I also would like to convey the greetings from Montreal, from Toronto, and from Singapore. We all ask to have their greetings sent and their love sent to each one of you.
Yesterday I was taking a walk by the riverside, as I often do, to be quiet and to meditate, to commune with the Lord. And I saw a very interesting insect. And this insect was flying in the air — a little beetle of some sort. And what struck me about the beetle was that it was shining with a light. Have you ever seen a beetle with a light? It carries its own torch with it. Maybe so that it doesn't fly into a wall or into a tree by mistake. But I think it's not for that purpose. So I was watching it for some time. And the light was so bright that even though it was just by the bridge over the river, where there are so many lights over the bridge and along the walkway — and yet in spite of there being so many lights, the light of this little beetle could still stand out in the dark. Very interesting. How God has created even an insect to be a light to shine in the dark.
And then I remembered that when we were in Israel last year in Elat by the Red Sea, there is a place there which displays all kinds of sea life. Various kinds of fish — oh, very fascinating. All kinds of colors, all kinds of shapes and so on. And one room in this aquarium where they were showing all these fish was entirely dark. And we thought we walked into the wrong room. But no, we discovered that this room is always kept in the dark. And the reason for that is that it shows a special kind of fish that also carries its own light. And in the dark you can see all these fish swimming around with their light. It looks very fascinating. They are quite small fish, but each one carries their own light, which shines in the dark.
And so I was thinking about the words in scripture: "Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." A Christian is somebody who, though once he was in the darkness, he is now light in the Lord. I wonder if that describes your life. Is your life and mine — even though we may be very insignificant, maybe we are no more significant in the history of this world than this little beetle that flies around in the air, or like the fish in the darkness of the sea — and yet we have the task of showing forth the glory of our Savior by the light that shines from our life? It catches our eye. There are many beetles flying around, I suppose, but none of them attracted my attention like this flying light in the air. There is your life and mine. However insignificant as we may think it to be, nevertheless it causes people to be astonished: "How come there is a light shining in the darkness?"
You see, I was also thinking of Pastor Dieter, who, as you know, left us during the past week. He spent three weeks with us. And I think that both the third team and the fourth team benefited a great deal from fellowshipping with him. And I too was fellowshipping with him one day, and I said to him, "You know, Dieter, you remember the first time we met in Switzerland? And in those days, all you could think and all your speech was that of a liberal theologian — always talking about liberal theology. A lot has happened since then, isn't it? Over the past twenty-some years. What happened to you?" "Oh," he said, "that's a long story." It's a long story of how God changed his life. And I think the third team and the fourth team can testify, since they spent most time with him, of that love for the Lord, the love for the word of God, that beauty of Christ that can be seen in his life. Once he was darkness, but now he is light in the Lord.
We went on a boat trip together, thanks to Mr. Sara in our midst, whose company boat was made available to us. And even on the boat, Pastor Dieter said he never goes anywhere without his New Testament — his Greek New Testament, that is. Everywhere he goes, he goes with that so that he can meditate on it. And I think we can see how much he loves the word of God. Truly, through the grace of God in his life, and through his devotion to the Lord and to God's word, you can see how his life shines.
And in spite of the fact that he is certainly an exceedingly brilliant person, yet as Chung Pang noticed, he is not a bookish person. He has many abilities, many qualities. Humanly speaking, he is an outstandingly capable person. He started to play the piano, or started to learn the piano, when he was about 15 or 16. And within some three years, he took the license as a licensed church organist. Maybe those of you who heard him playing the other day — you remember we all had a great time, third and fourth team together, singing with him. We were singing songs in German and in Ashanti, which is an African language, because he taught at a theological college in Ghana at one time. And we were singing songs in Hebrew and English and in Chinese — everything. And you could see with what ease he plays on the piano too. In fact, the piano is not his only instrument. Since that time, he has learned to play the oboe and all kinds of other instruments as well. A man of extraordinary ability and gifts — not just demonstrated by the fact that he took a PhD in Cambridge in theology, but by many other things. Ability in typing — I think I shared with some of you once, I asked him to type a letter for me once, way back, I think it was in Switzerland. And he typed so fast — of course, fortunately the letter was short — but he typed so fast that I walked the length of the room and back, and he pulled the paper out of the machine and said, "Here is your letter."
