If this power is non-Christian, why is it related to an apostasy from the faith?

2Ts 2:3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for that day cannot come without the coming of the apostasy first, and the appearing of the man of sin, the son of perdition

Do not be seduced by current events or false prophecy as at the beginning when William Miller stood up and said, "I KNOW the day and hour" and was proved false. The word of God will not fail.

• 1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
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• 1 John 2:22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
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• 1 John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
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• 2 John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

According to John here, as well as the Gospels, there is one coming who repudiates Jesus Christ, saying He (Jesus) was not the Messiah nor was He the Son of God Incarnate. Such a one is non-Christian, since only non-Christians refuse to acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth is the Saviour of the world. As Communism was to the Catholics, so Atheism will be to the Protestants.

In turning away from Jesus Christ, the Jews vehemently shouted, "We have no king but Caesar!" And indeed THE Antichrist ruled over them with an iron fist. Have you not read about the events leading up to the fall of Jerusalem? History just keeps repeating itself, over and over again. There is no "National Sunday Law" to come but SDA will drift into cultic zenophobia over the Sabbath. As for the rest of the denominations, because they have become brittle, cold and lifeless, God will give them over to their own king, a man just like their inner faithless spirit, who will crush their faces in the dust: THE Antichrist.

The world is barreling to such an age, one of wanton disregard for religion and the exaltation of human potential and the pursuit of wealth. "Where is your God," they will ask. "Let Him come and save you." Jesus said, "because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved." (Mat. 24:12-13)

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Apostasy in the people of God leads to their fall in the hands of the godless. Don't you read the Bible? I suggest you study the history of Israel and see the work of God.

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God says the opposite.

He says, "in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power." (2 Tim. 3:1-5)

We ought not to bury our heads in the sand of false prophecy, but believe what God tells us in the Holy Scriptures.

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?? You are comparing apples and oranges. The Bible must be read correctly.
What I read in the OT is that apostasy led the people of God to fall in the hands of the godless physically.
What I read in 2 Thessalonians is that this apostasy will lead many professed Christians to accept the man of sin in the temple of God (the church) as if he was god, and that they will worship him (Rev. 13:8).

Do you think it is fulfilling prophecy? Is it what Ellen White described in the Great Controversy book?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Would you mind summarizing your view of the mark of the beast?

The "man of sin"/"the lawless one" is discussed twice in the second epistle to the Thessalonians. You are familiar with and are quoting the second reference. But consider the two side by side and you will understand more clearly that THE Antichrist is non-Christian.


Notice the contrast between those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and those who neither "know God nor obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ"; and that it is the latter who are destroyed at the Second Advent.


It is VERY evident then:

1. that those who do NOT receive the love of the truth are those who do NOT believe the truth
2. that those who do NOT know God are those who do NOT obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. that they all are of the spirit of the "lawless one"

Therefore, the "lawless one" is the "man of sin" and THE Antichrist and is NOT A CHRISTIAN. He comes in the vein of Pharaoh Rameses saying, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go." A modern equivalent is Josef Stalin. And there is worse to come NOT any National Sunday Laws, but open defiance in Atheism.

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I'm sorry, but I didn't follow what you are trying to say. What does people believing a lie and demanding laws have to do with false prophecy?

I wasn't saying it was or was not fulfilling prophecy. I was addressing that you said Sunday laws were not being enforced.