The peace of the Lord be with you and your house. Blessed be the Eternal God, the Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. The only true God, the living God, the One who gives and takes away life, for He alone has the words of eternal life.
This lesson is a continuation of our study series on apostasy from last week. Why is this topic important? It is extremely important because it warns us that because of apostasy, many will be deceived and will not be able to participate in the glorious work of the last days. For this reason, it is fundamental that we understand it and, above all, that we establish the correct instruction and the precise Word to be able to live in the place where God has placed us to establish His Kingdom.
In the above lesson, we discovered that apostasy goes beyond a simple attack on doctrine, which is the most common definition that God’s people have today. It is generally thought that apostasy consists of the introduction or distortion of a doctrine, and the typical response of the vast majority of believers is: “If I discover a doctrine different from the one, I was taught, I simply reject it.
And in fact, apostasy is a frontal assault on the doctrine of Christianity; but that is not the only biblical definition of apostasy. Last week we learned that there are other characteristics and other definitions of apostasy that we often overlook.
Apostasy is closely related to rebellion; in fact, apostasy is rebellion against the voice of God. It is interesting to note that while many people are vigilant in preventing false doctrines from infiltrating their congregations, many are simultaneously acting from platforms of behavior characterized by rebellion, rebellion, or iniquity. Apostasy encompasses all of these aspects: rebellion, rebellion, iniquity, separation, estrangement, and spiritual divorce.
In today’s lesson we will examine the second letter of the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, where the apostle addresses this very issue. The purpose is to show that apostasy is a movement of satanic origin. In the environments, places and situations where apostasy is developing, there is an extensive operation of demonic forces. This phenomenon is already active today, and it exercises a great dominion over the people who live or move in them, even in the churches, although, as I have just mentioned, many are not yet aware of this reality.
We will begin with verses 7 through 9 of chapter 2 and then return to the opening verses. Notice what verse 7 says: “For the mystery of iniquity is already at work; wait only until the stumbling block is taken out of the way, and then that wicked one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the spirit of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming”. Pay special attention to the definition of this wicked one: “whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders”.
What is apostasy? It is a demonic operation and intervention. It operates in places, regions and spaces, without exception, and influences people. It is a prolific activity of demons and we must understand this clearly. Why? In previous teachings, we have explained that there are two conditions before the coming of Jesus Christ, one of which is spiritual warfare and deliverance.
If we look at First Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 25, we find this word from the Spirit of God through the apostle Paul. The Spirit says: “For it is necessary” – referring to the coming of Christ Jesus – “that heaven hold him until all his enemies are made his footstool.” This speaks precisely of spiritual warfare and deliverance.
In these end times, it’s necessary that God’s people -the remnant of the Eternal and Almighty God scattered throughout all regions of the world- be able to understand and participate in spiritual warfare and deliverance. Apostasy is a demonic operation.
It is a mistake to think that these are isolated attacks on local and regional churches. These are too limited concepts that have infiltrated the church. Apostasy is a worldwide movement that goes beyond the introduction of new doctrines or the distortion of existing ones. It is not limited to attacking the leaders and ministers who run the congregations, but attacks all who are part of the Body of Christ.
So 1 Corinthians 15:25 tells us about one of the two conditions for Jesus Christ’s coming, and that is spiritual warfare. It must be clear to God’s people that spiritual warfare is a necessary part of the battle against apostasy. Apostasy is not rejected just because it does not fit into our list of doctrines. It is rejected through spiritual warfare. The Bible’s other condition for completing the time of Jesus’ coming is found in the Acts of the Apostles, where the Apostle Peter uses similar terms to the Apostle Paul: “Heaven must hold him”-speaking of our Lord Jesus-“until all things are restored.
So there are two conditions: restoration and spiritual warfare are conditions that the Bible gives us to understand that the coming of Jesus is near. Therefore, no one can say that identifying apostasy is an easy task. Apostasy is designed to dull the senses so that the person is unable to recognize the things that need to be restored in his life, in his environment, in his fellowship, much less be able to confront demonic forces. I emphasize this to demonstrate through the Scriptures that apostasy is a demonic operation, an intervention of demonic forces.
