Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Matthew 24:15-21 | Date: December 8, 2019 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Open your Bibles, if you will, to Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. You may remember last time I finished up, finally, our expositions through the prophet Daniel. And I mentioned then that we would take another two weeks to track out what the New Testament writers have to say following up on Daniel, specifically with regard to this period of great tribulation and the Antichrist who is to come. We saw that Daniel has a lot to say about that. We will see today and, Lord willing, next time that the New Testament writers have some things to say about that as well and to add to it.

So that’s the plan for this time and next time. And then one more time to finish up the whole series, we will look through what I’d like to do is perform a minor miracle and preach through Revelation chapters 12 to the end. I’ll give a broad survey of the end as it’s portrayed by the Apostle John. I say that now to encourage you, if you would, take time in the next few weeks—the plan is for the 29th of the month—to do that from Revelation. If before then you could read through the book of Revelation a few times, at least chapters 12 to 22, read it through repeatedly if possible. It will be helpful. If I’m going to cover that much ground, I obviously cannot read the entire text. So I will assume some familiarity on your part with that. So that’s your homework assignment. You’ve got three weeks to do it. Book of Revelation, as many times as you can.

All right, Matthew chapter 24, the Tribulation and the Antichrist. We’ll start here with this in verse 15. You remember this, Matthew 24 and 25, is known as Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. This is great prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives. And I’ll just take, and I think for reasons you’ll see as we go along, I just want to focus on verses 15 through 21.

“So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)—that is the reader of Daniel—when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house. And let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.”

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, we are grateful for your word, and it is a particular privilege to read and see what your plans are for this age and for the future, that we may fix our hope more firmly in the Lord Jesus. We ask that you would strengthen that hope in us today through your word, by your spirit. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.

For now, I want you just to notice in verse 15, in particular, the connection that Jesus draws here to Daniel’s prophecy. In verse 15: “When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel, the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place.” And this, he says, is a time of great tribulation. So both Daniel and Jesus now, in the Olivet Discourse, speak of a time of great tribulation. They speak of it in terms of the greatest ever. And they speak of it in terms of this abomination that will take place during that time.

The Connection To Daniel’s Prophecy

Now, what he’s doing there, of course, is drawing our attention explicitly back to what we have seen in our studies through the Book of Daniel. I won’t have you turn back to it unless you would just like to, but let me highlight some of the things we saw relative to this subject in the Book of Daniel. In Daniel chapter 7—remember this is apocalyptic language, apocalyptic visions with great symbolism to tell the future and to tell of God’s coming dealings in the world—in that, Daniel chapter 7, he had the vision of the four beasts and the Son of Man. And you have these beasts in succession wreaking out their terror and havoc in the world, until finally there’s this fourth beast who has ten horns. And then out of the ten horns, another little horn came up from among them. These are kingdoms. These are rulers of kingdoms, each having their area of sway over their parts of the world. But then that little horn comes up from among the ten horns, and of that horn the vision gives some disturbing detail, you remember, that left Daniel very troubled.

For instance, in Daniel 7 verse 21, it says this little horn makes war with the saints. So there’s a tyrannical rule of some kind, a special hatred for the people of God. And in fact, verse 21 of Daniel chapter 7 says, “he prevailed over them.” So he not only makes war with the saints, but prevails over them for a time. This tyrannical rule, he maintains the upper hand and he succeeds in his opposition, at least for a time, against the people of God. And then it gets worse in verse 25 of Daniel 7. It says this little horn speaks words against the Most High. So there’s some kind of open rebellion against the true God. He blasphemes. He defies God’s law. He seeks changes in the social order. It says in verse 25 again, he not just prevails over the saints, but here the language is even worse: “He wears out the saints.” That is, the saints for a time are beaten back. And it says he changes times and law, which I take to refer to the law of God. Again, great changes in the social order, a wickedness that is creating upheavals in society, and we no longer have the common consensus of values and norms that we used to have. In other words, he controls the system, and he uses his power to oppose the people of God. And then Daniel says, “they shall be given into his hand.” That is, the saints become finally a distinct minority and they become helpless against the system. That’s Daniel chapter 7. And he tells us this prevails a “time, times, and a half a time,” which is the expression he uses for three and a half years. And that happens and it endures until, we find in verse 26 of Daniel 7, until the Ancient of Days came. And then the court sits in judgment. The beast is destroyed. All of the other authorities beneath him are subjugated. And the kingdom then is given to the Son of Man and shared with all of the saints of the Most High. That’s Daniel chapter 7.

