Who Shall We See First?

            This is a word of preparation given at a recent Chronos Ministry weekly meeting. The truth that the disciples’ beloved Jesus would have to suffer and die on the cross, only to come again was still unthinkable to them as He taught about the end of this age and the final signs. His teaching is commonly called the Olivet Discourse, which is recorded in Mt. 24-25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. The disciples were still stuck on their earthly idea of a deliverer who would free them from the bondage of their Gentile oppressors—in this case the Romans—rather than the bondage of sin and the wages of death. This was their first introduction to the signs of this age and the fact that Jesus would leave and would return.
            Nor did they fully recognize the one thing they needed to know about the timing of God’s plan of redemption yet, but they quickly came to see it in God’s prophetic timetable of a “week” of thousand-year great Days (2 Pet. 3:8). So did the apostle Paul when he was miraculously called to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, as we see in his letters to the Thessalonians.
           “Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
            Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.  For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved (2 Thess. 2:1-10, emphasis added).
       Notice that Paul says that he had already taught the Thessalonians these things, so they shouldn’t be shaken by any rumors they hear. He taught them God’s prophetic plan of redemption, what we refer to as the Day Code. In verse 6, Paul reminds them of this. “And now you know what is restraining the plan.”
          The religious scholars have come up with various ideas as to who is responsible for this restraining, including the archangel Michael, the Holy Spirit, and the Church’s commission to preach the Gospel to the whole earth. These various ideas come, for the most part, because the Church has ignored the Day Code specifically recorded in the New Testament with the intention that we, too, would be able to understand the times and the seasons in God’s plan.
            Paul even went so far as to give us a reminder. It all has to unfold according to God’s timetable and the corresponding signs that were given by the Old Testament prophets, just as Jesus taught in the Olivet Discourse. Paul then reminds them that the Antichrist, the head of the mystery of lawlessness, will come first. He must be revealed (vs. 3). Joel 2 and Daniel 8:12 tell us how he rises up, how he invades Israel with a coalition of Middle Eastern armies, and eventually enters the newly rebuilt temple. He even goes into the Holy of Holies in defiance of God the Father.
         Every prophesied event shall unfold according to God’s timetable. In case you’re wondering, we shall witness the Antichrist’s invasion and defiant transgression of desolation. The final sign of total darkness over the whole earth shall halt the invasion temporarily. Then the whole world shall see Christ coming in the clouds as the 7th and final great Day dawns with the rapture.
            The amount of Day Code references throughout the Bible should alert us to the fact that God expects us to see that Day approaching (Heb. 10:25). He doesn’t want us shaken. He wants us to be ready, earnestly expecting Christ’s return to gather us together and take us to Heaven as His joint-heirs and ruling heavenly court.