To Encourage You

2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”

1 Timothy 3:16 “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh vindicated by the Spirit seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

So much of what we see in this world would be a complete and total mystery if God had not told us about it.  The Bible, in fact, uses the word “mystery” to point to just such things.  “Mysteries,” when the Bible speaks about them, are things that had been hidden from man’s understanding but then God chose to reveal them.  Two of these mysteries are spoken about in the verses above. One is “the mystery of lawlessness.”  In 2 Thessalonians 2 God reveals why things are as they are in this world.  Why is there so much murder? Why so much distrust? Why do things look like they’re going from bad to worse?  What in the world is going on?  Don’t we all just want to live and let live? Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to love each other, do good to each other, and not have all this strife around us?  Well, the Bible points to “the mystery of lawlessness” as the problem.  It’s a spiritual thing.  Behind it all is the “ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2).  One day it will all reach full bloom, when the antichrist, who is being unveiled in 2 Thessalonians 2, establishes his rule on earth.  Under the influence of Satan, this usurper will have free reign one day, but it’s his spirit that is at work, though restrained to a degree, by another spirit, i.e., the Holy Spirit, right now.  Until the antichrist comes, things are not going to get better, no matter that many people hope that they will.  God has revealed that “evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).  How grim!

So, is there any hope or are these hopeless words the last words on this matter?  The answer is revealed to us in the words of 1 Timothy above. It’s called “the mystery of godliness.”  In every way this mystery is antithetical to the mystery of lawlessness.  It’s the mystery of God coming to the earth as a man, the man Jesus Christ. It was Jesus who came to fulfill the law, not break it.  He fulfilled it in the way He lived; sinless, pure, holy. But incredibly, He also fulfilled it by paying the penalty for all the lawless ones who had come before or who have come since.  Now godliness, rather than lawlessness, can be experienced by anyone who would follow Him. One day, thanks to Jesus, the lawless one and all who would follow Him, will be destroyed for all eternity.  And thanks to Jesus, all who would but believe in Him and what He has done, will live forever. 

That’s the truth behind what we all see and that’s the truth about what is coming.  The mystery of lawlessness or the mystery of godliness: we are all included in one or the other.  It’s what the God who knows everything has revealed.