Truly, we can see how God can work in a person's heart and transform a proud, arrogant, self-reliant person into one that manifests the beauty of Christ. One of the great joys — I was sharing with those in the fourth team — one of the great joys in serving the Lord is to see how God changes a life. If God doesn't change the life, you have to ask: who did it? How did it come about? Such an utter and fundamental transformation! If you have not served the Lord, maybe you haven't experienced this joy over the years, which is a greater reward than money or anything can bring, and a greater testimony to the fact that God is the living God. What we have is not a moral reformation in which a guy had some bad habits, like smoking, and then he manages to quit, and puts off the bad habits, and he becomes a nicer person through some moral reform. Oh, no, no. I am talking about fundamental transformation of character. A new person. And I have watched people like Pastor Dieter and others utterly transformed by God's gracious power. All through the years, I have watched this happen again and again and again, and it fills me with awe and amazement at God's power.
Well, we want to speak a little bit further about this in this message today. But before we do so, let us be quiet before God in prayer.
Let us pray. Our Father, our God, we want to worship You from the depth of our hearts. Because not only are You the Creator of heaven and earth and all the marvel of nature that we see — insects that shine with light, fish in the sea that carry their own light, and all kinds of other amazing creatures — and most amazing of all is man that You have created, in his capacity to think, his capacity to carry Your image, and to shine with a glory that outshines everything else, the highest of all Your creatures, the closest to being like Yourself. But Lord, we see that man has often fallen, and fallen deeply into sin and bondage. And yet the good news that we proclaim is that You can lift him up out of the miry clay of sin, and set his foot upon the solid rock that is Christ, and make a new person out of him that shines with a glory that shows forth Yourself. Father, we commit this time, this afternoon, into Your hands. And I do earnestly pray that Your word will speak to every heart here. And if there is any person here not yet transformed, and not yet clothed with the garments of light, then may You, O Lord, in Your graciousness, show each person what You can do with their lives, that they may experience the marvel of Your power working in their lives for themselves — not just by hearing what happens in other people's lives, but how You, O Lord, can do wonderful things in each one of our lives. Let nobody, O Lord, through fear of self, or through love of sin, flee from this opportunity to experience Your saving power. Hear our prayer, our plea, our supplication. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen.
In our last message, I was talking about the Christian in the days of the Antichrist, and the subject of my series of messages is about this dreadful character who is darkness, not light — this dreadful character called the Antichrist. But something even more dreadful about the Antichrist appears to be the fact that once he was some sort of light, but he became darkness. A darkness so dark such as has never appeared in a human being in the history of the world.
Now there are lots of dark people around — I mean inwardly dark people. There are lots of criminals around. There's a lot of talk about the triads in Hong Kong linked up with loan sharks and massage parlors and extortion and robbery and crime. There's been darkness in human beings from the beginning of human history, from the days of Cain, indeed, from the time of Adam. But the darkness that will be found in the person of the Antichrist is particularly tragic when light becomes darkness. There are those who have always been darkness and in a sense it ceases to surprise us. Nothing very surprising. But when somebody who is light, or was light at one time, becomes darkness — the tragedy of that darkness is a shock in itself. When a good man becomes a mafia boss, that is something painful. If he always grew up as a bad person and just got a little bit worse, or steadily worse, it doesn't shock us too much. We say, "Well, that's the way he always was." But does it not shock you and disturb you and cause you grief when a good person, an apparently good person, turns his back upon that which is good and becomes evil?
In fact, the prophet Ezekiel speaks about this several times. That's a striking thing about the book of Ezekiel, when he says that if the righteous man turns his back upon his righteousness and becomes evil and does evil, God's judgment will come upon such a person without mercy. And he speaks in another place of somebody called the Prince of Tyre or the King of Tyre, who used to be full of glory and beauty, and then became arrogant and became evil and began to blaspheme against God, thinking himself to become equal with God. He wants to set himself above the very stars of God.
It is a tragedy of the first order when a good man becomes bad. And it happens, we can say gladly, very seldom. It isn't too frequent that a good man becomes that bad. And yet it never ceases to astonish us — not only that the light should be extinguished in a certain person, but that he should go all the way to becoming utter darkness, a spiritual black hole that robs the goodness from everything else and sucks it into the evil that is in himself. Isn't that a tragedy? Do you know anybody like that? I would think you would seldom come across this kind of person. But when it does happen, it is the tragedy of the worst sort.
