The Cross and the Crucifix

2 Thess 2 deals with the Antichrist, strong delusion, AND A FALLING AWAY FROM THE TRUE FAITH.

The ancient Roman Empire was a huge slave empire run by pagans, then later run by nominal Christians.

The apostles were faced with 2 alternatives: 1) They could advise slaves to rebel against their masters, in which case the slaves would be tortured to death, or, 2) the apostles could advise slaves to endure their chains, be good Christians and look to a Heavenly afterlife.

The apostles didn't advise Christians to launch raids to capture and enslave people, as did Popes and Protestants and other Christians living centuries after the time of Christ and the apostles.

When good Christians violate 1 Cor 11. 27-29, by sharing the bread and the wine with evil Christians, then the good Christians fall away from the True Faith and put themselves on the road to perdition.

Concerning evil Christians...

The following is from `Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829,' Pocket University - Doubleday, written by Robert Walsh, an Irish clergyman active in the English Society for the Abolition of Slavery:

"She was a very broad-decked ship...She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males, and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty-five. The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways, between decks...As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded, like sheep, with their owners' marks of different forms...These were impressed under their breasts, or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference...`burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow, with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave- driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it...But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly, was, how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram...The heat of these horrid places was so great, and the odour so offensive, that it was quite impossible to enter them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water...the poor beings were all turned up together...517 fellow-creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up, like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern...On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand. After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought...When the poor creatures were ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the horrid place of suffering below. It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life, in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May, and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints, in that space of time, though they left the coast in good health...It was dark when we separated, and the last parting sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship, were the cries and the shrieks of the slaves."