The Mystery of Iniquity - Glenn Conjurske
The Mystery of Iniquity
by Glenn Conjurske
“The mystery of iniquity,” says Paul, “doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” (II Thes. 2:7-8).
Observe, the mystery of iniquity works with the purpose of revealing the wicked one, the man of sin (verse 3). This is the antichrist, and his revelation of course assumes the culmination of the program of which he is the embodiment and earthly head. Verse 4: he “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” This is the religious aspect of the mystery of iniquity. More of the same is seen in Revelation 13:3 & 4. “And all the world wondered after the beast, and they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast.” It is “all the world” which thus worships the beast, and the devil who gives him his power. “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Verse 8). This is the devil’s end and aim in the mystery of iniquity. The culmination of the religious aspect of the mystery of iniquity will be one world religion, with the man of sin as its Messiah, and the devil himself as its god, receiving the worship of the whole world.
But the devil will never accomplish this except by force. By means of deception he may secure the voluntary worship of most of the world, but he will never receive universal homage except by force. We read therefore, “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark.” (Rev. 13:15-17). To secure and enforce the religious aspect of the mystery of iniquity there is, therefore, and must be, a political aspect also, the culmination of which will be seen in one world government, with the man of sin at its head. “And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority.” (Rev. 13:2, Greek). This is all political. We plainly see in the leopard, the lion, and the bear, the elements of the political empires of the book of Daniel, and in Rev. 13:7 we are told, “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, and power [authority, as in verse 2] was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” This is universal dominion, or one world government, persecuting the saints of God, and enforcing one world religion. All of this is the end and aim of the devil’s program for the human race. This is the end of the mystery of iniquity.
But this man of sin is not yet revealed. The whole program works in mystery, that is, in secret—-for so the Greek word means. The devil does not avow his purposes, but works secretly—-clandestinely—-in the dark—-on the sly—-behind the scenes.
Now there are two powerful forces on the earth today which embody the secret workings of the mystery of iniquity. Those forces are internationalism and ecumenicalism, embodying respectively the political and the religious purposes of the devil. The United Nations and the World Council of Churches are among the concrete expressions of those forces, and these are among the most sinister entities on the globe.
But the world does not perceive these things to be sinister. Just the contrary. It supposes them to be the embodiment of all that is most noble. Love! Brotherhood! Humanity! These—-and of course Peace! Peace!—-are the watchwords of these sinister forces. This is the mystery of iniquity.
But we are told there is one that “letteth” (II Thes. 2:7), or “withholdeth,” as the same word is rendered in the sixth verse. There is something which restrains or hinders the working of these sinister forces. Paul says (verse 6), “ye know” what it is, and he therefore does not concern himself to tell them. We, therefore, may not know it so well as they did. Paul refers to it in the neuter, “what,” in verse 6, and the masculine, “he,” in verse 7. Who or what is it? I believe it is and must be the working of God himself, for nothing else could begin to restrain the forces of Satan, unless it were angels. But frankly, there is something more important than to define the agent of this restraining, and that is to understand its nature. This restraining, according to verse 6, has one end in view: “that he might be revealed in his own time.” (So the Greek.) That is, the workings of the devil are hindered by God, so that he might not bring his purposes to their culmination until such time as they may fulfil God’s purposes.
Now to understand the nature of this divine restraining, we must step back and survey the workings of the mystery of iniquity from the beginning. For understand, this mystery of iniquity has been at work since the dawn of human history. It has always been the devil’s purpose to bring about one world government and one world religion, with himself at the head of both, that he might thus usurp the place which belongs to God. The final (though short-lived) success of the mystery of iniquity is portrayed in Revelation 13, where we see the universal dominion of the beast and the dragon, and all the world worshipping both. But we see the same hand in Daniel 3, in the great empire of Nebuchadnezzar, ruling over “people, nations, and languages,” and enforcing, on pain of death, the universal worship of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. It is true that such a state of things—-even if God had not defeated it by his three faithful witnesses—-was only a very partial success of the devil’s purposes, and such as could never have satisfied his ambitions. Nothing less than the subjection of the whole world will satisfy the devil, but surely we see the same hand at work in his partial successes as will be seen in the complete triumph which is depicted in Revelation 13. We see the same hand in the “Holy Roman Empire” of the dark ages, and in numerous other attempts at universal dominion and enforced religion throughout history.
But there was a time early in the history of man when the devil came much nearer success than ever he has done since. I refer to the tower of Babel in the land of Shinar. His success was an easy matter at that time, for the world was not then so vast and unwieldy as it has since become. “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. … And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” (Gen. 11:1-4). Their purposes were directly contrary to God’s. They were moved perhaps by a desire for peace and security, and certainly by pride—-the same pride which moved Nebuchadnezzar when he said, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30). This is the same pride which permeates all of modern society, whether its education, its religion, its art, its science, its entertainment and sports, or its manufacturing and commerce.
But while man’s pride says, “Let us make a name for ourselves,” the devil uses that human pride to advance his own purposes. The men who built the tower of Babel were but pawns in the devil’s hand. Both Scripture and history testify to the Satanic character of the whole operation. In Zechariah 5 we read of an ephah, “And behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead, and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness—-[ j v in the LXX, the same word as `iniquity’ in II Thes. 2]. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah, and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.” (Zech. 5:7-8). The woman in the Bible is the symbol of religious wickedness. She it is who hides the leaven in the measures of meal in Matthew 13. She is the great whore of the book of Revelation.
Zechariah continues, “Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork. And they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build it an house IN THE LAND OF SHINAR, and it shall be established, and set there UPON HER OWN BASE.” (Verses 9-11)
“Her own base” is Babel, “in the land of Shinar,” where the devil once came so near the culmination of his purposes for the earth. This is his base.
Now as to “he who now letteth,” what hindered the devil from the accomplishment of his purposes at the tower of Babel? The scripture says, “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city.” (Gen. 11:5-8).
It is plain here that it was the Lord which restrained them, and I wish to call particular attention to the nature of that restraint. The Lord observed, “The people is one, and they have all one language.” This suited their purposes too well, and it suited the devil’s purposes exactly. So long as the people were all one, having all one language, it were a fairly easy thing for the devil to build his one world empire with its one world religion. God therefore confounded their tongues, and scattered them abroad. It was thus he restrained them, and so restrained the working of the mystery of iniquity, and by that one act he set back the devil’s purposes by five thousand years. By this means the world was made unmanageable, and the devil effectually hindered from bringing about his world empire and world religion.
Yet the same mystery of iniquity which was working then is working now. The devil’s purpose has never changed. All of the attempts which history records of building empires—-a prominent element of which has been enforced religion—-are so many manifestations of the devil’s working. Yet all of them have fallen far short of his ultimate purpose. The world has been too large—-too unwieldy—-to be brought together under one government. Satan must first as it were shrink it down to a manageable size. He must first bring the world together. He must re-establish the communication which was destroyed by God at the tower of Babel. And within the past century he has done so. This he has done first by means of travel and exploration, so that the peoples which God had scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth have learned of each other’s existence and whereabouts. Commerce and international relations have been established throughout the world. All of this has been taking place for centuries, but at too slow a rate ever to accomplish the devil’s purposes. Travel was slow, and communication limited.
As the time began to draw nigh, therefore, for the revelation of the man of sin, the Lord (so it appears) was pleased to withdraw something of his restraining hand—-to give the devil, as it were, a longer rope. The devil has used it to great advantage. First came the steamboat, then the railroad, the telegraph, the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, the radio, and computer and satellite communications, so that global communication is no longer a matter of months or years, but only of seconds. All of this was prophesied concerning “the time of the end” in Daniel 12:4. “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” God scattered and separated the race. The devil has brought the world together again—-without God, of course. Misguided saints have hailed all of this “progress” as the work of the Lord and as an unmixed blessing, but I have no doubt that it is the work of the devil. God has had no more to do with it than he did with the building of the tower of Babel, or Nebuchadnezzar’s “great Babylon.” The kingdom of God never stood in any need of the modern means of global communication. It needed nothing more sophisticated than the apostles had, for God is not building any world empire here and now. It was the devil who needed it. It was he who inspired and engineered it, and it is he who will make full use of it, to bring about his one world government and his one world religion. This is the world, concerning which the Bible says, if any man love it, the love of the Father is not in him. By means of modern travel and communications the devil has effectually reversed the geographical and linguistic restraints which the Lord put upon his purposes at the tower of Babel.
To be sure, he has yet other obstacles in his way. He cannot yet say, “The people is one,” as he could at Babel. Nationalism and national sovereignties stand still in his way, as do the numerous and diverse religions of the world, but we may be sure that he is at work to overcome them. Internationalism and ecumenicalism are his tools, and he is as busy as ever. God restrains him still, and will surely do so until his time is come for the manifestation of the man of sin.
Man’s natural love of liberty stands also directly in the way of the devil’s purposes, but there are numerous sinister tendencies at work in the world today which are evidently designed to habituate men to a tame submission to authoritarian governments. In America this is seen in such things as zoning laws, building codes, safety regulations, and a thousand and one restrictions by scores of government bureaus and agencies. If all the restrictions to which the American people tamely submit today had been enacted by Congress two centuries ago, there would have been a second revolution. But by little and little men have become accustomed to bondage to the government, while they are taught also to look to that government as their great provider and benefactor. This is a necessary part of the mystery of iniquity. It has been at work for many centuries, and will yet work on, till it finds its culmination in one world government under the man of sin. No vote of the “religious right” will stop its working, not even in America.
Meanwhile let none of the children of God dream that these modern scientific attainments, modern global communications, and the modern idealogy concerning international brotherhood are the work of God. Not so. It was God who confounded the tongues of men. It was God who scattered the race abroad upon the face of all the earth. It was God, that is, who scattered and separated the peoples of earth, and took such steps as effectually prevented their communication and their reunion. It is the devil who works to undo this stroke of the Almighty, and bring the world together again under one head. This has been his end and aim from the beginning. He has now, within the past hundred years, very largely brought it to pass, and modern attainments and principles have placed the final victory within his reach, for the first time since the tower of Babel. This program he peddles under the noble names of progress, peace, and brotherhood, while his own purpose in it is of course kept out of sight. This is the mystery of iniquity.
Glenn Conjurske