Now the Antichrist, as I will want to show you in this message today that the Lord lays on my heart, is precisely this kind of person. And so bad does he become that nothing delights him so much as to persecute the church and to kill the Christians. He doesn't just want to give them a bad time. He wants to do away with the Christians, of whom it appears that he himself was one at one time. He is the traitor. And somehow we don't mind enemies, but even the natural man hates a traitor. He scorns a traitor. A traitor disgusts him. Even disgusts the natural man.
There is a certain morality, as it is called, even among prison inmates. And I am told that prison inmates hate — even they hate a certain kind of person. But one of the people they hate most is the informer and the traitor. They hate this kind of person. They don't mind murderers in a way. They don't even mind rapists too much, unless he's been raping children, which I am told is unpopular even among prison populations. Sort of prison morality. A morality among criminals. They too have some sort of morality. But the one thing they cannot stand is the Judas type — the informer, the betrayer. And that is why informers against the mafia become object number one for murder. They are to be liquidated. And these informers have to be kept under constant police protection.
But such is the Antichrist, as we read in the Bible and as I need to show you, that he is the kind of person that we are told again and again leads the war against Christians, of which he himself was one before, and does it with such delight that he will not stop at anything less than putting Christians to death. And that is why in the last message I pointed out that becoming a Christian in the last days is something of the greatest danger. It is not a question of raising your hand and making a decision and coming forward. Oh, that is easy. What does it cost to raise a hand and come forward? Sign a piece of paper that tells you that you have decided for Christ. It costs nothing. But I have been warning you again and again that any preacher that doesn't tell you that when you become a Christian — especially in these last days — it could cost you your life... And you say, "That's strange. Preachers are not supposed to say that. You should keep it all hush and quiet so that you don't frighten people away from becoming Christians." I am determined to frighten you away from becoming a Christian if you are not prepared to love the truth even at the cost of your own blood.
As our brother Calvin was just praying in his prayer, he was saying that even if we have given up all our possessions for the Lord, that doesn't come near to what the Lord has done for us. You know, it's easier often to give up one's possessions than one's blood. At least one still has one's life. One can turn one's back on one's profession. Well, we are still living a relatively good life, not so rich as before, we don't have so much money to spend, but we have all we need. It's still not bad. And above all, we have wonderful co-workers, wonderful fellowship, wonderful life still. But one of these days you and I may be called upon to pay for our faith with our blood. And on that day I don't want anyone who has come to the Lord in this church to be running for their lives. And so I'm going to scare you off if you are that easily scared. I'm going to tell you: if you want to get baptized next month, or whenever the baptism is coming up — don't even think about it if you are not prepared for what the Antichrist will do with you.
Because when he comes, there is no enemy like the enemy who knows what the church is about because he comes from the church. As the apostle John warned us already — the apostle John warned us that the real enemies of the church come from within the church and will create a disaster for the church more terrible than anything that the church has ever known. And that is why I said that as you read the New Testament — and if you read it carefully — you will see that this war theme, that being a Christian is to be involved in spiritual warfare — intensifies as the New Testament progresses. And by the time, as I mentioned last time, you come to the Revelation, everything is talking about spiritual warfare. You turn every page of Revelation, you see this theme of spiritual warfare hitting you all the time. There is talk about armies and battles and conflict and death and martyrs. That is the whole talk about Revelation. And we read in Revelation that the beast makes war on the saints. That is the term you read in Revelation. You see that in Revelation chapter 11, verse 7; chapter 12, verse 17; chapter 13, verse 7. The theme comes back again and again: the beast will make war on the saints. The beast, of course, is a term for the Antichrist in Revelation. He is called the beast. And he will make war upon the saints. And there is the dreadful word: "And he will overcome them." He will overcome them. Physically, in most cases, that means he will put them to death. And in some cases, I fear that the word "overcome" means he will also defeat them spiritually — that is, cause them to apostatize.
Imagine yourself on that day, and the Antichrist is persecuting you, and he gives you the option: you either deny Christ or you die. Well, that's not so bad. But then he is going to intimidate you by telling you, "Listen, my friend. I used to be a Christian as zealous as you are. Probably more. Which Bible school did you go to? I went to so-and-so. Which seminary did you go to? I went to this one." By this time you're already intimidated. "Listen, my friend, I know much more about Christianity than ever you did. Have you ever performed any miracles?" "No, no." "Well, I have. I have performed miracles, and I will perform a few more for you to see right now." Persecution is not so bad, but can you handle this kind of pressure from somebody who knows — or claims to know — more about Christianity than you do? That's terrifying. If you're dealing with a non-Christian, he knows nothing, isn't it? You say, "Poor ignorant man. Father, forgive him, because he doesn't know what he does." But you can't pray like that for the Antichrist, because he knows exactly what he is doing. The dreadfulness about a Judas was that he was an apostle. Imagine — you will be persecuted by an apostle of Christ, or an ex-apostle of Christ, who has visions and revelations and miracles to his credit, which you haven't seen and don't even know anybody who has done anything like it.
