The Coming of the Lawless One
Those who watch for such an event have waited for two millennium, and no such man has arisen. Many commentators expect some other kind of manifestation: not necessarily a single person but perhaps a political or religious system that seeks to rule with absolute dictatorial power
So we wait for the Anti-Christ, the final manifestation of evil who:
“will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God, or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple proclaiming himself to be God.” v 4
The coming of this lawless one will be:
“in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.” v 9-10
According to Paul his readers understood exactly what was going on. He said to them:
“And you know what is holding him back, (the lawless one) so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds him back will continue to do so till he is taken out of way” v 6-7.
The main contenders for this restraining power are believed to be; either the Holy Spirit or the Caesars and the Roman Empire. If it was the latter, which I tend to favour, then the power holding back the lawless one became largely ineffective halfway through the first millennium A.D following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west.
Around this time there did arise a system that was in embryonic existence within the apostolic church at the time of Paul. One which gradually developed a leadership that could be seen to be identified with not only the Thessalonians texts quoted above but also many other scriptures. It exists in our own time and is one of the most powerful and influential organisations upon the face of the earth.
This website concerns the identification of this system
and its leadership
My name is Chris Higham
I was a Roman Catholic for the first forty years of my life. Much of the last ten years of that period were spent reading and studying, seeking the truth about the institution that called itself the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
As a result of this study, which shocked me more than I can adequately express, I left the Church of Rome bringing with me my wife and six children.
I remain a convinced Christian.
I worship in a loving community.
And I profess the Protestant Evangelical Faith.
That it is by the Grace of God alone that I am saved.
I can testify that for much of my life I was a devout Roman Catholic.
Throughout those decades of my life I never came to fully understand or know or experience the love of God my Father or my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I scarcely ever opened a bible or saw one other than on the altar or on a pulpit. Catholics were discouraged from reading the Word of God throughout the first two decades of my life. I was born in 1944. The only thing that eventually persuaded me to search the Bible was irritation caused by my inability to argue with Jehovah’s Witnesses.
None of the following helped me
My infant Baptism
Confirmation
Masses
Communions
Confessions
Benedictions
Devotions
Catechisms
Catholic Schooling
Indulgences
Mary
Saints
Sermons
Bishops or Priests
I found nothing within Roman Catholicism of the God I now know and love and as God is my witness it was not for lack of trying.