How the spirit of antichrist corrupts
Those nearest to God are in the most danger
Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness
2 Thessalonians 2:11–12
The spirit of Antichrist is a angelic substance, not quite omnipresent like God the Holy Spirit, but certainly imitates the way the Holy Spirit acts. The Spirit of Antichrist is active in churches, he loves to give those tingley feelings of ecstasy when you hear something “powerful” in a song or sermon. He makes those who are quite religious but far from the truth feel utterly secure in their rebellion - he mimics the way a believer perceives God - feelings, senses, “spiritual” interactions. He even answers your prayers - some of them anyhow. Anything to convince you he’s God, Christ, and the Spirit.
The horror of this mechanism is this: God in the past sometimes met with his people in similar ways…
But because the people who don’t love the truth so as to be saved are quintessentially earthly even in their spiritual practices, when God withdraws and the Spirit of Antichrist comes in his place, they don’t know the difference. They are utterly convinced Antichrst’s spirit is the Spirit of the True Christ.
This was prophesied of old, all the way in one of the earliest of Paul’s letters to the churches:
The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
2 Thessalonians 2:9–12
Paul said this spirit of Antichrist was already active in his day. He had to warn the believers at Thessalonica to watch for this spirit.
Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 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
2 Thessalonians 2:5–8
Application:
The spirit of Antichrist loves religion. The more earthly, the more ecclesial it is, the more he loves it.
Here’s an absolute command to you: GET OUT OF RELIGIOUS PLACES. Antichrist is already there, having infected them to a great degree.
Scripture justification:
Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
Pay her back as she herself has paid back others,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
As she glorified herself and lived in luxury,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,
since in her heart she says,
‘I sit as a queen,
I am no widow,
and mourning I shall never see.’
For this reason her plagues will come in a single day,
death and mourning and famine,
and she will be burned up with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”
Revelation 18:4–8
In the above text, the visible church has adopted Babylon the Great’s voice: “I sit as a queen, I am [note the closeness to YHWH: “I AM”] no widow. And mourning I shall never see.”
When you hear the church talking about HER greatness, about HER eternality, about HER royalty before God this is a sign that she is no bride of the Song of Solomon, rather she is a whore of Babylon.
The bride in the Song of Solomon can’t live two seconds without talking about her lover Solomon - which the church throughout its history has confessed is a type of Christ.
You might ask, well where do I go?
Jeremiah was asked the same question in his day as he prophesied the destruction of the temple and the exile of the Jews to Babylon:
And when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord:
“ ‘Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence,
and those who are for the sword, to the sword;
those who are for famine, to famine,
and those who are for captivity, to captivity.’
Jeremiah 15:2
Interestingly Jesus eludes to this verse in Revelation:
If anyone has an ear, let him hear:
If anyone is to be taken captive,
to captivity he goes;
if anyone is to be slain with the sword,
with the sword must he be slain.
Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.
Revelation 13:9–10
This is a call to come out of the institutional and visible gathering of the church regardless if you have somewhere else to go. It IS presently infected with Antichrist. The real Jesus HAS already withdrawn from it. The apostasy with the mouth is going to come someday soon, and if you’re not OUT, you will go down with the ship.
If you’re wondering about Hebrews 10:25 I have an article about that.
Excuses don’t go very far at the final judgment so you will not be able to say, reader, that you were not warned.
S.D.G.