Those Who Are Righteous
Who Worship God in Spirit and in Truth
Are Prime Targets of the Antichrist!
"Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped..."
(2 Thessalonians 2:4). The spirit of antichrist is opposed to all who walk closely with God. He goes after true worshipers because he wants their worship for himself!
Satan wants nothing more than to destroy pure worship. He wants to rob God of all praise! And if you who walk in intimacy with Jesus, the antichrist spirit will come against you with everything he has. He will attack you with fear, doubt, and lust, anything to give him an inroad to hinder your worship.
Yet his spirit of lawlessness is being restrained by the Holy Ghost: "And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time" (verse 6). It is the power of God's Spirit in His church, that is, in you and me, that holds back Satan's anarchy. Indeed, if God were to lift His Spirit from on-fire churches and godly believers, our nation would be a raging hell.
Yet careless, lazy Christians, those who have never forsaken their sin, who are still engrossed in the things of the world, will not be able to stand in these last days. They will be overtaken by evil!
The apostle Peter writes:
"These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.... For if after they have escaped the pollution's of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
"For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire" (2 Peter 2:17, 2 Peter 2:20-22).
The people whom Peter describes here claimed to be saved. They once had escaped the pollution's of the world, delivered by the power of God. They had known the way of righteousness. And yet they became entangled again in sin. The spirit of antichrist overcame them!
Peter couldn't have been speaking of non-believers here. After all, the unsaved have no faith to fall away from. Rather, those who fall have something to fall away from. Obviously, Peter is talking about apostate Christians.
Yet such half-hearted believers do more than fall away from the Lord. They also fall into something, into the hands of the antichrist spirit! Peter says such people have been "...overcome..." (verse 21).
The apostle Paul makes an astounding statement. He says that even now the antichrist spirit has taken his place in the temple: "...so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
Beloved, it's time to stop looking to Jerusalem, to the rebuilding of the temple, because the spirit of antichrist is already ascending his throne!
"What?" you ask. "What is this temple where the antichrist spirit now sits, showing his power and reign?"
It is the temple of people's hearts! "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16).
"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" (6:19). "...for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (2 Corinthians 6:16).
Yes, we are God's temple. But for some, another spirit has invaded that temple. The Spirit of God is gone, and lust, pride, covetousness and slander all reign supreme. There is no longer anything pure, holy or divine. A mysterious spirit of lawlessness is in control!
How could such a terrible, frightful thing happen? At one time the living God possessed this temple, ruling and reigning. He was once enthroned here.
Beloved, this happens because so many Christians have grown careless. They no longer walk in righteousness or holiness. And they end up giving an inroad to the spirit of antichrist. Now he sits in the temple of their heart, showing himself to be absolutely in control!