Now you'll say, "Okay, okay, this is all getting very impressive, but what's your evidence for saying all this?" Let's look at the evidence. And so now let's turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 3, which is our text for today. And I have been going through this verse very, very slowly and very carefully. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 3: "Let no one in any way deceive you, for it [that is, the coming of Christ] will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction."
Now there are two terms. Is the Bible very vague about who the Antichrist is? And now we are coming to the theme of the Antichrist — the person, the character of the Antichrist. In the past messages I moved in wider circles, and now I am closing the circle and beginning to focus on the person and character of the Antichrist. There are two names given to the Antichrist, and anyone somewhat familiar with scripture will immediately be struck by these two names.
The second name here is "the son of perdition" in the Authorized Version, correctly translated "son of perdition." Perdition means destruction, and therefore in some newer translations you have "the son of destruction" — that man who is heading for complete disaster, for utter destruction, because he is a darkness the like of which has not appeared in man before. Now, do you know to whom this term refers? It occurs only in one other place in the Bible — and I think I have hinted on this or touched on this before — and that is in John 17, verse 12, where it refers to Judas. That's the only other place in the Bible where this title, this term, is used. This term occurs only two times in the New Testament. Here it is applied to the Antichrist, and once it is applied to Judas. That should give you a very good clue of who the Antichrist is. It is giving us the clear indication that the Antichrist is a person — or will be a person — like Judas. Now that is very striking. Very striking indeed. A fearful term. A man like Judas — as I said, that even the natural man hates this kind of person.
Now the characteristic of Judas is familiar to you all, and I don't have to spend time on it, is that he was one of the twelve apostles who walked with Jesus. If you think going to a seminary or Bible school is something, well, think about someone who was actually trained by the Lord Jesus Himself. And such a person turned his back on Christ. Higher than that in the church you cannot go. To be one of the twelve apostles is the acme, the highest level. There is no office higher than the apostle in the church. Judas belonged not only to the group of apostles, of which there are more than twelve — twelve were apostles, Paul was also an apostle, but he is not one of the twelve — there were other apostles besides the twelve. But the apostles are always regarded as the highest level in the church, below whom come prophets and teachers. And Judas belonged to the highest category in the church, who was trained by the Lord Himself. And he it was that betrayed the Lord. That's why everyone feels sick in the stomach even at the name "Judas."
It is true that Judas eventually, after he had betrayed the Lord, had some pangs or pains of conscience and admitted that he had betrayed innocent blood. He testified that Jesus was innocent. The trouble with Judas — and I pause only to look at this point before we go on to the other title — the trouble with Judas is, you know what? He never burned his bridges behind him. And the Gospel of John tells us that the problem with Judas is that he loved money. In other words, we have an apostle who loved money. He never burned his bridges behind him, and that is why he was able to go in the backward direction. After he had gone forward, he went back again — back, all the way back, so far back into the world that he became a traitor.
That's the first hint about the Antichrist, and a warning to all Christians: that if you have become a Christian, or you're thinking about baptism, and you're not prepared to burn your bridges behind you — one of these days you're going to go back over that bridge, and there may be no way to stop the momentum. You not only go back over the bridge to becoming a non-Christian again, you'll go so far back that you'll become a traitor. That's what happened to the Antichrist.
I ask all of you who have become Christians, or professed to become Christians: be very honest with yourself. Have you burned your bridges? When you were baptized, did you really die with Christ? Or have you left your bridges behind you open, so that when the going gets tough, when the attraction of money looks good again, you will turn around and go back? And I say this particularly to those of you in the teams. All our teammates are fairly highly qualified people, holding one or more degrees. And for such people, the world will never stop being a source of temptation. For all of us, the world will never stop being a source of temptation. So if we do not burn our bridges behind us, one of these days the world may make us an offer which is hard to turn down. How about the general manager of this and that company? All of us as leaders in the church have a lot of experience in administration, in leadership, in planning, and these kinds of experience and ability proven through the years is invaluable to the world. The world is forever looking for people like that who have long experience in administration, planning, leadership. This kind of people are very attractive to the world. And one of these days they will make us an offer again that is hard to refuse — an offer that is hard to turn down. And if we have not burned our bridges behind us — I say this particularly to all the dear fellow co-workers — you might just be tempted, having put your hand to the plow, to look back again and go back over the bridge. And when you do that, you may not be able to put on the brakes, and you may keep going — the speed of it will astonish you. So don't think that only Judas became a Judas. Unfortunately, down through the history of the church, there have been quite a number of Judases, only there have been less well-publicized than that of Judas.