In Daniel chapter 8 we saw it again, but here it’s a different vision. We have the vision of the ram and the male goat, and we have this mighty ram devouring up great territories under its power. And then this male goat comes and in no time defeats the ram. This male goat has a single horn sticking out of his head. And of course that is representative of Alexander the Great and his great military exploits against the Persian Empire. But then it says that he’s no sooner done his work and that great horn is broken. And four horns come up in its place. And this is the breakup of the Grecian Empire after the time of Alexander the Great. And we have these four conspicuous horns that he speaks of. And then we find that another little horn rises out of one of them. And it says in Daniel 8 that it grew exceedingly great, even to the host of heaven, and threw down some of the stars. That is, he’s become great, and he is opposing God, and seems to be succeeding in it. That’s the imagery again.

In Daniel 8 verses 11 and following, it tells us that he outlaws true religion. He overthrew the sanctuary. He throws truth to the ground, it says. A complete disregard and, in fact, a complete contempt for divine revelation. And verses 23 and following of Daniel chapter 8, it speaks of him as fierce, as violent, brilliant in an evil kind of way, a master deceiver of the people. And it finally says he prospers with just an unchecked power. And that, verses 13 and 14, again for three and a half years. Now in Daniel chapter 8, we have a different immediate point of reference. And there, as we saw, it refers to the exploits of Antiochus Epiphanes. That’s in the second century BC. That he will be this little horn growing up out of those other four and bringing out this havoc against the people of God, which is the most notorious period of history among the Jews.

And then we came to Daniel chapter 9, and we saw the 70 weeks prophecy there, and we saw at the end of that in the 70th week, that is that last seven years, that this coming prince would make a covenant with the people. And at halfway point of that 70th week, he would break the covenant. But it says of him as well, he’ll put an end to sacrifice and offering. He will outlaw true religion. He makes an abomination, some awful kind of blasphemy. He makes desolate. That is the opposition or the desolation of the people of God. And he prospers in all of that until the decreed end. And again, that period is half of the week. Half of the seven years, again, three and a half years is the time frame that’s given to it.

And then we saw, finally, in Daniel chapters 11 and 12, his vision of the approaching kingdom of Persia with its succeeding kings and then with Greece and its leaders and the fourfold division of the Grecian Empire again after that. And then what we have with this in a special focus within those four kingdoms, a focus on two of them, the King of the North and the King of the South, and their conflict between one another. And we saw in Daniel chapter 11, the first part of the chapter in particular, remarkable detail prophesied centuries in advance of the history then that took place in the centuries before the time of Christ. Now that focus then on the Assyrian, or the Assyrian King Antiochus Epiphanes, or the King of the North, again it speaks of him in terms of deception. He deceives. He otherwise forces the people to embrace error of various kinds. He influences the people to various kinds of ungodliness. He attacks the people of God. He outlaws the worship of God. He again commits some kind of abomination. That word is used again, Daniel 11 verse 31. And those who acknowledge him, he will honor, and those who resist him, he’ll put down. And again, verse 31, they shall set up abomination that makes desolate.

That language then is picked up again in chapter 12 of Daniel, where in the aftermath of the prophecy is explained again that this abomination will take place within this period of three and a half years. So in brief, what we saw in Daniel was the people of God will suffer an intense kind of opposition from some great archenemy of God. And that opposition, it says, will be characterized by deception, blasphemy, and persecution. A threefold attack that Daniel’s prophecies have given: deception, blasphemy, and persecution. Subtle deception, outright blasphemy, and persecute those who do not conform. The time period of it all is said to be “time, times and a half of time,” or half a week, or 1290 days—you have the various designations for this period of suffering. And this period of tribulation will end then with the destruction of that great opponent and the vindication of the people of God and the kingdom of God given to the saints of the Most High.

