with all powers and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." Now you could spend, I don't know how many sermons you could give off that passage, there are so many important points in that passage. What was being described here by Paul is he was reminding the Thessalonians that he had told them that this Antichrist would appear in history, but it was being restrained from its rise to power by the forces of the Roman Empire. And he was not specific in this passage of that fact, and Bible commentators have stated, and I believe correctly, that the reason that he wasn't specific is to send a letter identifying the fall of the Roman Empire would mean death to anyone that was circulating a letter predicting that event. So he simply says, you remember that when I was with you, I told you that the pagan Roman Empire was the power that was restraining the rise of this power that would become the Antichrist power. And he gives us some characteristics of the Antichrist power that he would be setting in a religious setting, claiming to be God. And then he also, if you are willing to see it, in this context, he takes this Antichrist power down to the end of the world, the return of Christ, and that was the question of the Thessalonians. They were wondering when the return of Christ was going to take place, and he was telling them specific prophetic events that would precede that. Don't look for the return of Christ until the Antichrist comes to power, and he's not coming to power until pagan Rome leaves the scene of history. So don't be anxious about the return of Christ. Yes, there are certain events that take place, but in here he also includes, in the sequence if you look at it, that somewhere between the rise of the power of the papacy, the man of sin, but before the return of Christ, will be this marvelous working of Satan that takes place prior. And this is a pretty general survey of a sequence of events, but it's consistent with what we've been looking at and what we'll continue to look at as we proceed on. Now, you'll see a comment on this part of this passage in the next quote from the Great Controversy saying, most likely, much more clearly than I just said, that what Paul was describing in that passage is that the papacy doesn't rise until pagan Rome is taken out of the world, taken out of the way. But she specifically identifies this wicked, the man of sin, the mystery of iniquity, the son of perdition, as the papacy in this passage from Great Controversy 356. Now, if we drop down to the next quote from Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 7, page 910.