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You may recognise this familiar term as it comes from the Bible in 2 Thessalonians 2:9 under the heading of "The Great Apostasy" — it reads "The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders". The lawless one will come on the scene probably much sooner than we care to think, as things relating to prophecy seem to be speeding up at a faster pace, much like birth pains spoken about in Matthew 24, for we know that contractions intensify with frequency. What will this man made of flesh and blood look like while impersonating our Saviour, Jesus the Christ? This is a topic not given to much personal thought until today on the Sabbath of April 9th, 2022 when an idea about how Satan works suddenly came to mind and gave me much to meditate upon in preparation for what is ahead of us. More on this later.
The first thing Jesus said to his disciples after they wanted to know the details about the end of the age when Christ would return again was about deception. Matthew 24:4-5 says "And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many". The lawless one will come on the scene to deceive the world, yet His elect will recognise the deception. We already understand that the image of a young man with long hair, effeminate in appearance, kind eyes, smiling mouth, will be that of what most will be expecting to see as the modern world has been conditioned to see Jesus this way. Perhaps the devil will have the lawless one clothed in neutral "safe", believable clothes such as a shirt and pants rather than a white flowing robe, or not, sticking with traditional garb? Or would he go all out and dress him in a tye-dye T-shirt announcing peace and love with the symbol from the 60s, replete with leather sandals? The devil will ensure he gets the right visage and will choose a man with good looks to appeal to everyone but those who know their God will understand the lawless one is a fake, a big fake, totally counterfeit as we have read from Isaiah 53:1-2 that Christ was not of any special attractiveness.
Adding to this, what will be of great significance is everything this impersonator says and does, as we know miracles will be involved and these are what make up the lying wonders. He will speak to the world with great authority as he knows the Bible inside and out delighting in twisting scripture to deceive. We can refer to the exchange in Matthew 4 where the devil tried his very utmost to tempt Christ by using scripture yet he was unsuccessful because Jesus knew what he was doing and provided the correct response from scripture that was sound. Will he confuse those who do not know their Bible? It will be so easy for him to deceive the masses. The devil got nowhere with Christ but he is always waiting for an opportunity to cause a problem through confusion and deception, especially for God's elect, as our enemy has already influenced the rest of the world under his authority and sway (1 John 5:19). Therefore, the lawless one, operating under the influence of the devil, will need to ramp up all the special effects in order to dazzle and hypnotize people into thinking that nobody could do these wonders except for God. Human logic coupled with lack of sound knowledge of their Creator — in other words the vast majority would not recognise the real Jesus if He stood before them declaring His divinity. They will sadly fall for all these lying wonders thinking and believing Christ has returned to help them. Yet those who know their Bible because they actively read the holy book will see right through all the powerful supernatural nonsense that will come. Presenting another false Christ to us will be like comparing real currency to play money we have seen and handled in Monopoly games.
Have you ever watched on the news things during your lifetime relating to weeping walls or images in plaster that have a vague outline to the profile of a person such as mistaken for Mary the “mother of God” holding baby Jesus? These things have fascinated and excited superstitious people down through time as people cannot explain what they see accurately and on some level want to believe the lie — the deception which could be plausible, couldn't it? The devil expertly knows how to make something wrong appear right, but it is false like a mirage. He is the biggest copycat there has ever been but a poor imitator for those who recognise the real thing. These prior things will be like nothing compared to what those who are alive will see, hear, and then experience in the future. Firstly the timing will be just right for the devil to pounce on his prey — people. The world will continue to have wars and we know famine and pestilence follow rapidly thereafter. This is when the monster will appear on the scene and trick humanity into thinking what a wonderfully helpful thing he wants to do for many who are suffering from starvation, from natural disasters and devastation, and to do this by placing a false veneer over the evil imposter, the lawless one, only adds to the diabolical insidious machinations of an insane mind completely given over to perverted wicked ways. He will do anything to achieve his intent with lies and lying wonders — his all time specialty, after all he is the originator, the father of lies (John 8:44).
Now imagine if you will a very broken world from the effects of socialism, dictatorship, power rooted in greed, and control such as we have never seen before here in the English speaking nations during our lifetime. It is hard to imagine but we are on a certain trajectory to achieve a One World Order with the pandemic of COVID-19 as the infancy of what is to come. It will arrive with surprising speed with little time to "catch our breath" as it were. There will be no real free will, just standard responses to how we live and if any are non-compliant then the consequences will be horrific and devastatingly enormous. Sounds ghastly and definitely unbelievable. Exactly the right circumstances can only be thought of somewhat inadequately because God's people are full of light and our minds are bereft of perversions, lies, and every false way. We just don't think like our enemy, but in this spiritual war we are fighting we must know our adversary to a healthy extent by searching out scripture to realise his ways are fully opposite to God's ways despite his thick cloak and smoke screens. He presents himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) and is always at work hoping to deceive any one of us, looking for just a chink in our armour to get in, a foothold, something to latch onto and that is why it is so important to understand what God gives to us in Ephesians 6:10-18.
Remember in the New Testament when Judas Iscariot, one of Christ's called out disciples, betrayed Jesus? Satan actually entered him as it is written in scripture from Luke 22:3 and John 13:27. Satan overtook him after infiltrating his mind with an attitude of rebellion in order to set things up for the final result of betrayal. Judas had free will to reject these thoughts but indulged his thinking into corrupted thoughts and the devil had his chink in the armour. Similarly the enemy will use these, his old methods, to enter and overtake the coming lawless one, of whom it can be said with a great degree of certainty, is alive right now in these end times before the second coming of our saviour Jesus Christ; it is just that he has not yet been revealed while the stage is being set. The point is, obviously the fake imposter will surface first to be made known and deceive as many as he can before the genuine Saviour returns, for which there is at least a time period of at least three and a half years which takes into consideration The Great Tribulation. So we better get ready and be prepared for massive deception with strong delusions, lying wonders, and miraculous works our eyes have not ever seen before, for they will be so powerfully moving they will overtake even those who are non-believers such as atheists, and especially easy to trick and fool for those who think they know God through their limited exposure via erroneous traditional teachings.
At the beginning of this article there was mention made of an idea that gave much to meditate upon. This idea was presented briefly in my mind's eye like a daydream, transient as a snapshot image of hundreds of thousands of people making up all nations around the world in distress from hunger, starvation, crop failures, weather calamities, war, pestilence and disease including pandemics. It reminded me of Matthew 14 and Matthew 15 where it is written that Christ fed the 5,000 and 4,000 respectively, however there were no lying wonders here but instead, genuine miracles. But this is what the imposter, the lawless one desires to replicate when he comes on the scene announcing how he is here to save and help everyone. He will purport to be our saviour but instead he has arrived to devour as many as he can deceive in order to keep them away from their true Saviour who is to come. It is just like what Jesus said in Matthew 9:36 "But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd".
These lying wonders are played out just like God reveals to us in prophecy via the Bible and we must turn to scripture to see that when Christ really does return to earth for the second time it will be vastly different and there will be no mistaking it because scripture tells us from Luke 21:25-28 "And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” This is repeated in Mark 13:26, Matthew 24:30, and expounded upon in Revelation 1:7. For those close to God, who know their God, there will be no mistaking Christ's appearing upon His return, yet we first must prepare for this monumental event and that includes praying that we continue to remain close to God and avoid falling for the vile deception about to come upon the whole world. Remember that God's faithful people will do as they have done long before and mentioned in Daniel 11:32 where we are told "...but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits". May God speed this time soon to arrive, and help us to remain steadfastly humble in full faithful obedience no matter the tests or trials ahead.