The Timing Of Fulfillment

Now, that is what we saw in Daniel. Now, when will all of that come about? When was that prophecy fulfilled? And the answer to that, and this is what we’ll be working through this week and next time as well, the answer to that question of when the fulfillment of it is a bit complicated. On the one hand, those prophecies are clear many times that the point of reference to the fulfillment of this time of tribulation, this time of the Antichrist, speaks of the end times, the end of the age. You have that, for instance, in Daniel chapter 7, when you have the consummation of the ages and the destruction of all of the opposing forces of evil in the world and their submission to the Son of Man who comes in power to reign. We saw that as well in Daniel chapter 2, where the great stone was cut out of a mountain and came down and ground that metallic image to powder—all of these successive kingdoms ground to powder by the arrival of the kingdom of God. So it speaks of the end of the age. And in fact, in Daniel chapter 12 and verse 1, it’s especially explicit in that regard. It speaks of the Great Tribulation, the worst ever, and associates it with this abomination that will occur. And it specifically puts it at the time of the end when there will be the resurrection of the dead.

So, on the one hand, the prophecy of this tribulation and Antichrist, we are told, in really very clear terms, I think, is associated with the end of the age, the consummation of the age, climaxing in the arrival of the Lord Jesus, who will destroy him. On the other hand, Daniel chapter 8, in a prospective kind of way, and particularly as we saw in Daniel chapter 11, the prophecy is fulfilled even in an exact way with regard to the three and a half years in the second century BC in Antiochus Epiphanes and his opposition against the people of God. So Antiochus came to Israel, wreaked havoc over them. It was a horrible time of suffering. Climaxed, of course, in the revolt of the Maccabees and finally the liberation that they brought about. But the fulfillment of this abomination, this period of three and a half years, this period of tribulation and opposition and deception, it has reference to Antiochus. And that has already happened in history in the second century before Jesus.

So which is it? Is it in the end, the consummation of the age, or is it then, back then, and that’s it? And you, of course, know that I’m about to say it’s both/and. But before I get there, I want you to look again at Matthew chapter 24, because this complicates it a little bit further. Verses 15 and following—let’s read it again.

“When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in the house. And let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant, for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath, for then there will be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.”

Now the connection here with Daniel is easy enough. That’s explicit. And yet, and here’s the complication, this prophecy of Daniel, which saw fulfillment in Antiochus 200 years before Jesus, Jesus picks up and refers it to something future to him. So there’s some kind of both/and that is happening.

Now, there’s a lot of discussion. Do verses 15 to 21 speak of the end of the age? Or do they speak of the destruction of Jerusalem that came in A.D. 70? I think the reference to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is pretty obvious. It speaks in localized terms: “those who are in Judea.” It speaks in terms of “you’re on the housetops and out in the fields and don’t go back.” But when you see it happen, when you see the abomination happening, run. Don’t take time for anything. Pray that it’s not on the Sabbath because you can’t go as fast or as far on the Sabbath day and so on. And in fact, if there’s any doubt that it refers to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, we have the confirmation of it in Luke’s account of the Olivet Discourse where there he says, not “when you see the abomination,” but he says, “when you see the armies of Jerusalem coming against Jerusalem, then flee.” So he refers it specifically to the Roman armies coming against Jerusalem in AD 70. And as we saw in some studies earlier in the series, that was an awful, awful time of suffering of the Jews. And in terms of localized intensity, it is the worst problem that the world has ever seen.

So verses 15 to 21 pick up a prophecy of Antiochus and refer it to AD 70. But then look at verse 22 that we read earlier: “If those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.” Does it sound like he’s expanding the purview there? I think he is. I would argue that at some length, but that’s not the point here this morning. But just to point that out, that Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, yes, it does refer to A.D. 70, but I would argue it at some length. It’s very obvious, particularly by the time you get to verse 29 and following, that Jesus is speaking in terms of the end of the age and the climactic arrival of the kingdom of God in his return. So we have the tribulation, we have the abomination, we have the prophecy of Daniel, and it’s fulfilled in Antiochus, it’s fulfilled in AD 70, and it awaits fulfillment at the end of the age. All of that we see in the text itself. It’s not something we have to bring to it.

The New Testament View Of Tribulation

Now the next question to take up then is how do the New Testament writers after Jesus, the apostles, how do they pick up this discussion of tribulation and the Antichrist? Let’s start first with the idea of tribulation. A quick glance through a concordance listing the verses that speak of tribulation in the New Testament: there are 45 times that it occurs. One of those occurrences speaks in reference to the wrath of God, tribulation in that sense. All of the others, all of the other occurrences of this word tribulation in the New Testament, speak in reference to suffering experienced by believers during this age. All of them speak of suffering or tribulation experienced by believers during this age.

