“Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,” 2 Thessalonians 2:1-9. NKJV
If you have ever wondered, there is, in fact, no rhyme or reason behind the topics I choose to write about each week other than what the Holy Spirit chooses to lay on my heart through the various ways He chooses to do that. This week I got together with an old friend and one of the subjects which presented itself during our conversation was the restrainer that Paul talks about in this passage written to the church at Thessalonica. Of course, this was also a result of talking, as many are at this point in time, about the evil in this world and the fact that it is obviously increasing.
Although as you might expect, not everyone agrees on who or what the restrainer is, but the majority of scholars agree that the restrainer that Paul mentions is the Holy Spirit, sent to indwell believers on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ ascension. I personally believe that if a poll were taken of believers concerning how hard the Spirit is having to work in these present times in order to restrain the plans of Satan, most would probably say the Holy Spirit is working overtime.
While we might agree that it is the Spirit who restrains, many also fail to realize that it is the Church, those of us who have chosen to believe, that the Spirit uses to restrain evil in this world. That said, it falls upon us as believers to not only recognize what is occurring in these times we are living in, but understand our responsibilities in allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us.
So the question I asked my friend during our conversation was something like, “do you believe the Church is working as hard as it can to assist the Holy Spirit in restraining evil?” The unfortunate and uncomfortable answer was no. I also believe that anyone who has been a believer for any length of time would have to agree that the Church is well down the path towards what the book of Revelation describes as the Church of Laodicea, or a church with Jesus on the outside knocking to come in.
So while the power of the Holy Spirit is as great as ever, because He chooses to use the Church as His tool we are faced with the fact that evil is increasing because the Church is not fulfilling its responsibility to allow the Spirit to work through it in order to accomplish His mission. While this seems to be an uncomfortable conclusion to come to, I would suggest it is not the first time in history this has occurred. One only needs to look back as far as the book of Genesis to see not only what is happening, but the inevitable end as well.
“And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” Genesis 6:3-7. NKJV
The picture we see in the days before the flood is one of mankind choosing to embrace evil and wickedness rather than the God who created them. The word translated “strive” means “to act as a judge”. By this we are told that the role of the Holy Spirit in Noah’s time was to convict mankind of sin just as it is today. Yet as we know, the gradual demise of true believers uncorrupted by the sinful lifestyle being practiced diminished in number until it was only Noah and his immediate family that was left. I believe it is certainly no coincidence that Jesus uses the time of Noah to describe the conditions we will see just before He comes again.
“But as the days of Noah [were], so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matthew 24:37-39 NKJV
The responsibility of the Church today is to be used by the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin and reveal God’s standards for morality and acceptable behavior. It has become apparent to many in the body of Christ that in the past decade or so there has been a tragic decline in churches which hold to the inerrant truth of the gospel and preach the responsibility of true believers to share their faith to an unbelieving world. This weakening of the Church has led not only to fulfilling the description given of the Laodicean church as lukewarm, it has also severely affected the effectiveness of the mission of the Holy Spirit to restrain the evil we see.
“For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:5-7 NKJV
The result, I believe, will be a repeat of the judgment of Noah called the tribulation which will occur after the restrainer, the Holy Spirit and the Church, are “taken out of the way” by way of the rapture. I personally am grieved to come to the conclusion that a large part of the reason for what is prophesied to occur in the last days is in no small part a result of the Church failing to do the work Jesus intended for it to do. The question I believe we all, as true believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, need to ask ourselves is am I doing enough to spread the gospel in however means the Lord has asked me to do.
There is an angelic battle taking place all around us and we are feeling the effects of it to a greater degree every day. These battles stretch from the lowest of us, to those who reside in the pinnacles of government power and the closer we get to the end the more severe the attacks against believers will get. To borrow a line from a popular movie series, “our mission, if we choose to accept it”, is to make ourselves available to serve God in whatever way the Holy Spirit desires to use us.
Make no mistake, while it is the Holy Spirit who restrains evil in this world, He does so using the Church which is made up of true believers in Christ to do the work. If the Church becomes weak and ineffective, the work of the Holy Spirit suffers. Now more than ever, as we approach the end of our time on this earth, the Church needs to work as hard as it can to help convict an unbelieving world.
If you have never made the decision to accept the salvation offered by the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I suggest you do that today so you too can experience the comfort that comes from knowing you will spend eternity with our Father in Heaven. All you need to do is simply pray a prayer like this and ask God the Father to make you one of His own.
Jesus I know I am a sinner. I have sinned against you, but I know you loved me enough to send your Son, Jesus Christ to die for my sins and then rise from the grave so that I may live forever with You. Lord forgive me of my sins and come into my life and help me to begin to live for You. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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