Returning to the passage in Second Thessalonians, there are several crucial details that require attention. It says, “The mystery of iniquity is already at work; only wait until he who now hinders is taken out of the way. Who is the hinderer, or what is it that hinders the manifestation of the spirit of Antichrist? In many congregations it has been said that the hinderer is the Church, and this has given a basis for believing and expecting a pre-tribulation rapture. I must tell you that it is not the Church that is preventing the Antichrist from manifesting. Why is that? I will explain it to you.
Many churches do not walk according to the doctrine of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. It is not only the Church, but the content of the gospel, or as the Apostle Paul presents it, the sound doctrine, that prevents the Antichrist from manifesting himself. What prevents Antichrist from manifesting is sound doctrine. The operation of the mystery of iniquity has entrance and room when sound doctrine is removed from the way.
Now, why am I telling you this? I will show you from the Word itself that it is so. In First Timothy. Notice what it says in chapter four, verse one: “The Spirit manifestly saith, That in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils.
In the conscience of many believers, there is the idea that apostasy attacks people who are outside the Church. Many have dared to say: “No, these are people who are in the world” or “No, these are people who are not part of a church, who are not part of a congregation. But we have not understood, we are not walking according to the understanding of the Word of God. In last week’s teaching we learned something very important: apostasy means divorce. That is the etymological meaning of the word. Now answer me this question: Who gets divorced, the bride and groom or the spouses?
If the word apostasy means divorce, then it is absurd to speak of the bride and groom being divorced, because the term does not apply to them. If the text of First Timothy says -and I will read it again- “that the Spirit manifestly saith that in the times to come some shall depart from the faith,” and we now know that apostasy means “divorce,” then the text of First Timothy cannot be talking about people who are in the world; it is talking about people who are in the congregations, people who have confessed Jesus as Lord, people who have manifested their submission to Jesus Christ. This is the part that we need to understand perfectly, and this is the part that we need to be very careful about, because many of us are not paying attention to this issue of apostasy.
Now, as for those who have the idea of a pre-tribulacional rapture, if the text of First Timothy says that many will apostatize from the faith, and if the church did not exist at that time, what sense does it make for the Spirit of God, through the mouth of the apostle Paul, to tell us that many will apostatize from the faith? It is absurd. There is no pretribulation rebellion of the Church.
What First Timothy is telling us is that the church is present for the time of the apostasy. Now we have the whole picture. Who is the one who prevents the Antichrist from manifesting himself? He who hinders sound doctrine. The onslaught of the apostasy is aimed at destroying “sound doctrine”. Now it is clearer to us why the two conditions are necessary before the coming of Jesus: Restoration and spiritual warfare. It is necessary that we begin to restore sound doctrine because many are walking with teachings taken from theological cloisters that are based more on philosophy than on the revelation of the Holy Spirit.
I would like to give you another text. In the First Epistle of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, chapter one, verse 19, we find another strong explanation that the satanic attack is directed against the Christian doctrine based on sound doctrine. We read: “Hold fast the faith and a good conscience, which some have shipwrecked in the faith by casting it off.
To explain this, I ask you the following questions: How does one become shipwrecked in faith? It says clearly: those who are shipwrecked in faith. Shipwreck means apostasy, so those who apostatize are those who have cast off the faith and are shipwrecked in it because they are not feeding properly and rightly on the Word of God. Is this not exactly what the apostle Peter warns against in chapter two, verse two of his first letter? “Desire, as newborn babes, the spiritual milk, unadulterated, that ye may grow up thereby in health:”
The apostasy is a satanic movement, there is a prolific activity of demonic forces in places, in regions, in environments, all over the planet. And we see this. And why is that? Because you see that in different countries around the world -and this is not just in America, but around the world-there has been a proliferation of violence, bloodshed, hatred among the very members of a country. This is evidence of demonic activity on the rise. So, to conclude this first part, it is important to understand that apostasy is a satanic movement, a demonic proliferation everywhere.