For example, let me give you just a few. Acts chapter 14 verse 22: “we must go through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of God.” Romans chapter 12 and verse 12: “be patient in tribulation.” Colossians 1 verse 24: Paul speaks of sharing in the tribulations of Messiah. Or Revelation chapter 1 in verse 9 where John says: “I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus.” Now, there are some who would argue that there are a couple of references to tribulation in the New Testament that in fact speak of the end of the age. I don’t think that’s the case, but even if there are a couple, the overwhelming majority of the occurrences of this word tribulation in the New Testament speak of the tribulation experienced by believers during this age. Now, I don’t know if that’s enough to prove every detail of our eschatology, but judging by the use of the word tribulation in the New Testament, tribulation is already here. And in fact, then, what we would have is what we would call an inaugurated tribulation. That is, there is tribulation to come, but it’s already here. Just as we have inaugurated kingdom, so also we have inaugurated tribulation. Well, I think that’s the indication of the use of the word tribulation in the New Testament.

The Man Of Lawlessness

Now let’s pick up this theme in a bigger way and with reference to Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Now I’m going to read through verses one to 12 and I want you to notice, be alert as I read through and notice any allusions to Daniel, particularly Daniel chapter 11 that we’ve studied recently.

“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together 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 has come. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 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. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Now, in some of the details of this, I’m sure you noticed reflections of the prophecy of Daniel. There are hints of the abomination that is to come. Daniel chapter 11 verse 31 that I mentioned earlier tells us: “Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple… The king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god and shall speak astonishing things against the god of gods.” Paul picks up all of that, as you see, in verses 3 and following. This man of lawlessness takes his seat in the temple, proclaims himself to be God, and so on. All of that Paul is picking up on the prophecy of Daniel from chapter 11.

And in fact then Paul tells us that this man of lawlessness will be destroyed by the Lord Jesus by the appearance of his coming. He’ll be destroyed by the Lord Jesus by the appearance of his coming. Look at verse 7: “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.” So here we have it associated with the return of Jesus that he will come and put to death this lawless one who is exalting himself in these blasphemous ways. So we have here very plainly an end-time figure, a person who is the very incarnation of evil, exerting his influence against the people of God, inspired by Satan to do it, and he deceives by false teaching and opposing the people of God.

Now, verses three and following here, he’s telling us—his argument is—that this Antichrist will come. It will be a recognizable event. It will be at some point in the future. And until that point, Jesus will not return. But when Jesus returns, Antichrist will be destroyed. He’s dealing with some confusion on the part of the Thessalonians, wondering, “Did we miss the day of the Lord, the great arrival of Christ?” Well, you can’t have missed it because you haven’t seen the Antichrist yet. That’s what he’s arguing. I think this is a devastating blow. This was one of the first passages that made me question the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine that I was taught as a youngster. Paul’s command here seems pretty clear: The day of the Lord hasn’t come yet, and you know it because you haven’t seen Antichrist. When you see Antichrist, then it’ll come down. And that’s what he tells the church.

The Mystery Of Lawlessness Already At Work

All right, so he places this in an end-of-the-age context. But did you notice verse 7? “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.” The mystery of lawlessness, this end of the age phenomenon, this Antichrist who will come at the end of the age and be destroyed by Jesus at his coming, it’s already at work. It’s already here. There’s an inaugurated sense in which it has already come. Now he’s being restrained, so he hasn’t come to the full. And of course, who is the restrainer? Oh, all kinds of discussion on that, and all kinds of answers have been given. Who is it restraining this man of lawlessness and holding him back from the full frontal assault that will come? Civil government, the Jewish state, the Roman government—lots of guesses have been made. It seems to me it is obviously a supernatural force of some kind. My best guess is it’s the Holy Spirit himself holding back the encroachment of evil until the time. As I mentioned last time, some have suggested that it might be Michael the Archangel as per what we saw in Daniel chapter 8, the one who guards the people of God. I don’t know that it makes any ultimate difference. The point is God is restraining through whatever means, restraining the full onset of evil that will come with this man of lawlessness. But at some point in the future, before the end of the age, and before the very end of the age, that restraint will be lifted. And this mystery of iniquity that is already at work will come in full force.

