Who is He who now restrains the lawless one in 2 Thessalonians 2?

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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.  2 Thessalonians 2.6-7  #2Thessalonians2 #antichrist #apostasia #ChurchLeadership #faith #HolySpirit #jesus #jesuschrist #Messiah #raptureofthechurch #restrainer #salvation #SignsOfTheTimes  https://lightforthelastdays.co.uk/articles/the-rapture-second-coming-and-the-millennium/who-is-he-who-now-restrains-the-lawless-one-in-2-thessalonians-2/

Transcript

00:00Okay, let's move on because there's another issue which comes in the issue of the departure and the restrainer.

00:09Go on to verse 7 in Thessalonians, it says,

00:11The mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

00:14Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.

00:18And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with his breath of his mouth

00:23and destroy with the brightness of his coming.

00:25Okay, so there's something which is restraining the arrival of the Antichrist, the man of sin, the lawless one, called the restrainer.

00:36In Greek it's who? Katekon?

00:40Katekon.

00:41Katekon, okay.

00:43So this katekon or restrainer is holding back the arrival of the man of sin or the Antichrist.

00:52What is it?

00:54And according to the mid-tribulation view or the post-tribulation view, it's some kind of political or moral force

00:59which is holding back the appearance of the Antichrist, which will be removed before he comes.

01:05Interesting, when the early church tried to interpret this, they said that the restrainer was actually the Roman Empire.

01:13And when the Roman Empire was removed, then the Roman Empire would collapse into the Ten Kings, the Ten Kingdoms.

01:22And out of the Ten Kingdoms would come the Antichrist pretty much after the destruction of the Roman Empire.

01:27So there would be something which would be restraining coming, and they said it was the Roman Empire.

01:32The Protestant Reformers actually gave a kind of version of this as well,

01:36because they said that what was restraining the arrival of who they think is the Antichrist, the Pope, was the Roman Empire.

01:42When the Roman Empire fell, then the Pope would arise as the counterfeit leader of the Church and the counterfeit Roman Emperor.

01:52Actually, you know, the Pope actually took some of the titles of the Roman Emperor on himself.

01:57And that the restrainer for the arrival of Roman Catholicism with the Roman Empire, when it's gone,

02:04then the Roman Catholic Church would emerge as a dominant force, which is actually what happened in Christendom.

02:11So you have these different ideas.

02:14But the pre-tribulation view is that what is removed is the Spirit-filled Church.

02:20And the Holy Spirit is taken in some way.

02:23Not that the Holy Spirit can ever be taken from the earth, but the Holy Spirit, in the sense of indwelling the Church,

02:29is removed, and then the Antichrist appears.

02:35A man called Kenneth Woost, who is a Greek scholar from Moody Bible Institute,

02:39said,

02:40Then he, Apostasia, of which Paul is speaking, precedes the revelation of the Antichrist and his true identity,

02:46and is to katekon as that which holds back his revelation.

02:50He, Apostasia, therefore, cannot be either a general apostasy in Christendom,

02:55which does not precede, which does precede the coming of the Antichrist,

02:58nor can it be the particular apostasy which is the result of his activities

03:02in making himself alone the worship, object of worship.

03:07That which holds back this revelation is vitally connected to

03:10who katekon, he who holds back the same event, the restrainer.

03:16The latter, in my opinion, is the Holy Spirit and his activities in the Church.

03:20All of which means that I'm driven to the inescapable conclusion

03:23that he, Apostasia, refers to the rapture of the Church,

03:26which precedes the day of the Lord

03:27and holds back the revelation of the man of sin

03:30who ushers in the world aspect of that period.

03:35So hopefully you have followed at least some of what I've said.

03:38There are two possibilities of how this scripture can be interpreted.

03:41One, that the Antichrist, the falling away comes first,

03:44and then the Antichrist appears,

03:46in which case you as a Christian are going to go through the tribulation

03:50if you're still alive at that time.

03:52The other is that the departure comes first,

03:55the rapture comes first, and you're taken out

03:57before this happens, which could happen at any time now.

04:01Either way, the way to be prepared for this

04:04is to believe in Jesus and be ready for the coming of the Lord.

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