I shall not pause long on this. Our time goes fast, and I want to come quickly to the second title. The second title here is "the man of sin." In some versions it is translated as "the man of lawlessness," but that doesn't matter too much — sin and lawlessness are the same thing. And I would say, on the basis of textual evidence and of logical evidence, which I shall not go into now because otherwise it will make this subject too technical for some of us, the support for the term "man of sin" textually and otherwise is much stronger.
Now what can we learn from this title "man of sin"? If you learn how to exegete the Bible, you will learn how to search into the scriptures so that even a title like this will come clear with its meaning and reveal its contents to you. Where do we begin to get into the meaning of this? Well, we must begin at 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 15, which I will read to you. It's only a few chapters down from Thessalonians. 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15, which reads like this: "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all." Now there you have the one and only equivalent. Just like the title "the son of perdition" which occurs only twice in the New Testament, here we have the one and only equivalent to the title "man of sin" in the New Testament. There is no other equivalent. Here it is. Paul says, "I am the foremost, the chief of all sinners."
Now you say, "Well, how does that illuminate the phrase?" Well, look at it and you will see. "Man of sin" means the man who is the most outstanding example of sin. The person so utterly in the grip of sin that he can be called simply "the man of sin." He is so characteristic of sin that he embodies sin in himself. If you want to know what sin is like, look at this man. That is the man of sin. And Paul comes up and says exactly the same thing: "I am the highest example of all sinners. I am the chief of sinners." How do I understand this? Very important to understand the point and the connection between these two.
You see, the point of it is this: that the Antichrist will be an apostle, you remember? But he will be an apostle even like Paul, but Paul in reverse — going in the opposite direction. Now this point is exceedingly important. Look at verse 13, because clearly we cannot look at 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 15, without looking at its context. Why was Paul the chief of sinners? Why did he speak of himself as the chief of sinners? Do you know why? He gives us the reason in verse 13: "Even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor." You know why he calls himself the chief of sinners? The reasons are given here. Three reasons are given, all part of the same reason. He was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a "hubristes" — that's the Greek word, "hubristes." The reason I mention the Greek word is because it's so hard to translate into English, and I must take a moment to explain to you what the word "hubristes" means in Greek, because every translation tries to translate it but just cannot do it. The meaning of the word is too wide.
Basically, it had the meaning of arrogance. But that was not enough, because it means a person so arrogant and so self-centered that he thinks of himself as a little god, and so that he can impose his will upon other people and trample upon other people's welfare and do what he likes with other people. He has no regard for people. In his eyes there is nobody except himself. He is arrogant in the sense that he does whatever he wants to do, even if it means trampling on you. Maybe the best way to understand this word is to think of those films you have seen, for example, of the Second World War, and some Nazi officer in his immaculate uniform, his beautiful uniform with his high hat sticking up with his cross and skull bone on his hat, standing there in his arrogance with his hands on his hip, or his whip in one hand, putting people to death with an ease and a comfort — he might as well be stepping on insects. Those other people whom he kills are nothing. He disposes of them as though these human beings are just plain garbage. And in his mind, they are in fact garbage. He stands there with an arrogance that is in Greek described as "hubris." A "hubristes," then, is this kind of person — like this Nazi officer. And if you happen to be one of those people who is going to be snuffed out in a moment as a piece of garbage, that's exactly the kind of picture that is portrayed in this word. And Paul is saying, "I was like that — like this Nazi officer who regards other human beings as so much garbage that is to be eliminated." And most tragically, eliminated in God's name. In this case, he himself is the representative of God who thinks he can put Christians to death. And it was Christians, you remember, that Paul put to death.
Now there is the comparison. Remember how we began? I said the Antichrist will be a Christian who puts other Christians to death. It is the saints that he will destroy. And it is precisely because Paul said, "I was putting Christians to death" that he says, "I am the chief of sinners. I am the man of sin." I put to death those who are of God, of light. Now every word that he uses here in verse 13 is applied also to the Antichrist, and that is very interesting.