But for the rest of our time here, let’s think about this matter of the mystery of iniquity already at work. We saw in the book of Daniel that this coming Antichrist will come and be marked by great deception, blasphemy, and opposition. And here, in this passage, Paul focuses on the matter of his deceptiveness. Look at verses 9 through 11 again: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception, for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false.” So we have this coming with all power, false signs, wonders, with all wicked deception, and then a delusion given to them because that’s what they wanted in the first place. Again, that reflects Daniel chapter 8, where this one to come is a master deceiver. Daniel chapter 9, as I hinted at as well, where he makes this covenant with the people of God and then breaks it halfway through the week. So by all kinds of deceptive means, there’s a widespread—and I think we can say from this societal, culture-wide—deception of people that this man of lawlessness is able to carry out on society. And virtually whole society duped by this coming one who is a master deceiver.

What in the world is that all about? And in terms of this mystery of iniquity is already at work, what might that look like? Ultimately, of course, it has reference to the gospel. We find that in verse 11: “The delusion is given so that they may believe what is false.” But how does he go about that? The gospel is such good news. And the message of the gospel is so easy to understand. The terms are so simple. And if we can put it in these crude terms, the deal’s a no-brainer: Come to Jesus with all your sin. He’ll take it and give you his righteousness and you may be saved. Follow the Lord Jesus. Bow before him and be saved. It’s easy. Why wouldn’t people believe it? And why would whole societies find that unbelievable or unacceptable?

Well, of course, we can speak in terms of the depravity of the human heart, but that’s not the tack that Paul takes here. Notice verse 10: he comes with every wicked deception, all sorts of deception that he will bring against the world. Well, again, what might that look like? Well, rarely—but sometimes—it’s an overt attack: “Jesus is accursed.” But that’s more rare. Once in a while it is that kind of frontal assault, and we’re beginning to hear it in our society: “Christianity’s intolerant. Christianity, so far from being a healthy thing, is an oppressive thing because it’s intolerant and it’s exclusive, thinks it’s the only way.” More of a frontal assault.

But more often than not, it’s what we saw in Sunday school this morning: it’s a more subtle approach. It’s deceptive. It begins by undermining Christianity, and it begins and it proceeds by undermining whole thought structures, the way we think, so that in the end, the gospel becomes implausible. It’s what we’ve talked about, this phrase that’s become bandied about today so much: plausibility structures of society. If you can create the right—the wrong—plausibility structure, the gospel becomes unbelievable and unacceptable. And so what you do is you tear down certain givens that are necessary for Christianity. And you can start by things like “the world was not created, it just evolved.” And at that point you have created a great distance between the creature and the Creator in terms of accountability. You can go further than that. You can say man himself is not the special creation of God. Man himself is just—what—a grown-up monkey. And then you can take further measures to distance humanity from God and from the God-given identity that he gives us.

So you can do things like disassociate gender from sex. Speak of gender as something that’s fluid, as something we can choose. Gender is something self-determined. Create gender confusion, gender conflict. And here’s someone I’m going to read you has put together a whole list of things that you’ve heard today. They are not said together because it’s incoherent if you say it together, but all of them are being touted today: “Males are oppressors. Women are victims. Gender is a social construct while also being a spectrum. Yet I was born in the wrong body, so I’m going to have a sex change. And I’m bisexual, but I hate men. Yet I love gender diversity, so I celebrate our differences because we’re all the same. But you use the wrong gender pronoun, so you’re a sexist bigot.” Pablum.

To subvert society, you can see this mystery of iniquity already at work, relativizing everything. There’s no such thing as truth. Truth is individual-specific or group-specific, but you have competing truths, and both are true. And in fact, the same applies to morals. There are no moral absolutes. What you choose is morally acceptable, and that’s up to you. And what you think is wrong is wrong for you, but it’s not necessarily wrong for someone else. And so there is no such thing as sin in an absolute sense, and there’s no such thing as accountability to God. All of that is taboo. And even though there are no moral absolutes, we must believe that men and women are born basically good. And then apply the same to religion: All religions are the same. They’re just different avenues of approach to the divine. And if religion—whatever religion you choose—if that works for you, that’s true. And if another one works for me, that’s true. And if they conflict, well still, they’re both true. And there’s no one religion that is true for all. And in fact, that’s the evil of Christianity because it claims to be the one religion for all.

