Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition [2 Thess. 2:3].

“Let no man deceive you by any means.” If we are not to be deceived, then let’s listen to Paul.
“For that day shall not come.” Which day? The Day of the Lord—not the Rapture. The Day of the Lord shall not come except there be the fulfilling of two conditions: (1) “There come a falling away first” and (2) “that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” Both of these things must take place before the Day of the Lord can begin, and neither one of them has taken place as yet.
There must be “a falling away first.” Many have interpreted this to mean the apostasy, and I agree that it does refer to that. But I think it means more than that, as a careful examination of the word will reveal. The Greek word that is here translated as “falling away” is apostasia. The root word actually means “departure or removal from.”
Paul says that before the Day of the Lord begins there must first come a removing. There are two kinds of removing that are going to take place. First, the organized church will depart from the faith—that is what we call apostasy. But there will be total apostasy when the Lord comes, and that cannot take place until the true church is removed. The Lord asked, “… when the Son of man cometh [to the earth], shall he find [the] faith … ?” (Luke 18:8). When He says “the faith,” He means that body of truth which He left here. The answer to His question is no, He will not find the faith here when He returns. There will be total apostasy because of two things: (1) the organization of the church has departed from the faith—it has apostatized and (2) there has been another departure, the departure of the true church from the earth. The departure of the true church leads into the total apostatizing of the organized church. The Day of the Lord cannot begin—nor the Great Tribulation period—until the departure of the true church has taken place.
Paul is not going into detail about the rapture of the church because he has already written about that in his first epistle: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16–17). That is the departure, the removal, of the church.
The organized church which is left down here will totally depart from the faith. We see it pictured as the great harlot in Revelation 17. The Laodicean church, which is the seventh and last church described in the Book of Revelation, is in sad condition. I think that is the period we are in right now. When the true believers are gone, it will get even worse. It will finally end in total apostasy.
From the viewpoint of the earth the removal of believers is a departure. From the viewpoint of heaven, it is a rapture, a snatching or catching up. I think the world is going to say at that time, “Oh, boy, they are gone!” They think that fellow McGee and other Bible teachers are a nuisance, and they will be glad when they are gone. The world will rejoice. They do not realize that it will be a sad day for them. They think they will be entering into the blessing of the Millennium, not realizing they are actually entering into the Great Tribulation period, which will be a time of toruble such as the world has never before seen.
Sometime ago Mrs. McGee and I were at the Los Angeles airport to take a morning flight to Florida. We always go early to have breakfast at the airport. While we were waiting, a big 747 was getting ready to go to the Hawaiian Islands. There was a fine–looking Marine Corps fellow there with his pretty wife and a precious little baby. But they looked so sad. A few minutes later when it came time to board the plane, they stood up. The father put his arms around them both, and they just wept. Then he picked up his bag and disappeared through the gate. It was a departure. It was an apostasia, a removal. The young wife picked up the baby and slowly walked back to the escalator, tears running down her face. My heart went out to her. Life would be hard for her now.
I couldn’t help but think that that is the way it will be for the world. When the church departs, many people will be glad to see us go. The liberals will be glad to get rid of us. There will be rejoicing. But they do not realize how hard it will be for them. They are going to enter the Great Tribulation period.
The second thing which must happen is that the “man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” When he is revealed the Great Tribulation period has already begun. Here he is called “the man of sin.” John calls him “the antichrist.” John is the only one who uses that term, by the way. The Antichrist has about thirty different titles in the Bible. He is a subject of the Old Testament. He is going to be Satan’s man. This is the man who will put the Roman Empire back together again, and he will finally become a world dictator. He is going to deceive the world. He could be in our midst today, but he won’t be able to appear in power or reveal who he is until after the Great Tribulation period begins.


McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (1 and 2 Thessalonians) (electronic ed., Vol. 49, pp. 117–120). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.