The first is "blasphemer." Now the term "blasphemer" is interesting too. It is a sign of people of the end times — 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1, that we will not read now. But this word "blasphemer" is applied to the Antichrist in Revelation chapter 13, verses 5 and 6. Revelation 13:5 and 6, and this verse I would like to read to you very quickly so that you begin to see what is a man of sin. And this is how it reads, concerning the Antichrist: "And there was given to him" — that is, to the Antichrist — "a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for 42 months was given to him. And verse 6: 'And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, the temple, and those who dwell in heaven.'" See that? Now you begin to see the correspondence. And Paul says, "I was — thanks be to God, he was no more — but I was a blasphemer formerly. I was all of these things. And I was" — notice the word — "a persecutor." He says the Antichrist would persecute unto death the Christians, which is exactly what Paul did — an arrogant man who trampled upon the well-being of others with no regard for anyone. There you see the Antichrist, and there you see Paul. Paul was just like the Antichrist, but he was now going in the opposite direction.
Let me read to you also from Galatians chapter 1 and verse 13, so that this picture becomes clearer in your mind. Galatians chapter 1 and verse 13, and this is what we read here: "For you have heard," Paul says to the Galatians, "you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it." Now that's exactly what the Antichrist will try to do. He not only persecutes the church — why does he want to persecute the church? He wants to destroy it. And Paul uses an interesting term here. He not only says, "I persecuted the church," but "I persecuted it beyond measure" — going beyond all limits. He had no limits in his determination to persecute Christians, to put them to death, and to destroy the church. Amazing, isn't it?
He says again the same thing, something similar, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and I must read this to you too. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 9, and this is what the apostle Paul says: "I am the least of the apostles, and I am not fit to be called an apostle because I..."
# Antichrist: A Perversion of Paul
He persecuted them to death. And he worked with a diligence which nobody ever before him had ever worked with to destroy the church. There is the comparison. But then there's one important difference about Paul. He turned around and went in the opposite direction. He turned around from being a persecutor of the church and became the greatest, and many regard as the greatest apostle. Many regard him as greater even than the twelve apostles.
Now notice here is the comparison and the contrast. If you want to understand the Antichrist, you have to understand him in the light of Paul. Think of Paul now. He was a persecutor of the church, merciless, pitiless, blaspheming. But he says, I did it in ignorance. I didn't know what I was doing at that time. Now there is the difference from the Antichrist. The Antichrist knows perfectly well what he was doing, or what he will be doing. Paul didn't at the time.
So Paul goes from being persecutor to becoming the greatest apostle. The Antichrist will go in the opposite direction. From a great apostle, the greatest in his time, when he will come, to becoming a persecutor of the church. Now do you see the picture? They both are the chief of sinners. What is the difference? The difference is in the direction they go. Paul goes from the chief of sinners, from the persecutor of the church, to becoming an apostle, faithful unto death, until he himself lays down his life. The Antichrist goes from chief apostle in his time, to becoming a persecutor of the church, and a destroyer of the church, without mercy.
The difference was, the apostle Paul, because he began as a persecutor, didn't realize what he was doing. The dreadful difference of the Antichrist is that he knows perfectly well what he is doing. And that is why no mercy will be shown to him at the judgment. None whatever. Revelation says that he will be cast into the abyss with Satan. No mercy will be shown to him at the judgment. Because he sins deliberately, for which there is no sacrifice.
Now let me pause one moment again with the apostle Paul. The apostle Paul is one of the most astonishing examples of God's transforming power in the history of the world. Even the New Testament scholars today, the most critical, the most unsympathetic, the most liberal, the most radical scholars, admit that they have no way to understand the apostle Paul. And because we are familiar with the name of the apostle Paul, we are not often familiar with the fact that he who was once darkness, and darkness of the greatest kind, was transformed into light, and light of the greatest kind.
I said at the beginning of this message that one of the most amazing things, and one of the greatest evidences of the fact that God is the living God, is that he can take a sinner and make a saint out of him. That takes a power beyond which there is no greater power. The power to make a new person out of someone who is rotten, degraded, transformed, this person. I have seen, and I have heard the testimony myself, of mafia men, mafia gangsters, who became a preacher of the gospel. There is no sin too difficult, too dark, for God to forgive and to transform that sinner.