Redefine reality. Gender and sex are not the same. Two men in a committed relationship—that’s marriage. Two women in a committed relationship—that’s marriage. Change the vocabulary, change the categories of thinking, change the plausibility structures, the thought structures of all of it, and convince whole societies of all of that kind of pablum, until finally we’ve got what Romans chapter one calls a reprobate mind on a societal level, where it’s incapable of comprehending the gospel. And at some point in all of that, the gospel just becomes implausible. That can’t be true. That’s unacceptable. And at the end of it all, whatever offensiveness the gospel had, it has even more now.

The mystery of iniquity is already at work. Both Daniel and Paul tell us that that kind of thing in some way, a deceptive opposition against society, will succeed widely and triumph on a wide kind of scale until finally the people of God become not only a minority but an oppressed minority. And it’s not difficult at all to see how that can come about because it’s already here. And it shows every sign of gaining steam. Now I want to pick up more on that next time from the book of Revelation. Again, you can read the book of Revelation for next time as well.

Lessons And Applications

But let’s draw some lessons, some applications from all of that that we’ve seen so far. Knowing all of this calls for three things.

Number one: Discernment. Discernment. I had a professor years ago that said, “Young men, pray for discernment. If you never have a happy day the rest of your life, pray for discernment to see things as they really are.” Well, that’s what’s going on here. We must, given all of this, we must pray for discernment. And if we don’t see in all of the false teaching and in all of the ungodly ideals crowding around us and being pressed upon us on a societal level, if we don’t see in all of that the face of the beast, we’re naive. When you hear that people like you who disapprove of gay marriage, homosexuality—that you are evil, that you are intolerant—you need to hear the voice of the beast. You need to hear the voice of Antichrist. That’s him coming. The mystery of iniquity is already at work. And all the cultural pressures that are brought to bear against us, we need to have the discernment not to be taken in by it, but to see it as it is. This is Antichrist at work—restrained in some degree, not yet in its full force, perhaps, but it’s the mystery of iniquity already at work. Our struggle is not with flesh and blood only, but with principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places. There is such a thing as real spiritual warfare, and we’re naive if we don’t see it. The mystery of iniquity is already at work; that calls for discernment.

Knowing all of this calls for also, secondly: Hope. In all of these passages, both in Daniel and Thessalonians—we’ll see it in Revelation and elsewhere—in all of these passages, we’re brought to see that, yes, there will be an advance of evil in a great way and in a widespread way at the end of the age. But that widespread advance of evil will only be for a while. And it will be cut short by the glorious appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has already achieved his lordship. He has come. He’s died in the place of sinners. He’s established his kingship as God’s mediator. All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth. And one day he will return and exercise the full rights of his kingly authority. And in the climactic arrival of the kingdom of God, all of the evil of this world will be subdued. And so the hope of the church remains: “Come Lord Jesus.”

Knowing all of this calls for discernment, it calls for hope. Number three: it also calls for faithfulness. This is a great part of the message of Daniel to the exiles in Babylon. It may seem that the beast is succeeding, and in fact, he may succeed for a time. But you’ve got to know how this is going to end. And in light of that, remain faithful. I won’t be taken in by the beast. As the people of God are described in the book of Revelation, we follow the Lamb wherever he goes. We won’t follow the beast. We follow the Lamb wherever he goes. And as the book of Revelation says, we must be among those who love not our lives, even unto death. But we’re determined that in the end we’ll be on the right side, knowing that whatever the beast may do, our future is good. Our future is secure in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, it is good for us to know what lies ahead. We are grateful that you have warned us of it. May we not shrink from it. Give us faithfulness. Give us hope. Give us discernment in these days to see the advance of evil when it comes. And help us to resist and to be faithful always to the Lord Jesus Christ until he comes. In his name we pray. Amen.

Let’s close our service this morning by singing together the Gloria Patri. If you need the words, it’s in the beginning of our Trinity Hymnal, Roman numeral 25. So let’s stand and close our service together by singing this together. Let’s sing.

“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

You are dismissed.