The Day of the Lord

In 2Thess 2:2 Paul moves on to the subject of the Day of the Lord. This was a subject with which readers of the Old Testament were familiar.

It was described by Isaiah as follows: 'Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light. Thus I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless' (chapter 13: 9-11).

Zephaniah described it in similar terms: 'Near is the great day of the Lord, Near and coming very quickly; Listen the day of the Lord! In it the warrior cries out bitterly. A day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of trumpet and battle cry, against the fortified cities and the high corner towers' (chapter 2: 14-16).

The Day of the Lord is also spoken of by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Joel, Obadiah and Malachi. It is seen almost universally as a time of judgement.

The Thessalonians had evidently received messages or letters purporting to be from Paul and indicating that the Day of the Lord had come. It was obviously a frightening thought, and Paul wanted to reassure them that it was not true. He went on to give them signs by which they could recognise its approach. We will turn our attention to them now.

The Apostasy

In verse 3 we read that apostasy will come before the Day of the Lord comes, and the man of lawlessness will be revealed. Apostasy means a falling away (from God). Paul was once accused of teaching apostasy from Moses (Acts 21:21). Obviously, the apostasy had not taken place then, but has it taken place now? Let's look at what's happened since then. From the first century to the time of the reformation the church went progressively into ever deeper darkness. I am no expert on church history and only want to give a bare outline. Persecution kept the church fairly pure until the time of Constantine.

After he became Roman emperor in the year 312 he made Christianity the official religion of the empire. Everything then began to change. What should have been a blessing became a curse. Heathen temples were turned into churches and heathen festivals were christianised. Images and idols were worshipped. Ritual prayer replaced prayer from the heart. Bishops and church leaders began to be powerful and wealthy people.

Time passed and the church became more and more one with the world. Political and military power replaced spiritual. Armies set out in the name of Christ to recapture the Holy Land, slaughtering large numbers of Jews and Muslims and others wherever they went. Worse was yet to come. For several hundred years the inquisition terrorised Europe. This was the systematic torture and killing of all who disagreed with or stood against the teachings of the church. Millions of faithful followers of Jesus besides Jews and many others were put to death in the name of Christ and religion. Bibles were only available in Latin and only a few educated people could read them.

If the apostles had been given a preview of church history they would have torn out their hair in utter disbelief. If they could have foreseen the idolatry, the power struggles, the corruption and the bloodshed all done in the name of Christ, they would have sat down for 7 days like the prophet Ezekiel by the river Chebar astonished and dumbfounded. If words have any meaning then the word apostasy describes the state of the church in the middle ages.

In the past century the western world as a whole has largely fallen away from any practical belief in God. In Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist countries religion is a visible part of daily life. However in those countries that have in the past been called Christian, public life continues with almost no reference to God. Anyone who speaks of his creator in public is now considered by most people to be fanatical or eccentric.

General apostasy from the Christian faith, in fulfilment of this verse, can now therefore be considered as an accomplished fact. The falling away of which Paul spoke has taken place. We can easily see apostasy in history, but there is another apostasy of a more serious nature. It is the root of all apostasy and Jesus himself speaks of it in his message to the first church: 'I have this against you, that you have apostasised from your first love' (Rev 2:4).

We do better to examine our own hearts to find apostasy there, than to analyse its outward expression elsewhere. It is because we have fallen from our first love that others fall from their belief in God.

It is better that we repent of our own sins than the sins of history. Revival and restoration of our own first love for Jesus will cause the world to turn from its unbelief and continued blasphemy of the name of God.

Next Part The Man of Lawlessness~