Scripture reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
Our Lord Jesus, in giving the brethren the sign of the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ, told them in Matthew 24:15-16, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.“ Jesus was telling them THE TIME to flee out of the Babylonish system, the harlot system. “When ye…SEE the abomination of desolation…STAND (UP) in the holy place.” “Stand”(ing) means to take authority over “the holy place.” You and I know that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed long ago. Shortly after Jesus spoke this, the temple was destroyed. Jesus knew that there would be no “holy place” in any temple in Jerusalem. That did not matter to Him, for He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” John 2:19. Verse 21,“But he spake of the temple of his body.” He was talking about the church.
If the church is the temple that Jesus was talking about, then this church must have a holy place, as well as an outer court and a holy of holies. He is saying that it takes some understanding, some spiritual interpretation to interpret this. Some people today say that there must be another temple built in Jerusalem with a holy place where they will not be worshipping God, but still killing animals. They say that this temple is to be where the antichrist will appear. Those who say this are carnal. We have to look at the Word of God spiritually, especially here.
We are talking about the church. The church, therefore, has a holy place and this holy place is where the antichrist is going to set up his throne. If the church has a holy place, which church is it? What people would be called the holy place people? The outer court people can be identified as those people who are doing their own thing. They are building big churches, having thousands of people following them in the name of the Lord, but they are not following Jesus. They received salvation and the gifts of the Spirit, but they are using the gifts for their own profit. This is the outer court church.
The next church then would be the holy place church. This is the church that has the Holy Ghost, for the Holy Ghost comes into the believer to make the believer holy. God says that this church with the Holy Ghost, therefore, is the holy place church. The holy of holies church is that church which will go in and dwell in Christ and in the Father, and that is yet to be seen. Therefore, the church needs to flee higher.
What we are talking about now is where you should “flee” from and where you should “flee into.” If we are going to flee from someplace, we would have to flee from the holy place, because the Word says that the antichrist would set up his throne “in the holy place.” We would have to flee from the holy place church where we are now, with the gifts and the operations of the Spirit. The Lord is saying we must come up higher “into the mountains,“ into the BODY OF CHRIST OPERATION, which is a new operation. That is, as we saw it in Revelation 12, wherein the “woman,” the holy place church, was going to have a child. That child would be the “MAN CHILD” CHURCH. God is saying to flee from this low order of church operation into a higher order where God Himself directs every move of the church.
2 Thessalonians 2:3, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first (or an apostasy first), and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” This “falling away” is the word apostasy which means rebellion. That means that the church would rebel against its Lord, Jesus Christ as head, and they would accept the man of sin. If you would read the rest of the verses in context, this is exactly what it said. This “man of sin…sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”
(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 2, pages 131-132)
Thought for today: God is saying to flee from this low order of church operation into a higher order where God Himself directs every move of the church.