And that's why I said at the beginning, one of the most amazing things about serving God is to see lives transformed. And today I'm not asking you just to see lives transformed. Like you yourself, experience that transforming power. Then you know why God is real. Why is God real to me? Because I have seen what he has done with me, and I have testified about that in other places. I dread to think what kind of a person I would have been if God hadn't transformed me.
What kind of a person was Paul? Why did a persecutor of the church — have you ever thought about that? Why did that ruthless persecutor of the church suddenly become transformed and become an apostle? That's why I say, even the most antagonistic people to the gospel don't know what the answer to that is. Paul himself explains it: because he saw Jesus on the Damascus road, he met with Jesus, that's what transformed his life. There's no one who has ever been able to give another explanation. None whatever. That is the amazing power of God.
But what happened with the Antichrist? The Antichrist went in the opposite direction. And he became, from becoming an apostle, became a persecutor of the church, and even worse. You know what he wants to do? It tells us there, he wants to become God himself. He wants to take God's place. That we already read in Revelation 13. We read it also in this passage here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. And let me read it to you, it's in the next verse. We read 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 3, now we read verse 4. And this is what we read about the Antichrist: He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
He now has become arrogant to the point that he himself wants to displace his master. Once he was following God, like Judas, like Paul, but now he wants not only to be an apostle, he wants to be God himself. The parallel with the apostle Paul is also very interesting. Do you know that they tried to make God out of the apostle Paul? That's very interesting. There you have the other parallel. But by that time, Paul would not hear of it. Where does this happen? It's in Acts chapter 14. Let me read to you this very interesting account in Acts chapter 14, where they tried to make Paul a god, but he didn't want to hear of it. And we read about this in verse 8. It starts at verse 8, but our time is going now, so we will only read at verse 11.
And when the multitude saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lyconian language, that gods have become like men and have come down to us. In verse 12, and they began calling Barnabas Zeus, and Paul Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And in verse 13, and the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifice to Paul and to Barnabas together with the crowd. In other words, to offer sacrifice is to worship them.
Paul had just done a miracle, an amazing miracle. And the response of the crowd was, whoa, this is a god, these are gods, we got to worship them. They're going to offer sacrifices to them. And Paul says, no, no. Verse 14 goes on to tell how Paul and Barnabas said, stop, stop, don't worship us. We are not gods. We are not gods. And so they went on. But the Antichrist will do nothing of the kind. When you want to worship him, he is very pleased to accept the worship. In fact, he will demand worship. How remarkable.
Now you know what is the reason for their wanting to worship Paul? I just mentioned, because of the miracle. Well, turn back to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and you will see the parallel again. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 tells us that the Antichrist, through the power of Satan, will be performing miracles. Amazing miracles. And these miracles we read about in verse 9 of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2: The one coming, that is the Antichrist, is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all powers, signs, and wonders.
That's why I said at the beginning, how would you like to be persecuted by somebody who is an apostle, and who performed in the past, and will still perform, powers, signs, and wonders. Amazing. And you know, there is something also amazing when you study the New Testament. The three words here, powers, signs, and wonders, is used in that combination only a few times in the New Testament. But in that particular order, powers, signs, and wonders, in that particular order, powers, signs, and wonders, occurs only once. And that is in Romans chapter 15 and verse 19. And do you know who it is applied to in Romans 15:19? Maybe you have guessed it. It is the apostle Paul. Coincidence? Not in scripture, it isn't.
Let me read to you Romans chapter 15 and verse 19. And this is what it says here. Verse 18, we start: For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed. Now notice, exactly the same words occurring now, verse 19: in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. Those three words, in that same order, occur in connection with the ministry of the apostle Paul.
All this causes us to see that the Antichrist, in all these points — remember, the blasphemies, the man of sin, the persecution, the miracles — in every point, he is exactly like the apostle Paul. What is the vital difference? And it is on this point of difference that we have to close. The vital difference is the direction. If you are a worker today, a full-time worker, or even just a Christian today, don't sit back in confidence and think that you are safe, you are secure. There is coming, the Bible warns us, an Antichrist whose spiritual stature will rival that of the apostle Paul.
A teacher in the church — and you remember, in 1 John, the Antichrist, are all false teachers. But they will not be manifestly false. That is, you will not know right away whether they are false or not. That is the problem. In fact, as you know, the 12 apostles did not know who was going to betray the Lord Jesus. They did not know that one of the 12 apostles, one of themselves, would betray him. They did not know that. And that is the frightening thing about the Antichrist. He will rise up in the church, a preacher of extraordinary power, a doer of miracles. And he will become a persecutor of the church, without limits, without measure, like the apostle Paul.