I am going to go back to the second letter of Paul to the Thessalonians. Now I want to go to the first verses of chapter 2 to discover the characteristics of the apostasy, because that is what we want to determine: what are the characteristics of the apostasy that we have not yet been able to see and that are already in our environment.
Let us read verse one: “Now we beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him, that ye be not easily shaken from your composure, neither be disturbed, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as if it were our own, as if the day of the Lord were at hand. Notice verse 3: “Let no man by any means deceive you: for this shall not come to pass, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, that son of perdition.
The Spirit of God sets a well-defined agenda for us. This agenda needs to be very clear to us. The Spirit of God, through the mouth of the apostle Paul, says that the coming of Jesus will not take place until two previous events have taken place. Let me read it to you again. Verse 3: “Let no man by any means deceive you: for he shall not come” -speaking of the coming of Jesus- “except there come a falling away first” (first event) “and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition” (second event).
The apostasy is related to the manifestation of the man of sin, the son of perdition, the Antichrist, as the apostle John calls him; it is the same person. It is united, it is related, but let’s look at the order of events that are presented. “The coming of Jesus and our gathering together with Him”. Because the Church will indeed be raised, it will be caught up, but at the coming of Jesus, not before the coming of Jesus. Notice how the text presents the order of events: first event: the apostasy; second event: the manifestation of the Antichrist; third event: the coming of Jesus.
What do these texts mean in terms of apostasy? According to verses 7-9 that we read before, it means that apostasy is an indoctrination of human behavior, and I will repeat it again. Apostasy has the characteristic that it indoctrinates man, that it indoctrinates woman to change their behavior, to change their behavior, to act differently from what is established in the Word of God, to react differently from what the Word of God has established for each one of us.
We have read in Sacred Scripture that our trust must be placed in the Lord, that is what faith really means; the message of the Gospel is to remind us that our peace must be placed in the manifestation of the Spirit of God in each of our lives. But how many times have philosophical, religious, political, and economic currents forced us to have a different response to the events that are before us?
A few years ago, in the year 2020, a pandemic hit the world, how did the people of God respond? How did the man of faith respond? How did the woman of faith respond? I have to tell you with shame and pain that many reacted like a man or a woman who does not have God reacts: they ran away to look for the cure or the antidote that society has established, that society has imposed to be free from this pandemic. They do not realize that they are indoctrinating us to act the way they want us to act; that is apostasy. They do not realize that they are conditioning the thinking of the man of faith, that they are conditioning the thinking of the woman of faith to act the way they want us to act; that is apostasy.
How many people, and I have to say this with fear and trembling, how many people of God in the different countries of the Americas have made pacts with the governments? How many people of God are looking for a position in society? How many people of God are looking for a chair in the political platforms? This is apostasy because the demonic activity is transforming, they are transforming the way of thinking so that there is no difference between a man of faith, between a woman of faith and a man or woman of politics, so that there is no difference between a man or woman of faith and someone who is dependent on the economy. Apostasy is an indoctrination of behavior.
And I conclude by saying that in Matthew 24, verses 8-10, a text that many of us know but have seen as too distant or unrealistic, it says, “All these things are the beginning of tribulation. Then shall they deliver you to tribulation, and shall kill you; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And many shall be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.” On other occasions we have read it, we know it; now we know that what the text is talking about is that apostasy is presented in the form of indoctrination of mind and behavior, and it is not only related to the religious background, it is much broader; all spheres of human activity are involved.
The political, the philosophical, the economic, in all areas, will exert an indoctrination of mind and behavior, so that the believers will continue within a congregation or church, but their behavior will be that which the apostasy dictates them to think and act.
Do you realize it? This is not just an activity that goes against what is preached from the pulpit. It is much more complex, but many believers are blinded to see, hear, and act. There is a need for the restoration of all the good word of the Lord and for spiritual warfare; there is no other way.
May the peace of the Lord be with you all.
