebuchadnezzar and his son and grandson became powerful, God said, I'll use the means of war. I'll send Cyrus against him. It is not yet time. And that same means, war, is the means by which every subsequent world power is overthrown. The preaching of the gospel itself throughout the nations and the work of the Holy Spirit regenerating those chosen from eternity and working faith and godliness in our hearts is part of the way in which God holds Antichrist back. By not allowing the apostasy to become realized yet, but gathering his church Jehovah God, through the agency of Jesus Christ, holds Antichrist back. And this, I say, this is the gospel. To it, you and I cling. And it's the lens through which we evaluate all of the history of the world as we come to the end of the year and as we presently begin a new year. Jehovah God reigns supreme. Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He will not let Antichrist come before his time. But finally it will be his time, and finally God will let him come, and then the Lord also shall come. Now there is going to be an interval of time, not a long interval but I'm not ready to pin down how long or short that interval will be. There is going to be an interval of time between the appearing of Antichrist on the one hand and the appearing of Jesus Christ on the other. The New Testament in different places speaks of time and times and half a time or three and a half years or a thousand two hundred sixty days and whether to take those literally or symbolically the point that we are left with is it will be a relatively short period of time. But there will be an interval. Our text, however, doesn't refer to that in the least. It speaks of the coming of Antichrist and then shall that wicked be revealed and it goes immediately to the coming of Christ whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. This failure to discuss or speak of that interval underscores that it will not be a long time that Antichrist reigns. It also underscores that the purpose of Antichrist coming finally is to bring wickedness to its highest or lowest, that Jesus Christ himself come to destroy wickedness. And that's the text in verse 8 and 9. On the one hand, Jesus Christ will come to destroy and to Christ decisively and completely. He will consume, says verse 8, and he will destroy. To consume? You know what that is? Your teenage sons did that with their mashed potatoes at noon. There was a plate full and there wasn't a morsel left. Well, so completely Will Jesus Christ destroy Antichrist? And then the word destroy has the idea of to render his power void. Jesus' destruction of Antichrist isn't going to be that Antichrist is annihilated, that he is vaporized, that he no longer exists. He will exist forever in hell. But his power, his efforts to destroy the church, will be rendered void. On the one hand, it will be made so that he cannot yet move against the church again. He'll be in hell. And on the other hand, everything he tried to do against the church, this mystery of iniquity that was working and working and working, will be brought to naught, for the gates of hell cannot prevail. against the Church of Jesus Christ. He will decisively and completely destroy him. In the second place, the text underscores that Jesus will do that swiftly and simply. not with a sword, not with a large army. He will come with thousands and thousands, 10,000s and 10,000s of angels, but it isn't because Jesus Christ needs that many hosts to fight Satan and the wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. as ice cannot exist in the presence of heat, as darkness cannot continue in the presence of light. So this Antichrist, who boasts of himself, who seeks the worship, the praise, the adoration of all men, cannot exist when Jesus Christ appears. And so Christ, with the Spirit of His mouth, that is with his word will destroy him and send him to hell. To use the words of Martin Luther's hymn, one mighty word shall fell him. And I'll stop and think of this again, beloved. For 6,000 years he's raged, he's moved, he's exerted every force he has and in a moment's time, it all comes to nothing. Oh, he's accomplished something if you look at the wickedness he's promoted, if you look at apostasy, and when all is said and done, the Lord says, that was all part of my plan too. It was my purpose that some manifest themselves to be reprobate and unbelieving. Satan has accomplished nothing. that God did not purpose, indeed that God did not raise him up to do. Certainly, beloved, this too is part of the comfort, certainly Jesus Christ will come to destroy him. Now inherent in the Gospel and the text is not only that God controls the timing but that the one who will return to destroy and to Christ is none other than the Lord himself, Jesus Christ, our exalted Lord and Savior. The one who gave himself for us and for his church of all ages by his death on the cross, the one who purchased us and who purchased us as a prized possession to Jehovah, who arose to make us that possession, to form us to be that precious people to Jehovah God. That Jesus Christ, who knows the names of those for whom He died, will come again to destroy His and our enemy and to bring us to be with Him in glory. Then he shall finish the work that he began to do in his incarnation. I don't refer right now to the work of atonement. That was finished on the cross. but the work of delivering us from the power and the corruption of sin. Then sin itself shall be destroyed, not only in Antichrist being sent to hell and all his wicked ones, but in your soul and body and in mine being changed, glorified, and perfected forever. Look for that day. The word that Antichrist will come, that it will be a day of tribulation for the church, might work terror in the hearts of some. That's because we have an old man that's quickly moved and frightened. But may it be the Spirit's work through the preaching of the gospel tonight, rather than increasing our terror, to increase our hope and to give us comfort. Our salvation is sure. Therefore, when you see these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads. For the day of your redemption draweth nigh. Amen. Our Father, which art in heaven, apply thy word to our hearts and lives. May we live out of the hope and comfort that it gives, and give us to discern in our own life the difference between faith and unbelief, between righteousness and unrighteousness. For Jesus' sake, amen. We sing 224. O God, who in our father's time did smite our foes and thine, so smite thy enemies today, who in their pride combine. Stanzas 1, 2, 4, and 5. 1, 2, 4, and 5 of 224. They think to rob thy people of that which they could destroy. O God, who in our fathers' likeness made the rose divine, So smile like a happy student who will learn by all kinds. Make them like dust and stardust before your current life. Reach ye the Lord, ye hosts of hope, in yonder heavenly light. Then pass the Lord, ye saints below, who in his grace delight. By all his creatures let ears ring the honor Jehovah bless thee and keep thee. Jehovah make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen.