The Spirit of Lawlessness
About this sermon
Dean Odle reads Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2 as warnings that escalating lawlessness, ethnic conflict, political disorder, and persecution will accompany the approach of the Antichrist and Christ’s return. He applies those passages to 2016 unrest, terrorism, the presidential election, and a dream he understood as warning of disaster along the northeastern United States; these political and prophetic assertions are the speaker’s claims, not independently verified conclusions.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle reads Jesus’ warnings about deception, wars, ethnic conflict, persecution, and abounding iniquity in Matthew 24. He connects the Greek sense of iniquity with lawlessness and the man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2.
He says God’s moral law is written on the conscience and that murder, theft, and social chaos display an evil refusal of both divine and civil restraint. Applying that argument to riots and the 2016 election, he sharply contrasts Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and urges Christians to vote.
Odle condemns racial violence across racial groups and criticizes media descriptions of terrorist suspects. Returning to Matthew 24, he argues that the same spirit stirring ethnic hostility will ultimately direct hatred and persecution toward Christians.
He recounts a 2012 dream of fires and destruction along the I-95 corridor and of a failed secure line to President Obama. A later contact’s account of emergency communications work is presented as confirmation that authorities expected a major northeastern incident.
Odle says the Holy Spirit identified Trump to him while the Republican field still had seventeen candidates and argues that globalist powers wanted to prevent his election. He asks listeners to pray for Trump and the northeastern corridor while alleging hidden government and foreign involvement in past events.
After describing political surveillance, war, and loss of constitutional liberty, he turns to Jesus calming the sea and walking on water. The disciples’ storms become an application: believers must keep their attention on Christ, who alone supplies peace and salvation when circumstances inspire fear.
Hebrews 3 is used against unconditional eternal-security teaching: Odle emphasizes holding confidence steadfast and resisting the deceitfulness of sin. He warns that fear, unbelief, and disobedience can pull a professing Christian away from God’s Word.
Peter’s answer in John 6 anchors the section: even when Christ’s teaching is hard, there is nowhere else to find the words of eternal life. Odle contrasts Jesus with other religions, preaches His death and resurrection, and warns that rejecting His salvation ends in eternal judgment.
A social-media exchange about biblical cosmology leads Odle back to the authority of every part of Scripture. In prayer he cites continuing in Christ’s Word, new birth, and biblical teaching about creation, judgment, salvation, and holy living as the answer to lawlessness.
Odle invites anyone needing salvation, healing, or other prayer to come forward while the congregation worships. The recording closes with extended ministry prayer, thanksgiving for healing, and praise in Jesus’ name.
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Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
- 0:00:00
Lord, that You are real. Your Word is true. The Bible is true. Everything You foretold is coming to pass. We thank You that we have hope that You are coming again, and You will establish Your Kingdom with Your people. We praise You and we thank You for it in Jesus' name. Amen. And Amen. You may be seated this morning. Welcome those of you to Fire and Grace Church. Hallelujah. Y'all got that? Okay. All right, so we welcome those listening by Vlog Talk Radio. Are we on there yet? I don't even know what time it is. We're on Vlog Talk Radio Mixler, and we welcome those by Facebook this morning. I've got several things I want to share with you today. First of all, I want us to go to Matthew 24. First, of course, for our church and regular listeners, this ought to be a very familiar passage of Scripture. But I'm just going to share just some different things that are happening. I believe that the Lord wants us to be warned and prepared for. But, you know, the Bible says here in Matthew 24, as we're going to read, I want to look at two verses here. When Jesus was asked by His disciples in verse 3, as He said upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came on Him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? What shall be the sign of Thy coming and of the end of the world, the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take ye that no man deceive you, for many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ or anointed of Christ, and shall deceive many. You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that you be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then, after this, shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise and deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
- 0:03:03
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. Now, I could keep reading this. Of course, the next verse talks about when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place. He's talking about the Antichrist standing in the rebuilt Jewish temple, the third temple that's coming. Well, it's coming fast. They're preparing for that. But two things I wanted to look at again, even though we have in the past, because the other night I was watching the protest in Charlotte, North Carolina. I mean, things have really reached a level of absolute absurdity and insanity in our world. But what you need to understand is that more than it being about race, because I don't know how you're protesting this being a racial issue when a black cop shoots a black man, another black man, I don't even understand that, how it's a race issue. But the Bible warned us, Jesus warned us here, when he said, nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. Now, the word nation is ethnos, where we get our word ethnic or ethnicity. So, what he was saying there was you would have race against race and kingdom against kingdom. You know, kingdoms are political structures. That means like being in America against Russia, right, or Russia against China or whatever you want to say. Things are developing though in the world very quickly. And what's happening, if you look down here, it says, because iniquity shall abound. The love of many will grow cold. Well, the word iniquity, okay, the word iniquity in the Greek means lawlessness. For the second Thessalonians chapter 2, when it's talking about the antichrist, one of his names is the man of sin or the man of iniquity, the man of lawlessness. So, folks, what is beginning to take over the world, what you're seeing, the chaos that we see in Charlotte, that we've seen in Ferguson, Missouri, that we've seen in Baltimore, and all these other cities, all this rioting that's going on. And not just here in the United States, but I mean, let's just look across the world, all of this insanity where people just go out and, you know, I mean, even ISIS, though it's Islamic terror and antichrist hatred of Christians and Jews and even Muslims that are not Muslim enough, even that is a demonstration of a spirit of of lawlessness, because it is a just total disregard
- 0:06:06
for God's law that God said in in Romans chapter 2, God said that his law was written in the heart of every man, woman, boy, and girl. That's why on Judgment Day it says that everyone will be without excuse. God has written in our consciences that it is wrong to go out and murder, rape, steal, kill, destroy. That is not what we human beings are supposed to be doing to each other, right? But the spirit, and it's an evil spirit. It's the spirit, one of, one of Satan's spirits. One of these, this spirit of lawlessness says, I don't care about the law of God. I don't even care about the laws of man or of nature. I'm going to do whatever I want to do. And I was watching just the insanity on the streets of Charlotte, and I was realizing we are, we are seeing the chaos increasing. You know, the Lord gave me a word at the end of 2015, very clearly he spoke to me and he said chaos would be the word for 2016. And I want to tell you, if 2016 was over today, that word has come to pass, but we got three more months left, and we have one of the most controversial, I don't know, would you say controversial or important, heated elections that are about to happen in the United States in our history? And I can, I can tell you whether they do it or not, the global elite, the Luciferians, the Satanists, whatever you want to call them, the New World Order people, both Republican and Democrat, both foreign and domestic, enemies of freedom, enemies of America, enemies of our Constitution, enemies of Jesus Christ in this Bible, enemies of true Christians, these enemies want to stop this election or at least stop Donald Trump. They don't care if Jezebel gets in, but they want to stop this election. I've heard a bunch of people, and I'm getting a little sick and tired of it, because it just tells me people saying that Donald Trump and doesn't matter if we get Donald Trump or or Hillary, I'm going to tell you, if you think there's not a difference between Donald Trump and Hillary, you have no discernment whatsoever, zero, and you have not heard from God. I just be very blunt about that. Americans don't realize, there's a bunch of Christians out there, I'm not going to vote for Donald Trump, I'm not going to go vote for anybody. Let me tell you something, if Christians are responsible
- 0:09:06
for letting Hillary Clinton get elected, you're going to be the first one she marches to the FEMA camp. Y'all don't understand that Jezebel hates the church, she hates true Christians, hates, wants to silence us, wants to stop us, and she did a speech. People ought to be sent to fun camps. That was her word for it. Y'all don't understand. When it says here, the beginning of sorrows, race against race, David Wilkerson prophesied there would be a race war in America in the end, but I'm seeing now African-American people running the streets, just finding any white person they can and wanting to beat them and kill them. We have a problem. I watched a video, an African-American man taking an aluminum bat in Walmart from the kid's sports section and going down until he found a little white girl, a little 18-year-old white girl standing in an aisle and busting her in the back with it. Thank God she survived this vicious attack. The violence and lawlessness and racism is increasing, and I love how they holler that it's, you know, they holler racism that white people are all the problem about racism. No, no, racism, racism is in every race. Because your skin is one color the other doesn't mean you're a racist. Just because you don't agree that a black man should pick up a bat and go beat a little 18-year-old white girl in Walmart doesn't make you a racist because you say it's wrong. It's evil. I saw walking in the streets of Charlotte, both black people and white people, and I looked at them and the reporters would get in their face or ask them a question or they would get in the reporter's face and in both races I'm sitting there looking at them and only one word came to my mind. Idiots, zombies, clueless individuals, keep acting this way. Because these folks are going to be the first one that the military and the foreign troops and the UN troops are going to just shoot on the streets when they start this stuff, when this moves in. They're going to be the first shift off to the fun camps, but it's not going to be fun.
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