And you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. And the most frightening thing is when he persecutes you, you will be persecuted not by a non-Christian, which will be easier to take, isn't it? But by an apostle? A leader, a topmost leader of the church? How can we take that? And not just a great preacher, but somebody who can demonstrate before your eye, to your astonishment, miracles, signs, wonders. And would you tell, would you be able to tell by whose power he is doing it? Yes, the Bible tells us here in 2 Thessalonians that he will do it by the power of Satan. But will you be able to see the power of Satan? No, it's hidden.
The difference between him and Paul, as we see in Romans chapter 15 verse 19, is that Paul says it's by the power of the Spirit that he does his miracle. But could you tell the difference? I fear on that day there will be a great apostasy. Not just because there is persecution, but because of who it is that is doing the persecuting. That is the terrifying thing about it. Will you be able to stand on that day, faithful unto death?
Now we can understand why Paul says the strange words in Galatians chapter 1. He says a very strange thing. He says this: if I, even I myself, should preach another gospel to you — how can he himself — he said, if I, Paul, change in the future and preach a gospel different from the one that I have preached to you now, then don't you believe it. Not even if I was the one, and came back in five years' time to you, say, I, Paul, remember I preached to you a gospel before, well now I'm going to preach another gospel to you. And Paul is saying, don't listen to me. That's a very strange statement to make.
Paul said, if I ever change, don't listen to me in the future. The gospel which I have preached to you is the true one. And if I myself should preach another gospel to you in the future, you don't listen to me. Or even if an angel from heaven should preach another gospel to you, don't listen to that either. Amazing. Strange statement, isn't it? He even banks on the possibility, even the mere suggestion, that should he himself change. Could it be that he was already aware that somebody else, like himself, an apostle like himself, would come and preach another gospel? Yeah. Unless he was considering that possibility, the words in Galatians 1 are meaningless, isn't it? He was clearly already thinking of the Antichrist. Apparently Paul was aware that the Antichrist will be an apostle like himself, who would, however, be preaching a different gospel, but doing signs and wonders.
We must end this message, shocking and frightening message that it is. But I have shown you from the scriptures that the scriptures have known it all along. It has been revealed to us, and I have expounded it to you. Beware of another apostle Paul, who will come and preach another gospel. With signs and wonders and miracles, such as will astonish all of us. And that man will persecute the church. But of course, the church that he persecutes, he will describe as the false church. And the message that he preaches, he will describe as the true message. Not the one that Paul preached, but the one that he preaches. Stand fast, brothers and sisters. For that day is not far off. Not far off.
How can we be sure that we can stand fast on that day? There is only one way, brothers and sisters. The direction in which you move is all important. You may hate the gospel now, as Paul once did. That doesn't matter. That's not even the most terrible thing. Provided that your heart is open to the truth, and you are going in the right direction. Remember, the direction is all that matters. For Paul, it was from persecution to becoming the chief apostle. For the Antichrist, it is from becoming chief apostle to becoming the destroyer of the church.
The fact that today you are a Christian, or a full-time worker, or in training, proves nothing. Mark my words, it proves nothing. Always remember that Judas was also an apostle. It is the direction. Judas also went in the opposite direction from Paul. From apostle to traitor. What was Paul's secret? We see it all in Philippians chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, verses which should be very familiar to us. Forgetting that which is behind, Paul says, I press forward towards the mark. And I go for the goal with everything that is within me. The direction, and the intensity in which you move in that direction, is the second and last point. Remember, in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 10, I labor harder than they all. So he goes in the right direction, the upward direction, and he not only keeps going, he goes there with an intensity that leaves all the others behind.
The reason why Paul was so outstanding was not merely that he went in the right direction. But with what intensity he went in that direction is what leaves us all in the shade. Are you going in the right direction? So let me close the message today. Have you experienced for yourself God's transforming power in your life, in such a way that you can say, I know whom I have believed. That's what the apostle Paul says. Because of what he has done in me, I know whom I have believed. Can you say that?
Secondly, are you going in the right direction, in the upward call of God? And thirdly, are you going with the intensity that Paul had, which says, I labor harder than they all. I am the least of the apostles because I persecuted the church of God. But I am going with the intensity that none of them can even catch up on me. But not because of me. It is the grace of God that I am drawing upon, and which is working in me.
Let us pray. Amen. Amen.