2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 (NLT)
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters, let us clarify some things about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we will be gathered to meet him.
2 Don’t be so easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already begun. Don’t believe them, even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a revelation, or a letter supposedly from us.
3 Don’t be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed—the one who brings destruction.
4 He will exalt himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God.
5 Don’t you remember that I told you about all this when I was with you?
6 And you know what is holding him back, for he can be revealed only when his time comes.
7 For this lawlessness is already at work secretly, and it will remain secret until the one who is holding it back steps out of the way.
8 Then the man of lawlessness will be revealed, but the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the splendor of his coming.
9 This man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles.
10 He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.
11 So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies.
12 Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth.
13 As for us, we can’t help but thank God for you, dear brothers and sisters loved by the Lord. We are always thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation—a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and through your belief in the truth.
14 He called you to salvation when we told you the Good News; now you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 With all these things in mind, dear brothers and sisters, stand firm and keep a strong grip on the teaching we passed on to you both in person and by letter.
16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope,
17 comfort you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say.
There is yet a precious gathering of saints to meet our returning Lord and Savior. Though God is moving across the earth, with many coming to know and receive the Gospel, there is still a clear setting up of evil and turning of hearts to it that will be dramatically repudiated at Christ’s coming.
Surely, throughout history, with evil dictators and regimes, it has seemed to many that their time spelled Jesus’ imminent return. Wickedness and its following seems to rise and fall in cycles that grow more and more extreme. The exact timing and identification of the Great Hope, though, has never been by what has been interpreted by current events, even by those thought to have spiritual insight. In reality, for the masses who have endured holocausts and severe persecution, the comfort in each case is the knowing that this evil oppression will be overcome by Savior in the end. For those with their names written in heaven, there is the enduring expectation that will have an ultimate culmination in the defeat of a spiritually powerful deceiver. This time is not known exactly, but is one that should prompt readiness at all times. With every rise of evil influence there should be in the body of Christ a prepared anticipation of that final defeating of Satan’s greatest scheming and threat. Always we triumph and always we will share in the glory of Christ’s overwhelming of all the enemy can muster.