Regarding the passages that say God will send a delusion to those who reject the truth, is this referring to the people of the dispensation of grace who don't receive grace and make it through the rapture being blinded and go into the period of tribulation? Or, is it referring to people in the tribulation period (before the Antichrist comes on the scene) that reject the message given by the 144,000 and the Little Flock?
The answer to your questions is yes and no. It refers to both!
God hates to have to send delusion, but when you reject his truth, he must do it, as it is a spiritual law! It is the natural result/consequence of rejecting his truth!
Galatians 6:7-8
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
However, today God's will is that all men be saved and come unto a knowledge of the truth...
1 Timothy 2:4
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Today, God is doing ALL that he can for people to believe!
But once this dispensation of Grace is done, although God will still share truth with people (through the Jews), he will not be so gracious, but rather he will put people back under the Law--a PERFORMANCE-based acceptance system--where they need to PERFORM to be accepted by him! But if you keep rejecting it today, the spiritual law of sowing and reaping applies and you harden your own heart!
In Second Thessalonians, Paul is not dealing with our present dispensation of Grace, but he is reminding the saints there of what he already taught them both when he was with them in person (Acts 17) and in his first letter to them, about what will happen in the future Day of the Lord's Wrath, that is, the Time of JACOB'S trouble, or Tribulation period!
He had already taught those saints what will happen in the future, that after we are gone to heaven in the rapture, God starts once again his prophetic clock and dealings with Israel!
So Paul wrote to the saints in Thessalonica (and, in so doing, to us saints today) to give understanding. As today, there was much confusion because the Thessalonians would not rightly divide God's word as Paul commanded, and therefore people got the timing of events all confused.
So the context and purpose of Second Thessalonians is to give saints in the Dispensation of Grace understanding of what will happen in the future "Day of the Lord's Wrath/Tribulation Period/Time of Jacob's trouble/Daniel's 70th week."
Here is what Paul says will happen...
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
The immediate context is not talking about people who live in this present dispensation of the grace of God! Today, God is not trying to delude people into unbelief during this dispensation—although, again, he will do so once those people living in this dispensation go into the next one! No longer will he be so gracious. And even when he sends his word out to people in that day, if they reject it, he will make sure that they die in their sins, and he will do it by allowing super-natural manifestation by Satan to seal their damnation (perdition)!
So no, this passage from Second Thessalonians is not in reference for today in the dispensation of grace per se; it refers to the time to come after our dispensation—but with the one footnote that anybody who was exposed to a clear gospel of grace today, but did not believe, will have their fate sealed in the next!
So although the direct/ immediate context of the passage is the Tribulation period, it can also be applied to those today who reject the gospel of grace and are left behind at the rapture!
You see, if a person rejects Christ's shed blood for their sins today, God will not give them a "another chance" to trust him then in that future day!
Paul says that now is the accepted time! Paul says that now is the day of salvation!
2 Corinthians 6:2
(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)
Plus, if you don't trust Christ as a gentile living in California or Minnesota (or anywhere else) in the dispensation of grace, where it is easy and simple for you—i.e., no works, how in the world will you do it in the tribulation period where works of the Jewish Law will be required, and going to Jerusalem, etc.? It will be impossible and God will make it so!
So the immediate/direct context of the passage is the future Prophetic time, but the "spiritual application" can and will be done to those who live today in the present dispensation of grace but have rejected the gospel of God's grace and are left behind at the Rapture, and go through that prophetic time in the future!
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Hopefully this
helps!
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