Chapter 10: Dazed By the Ultimate Deceiver
-the stage is set for the rise of the ultimate deceiver = the Antichrist
-only god of the Bible, who exists outside of time and space,
can accurately predict events with exactness
The World is Ready:
-regardless of their political or religious affiliation people are angry with
their leaders
-the absence of leadership global has left nations in turmoil
-the book of Judges outlines when Israel had no king, no leadership,
so man did what was right in his own eyes
Judges 17: 6
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.”
-the world is hungry for direction and guidance
-the world is on the bring of the time during which it will see the
Antichrist arise
Luke 21: 28-31
“When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads,
because your redemption is drawing near.” He told them this parable: “Look
at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for
yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these
things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”
-life is going to get intense before the Antichrist arrives which will make
many people receptive to the truth
1 John 4:3
“but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the
spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is
already in the world.”
Who is the AntiChrist?
-100 passages of Scripture refer to the person of the Antichrist
Antichrist:
-term comes from the Greek word antichristos, meaning he is against Christ
-he is a replacement christ
-an imposter messiah capable of deceiving the world into believing he is the
one they’ve been waiting for all along
-1st and 2nd Thessalonians, Paul dealt with the characteristics of the church
and its rapture or a gathering together of believers to meet Christ in the air
-Paul wrote regarding the events of the second coming and the revelation
of the Antichrist during the tribulation period
-it gives us a glimpse of the ultimate deceiver
1st Thessalonians 4: 16-17
“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command,
with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the
dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left
will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
2nd Thessalonians 2: 3-4
“Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until
the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness[a] is revealed, the man
doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything
that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s
temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”
-scripture powerfully describes the mystery of lawlessness that is already at work
-the Holy Spirit is the one who restrains and is holding back the power and deeds of the Antichrist
-one day the Holy spirit will step aside
-for the believer this future event is anticipated
The Spirit of the AntiChrist:
-you do not need to be a Christian to have heard about the Antichrist
-the number 666 is associated with Satan or the Antichrist
-believers should not assume the Antichrist is irrelevant to their lives
-Satan loves the mentality that fails to recognize the scope of his influence
-Satan knows Biblical prophecy to some extent but doesn’t possess any details beyond what is stated in Scripture
-God has not revealed his timeline
-Satan always has an Antichrist in each generation just in case
Genesis 10
-reveals “the son of perdition”
-the birth of Nimrod and the introduction of Babylon (Babel)
-describing Nimrod the passage says he was before the Lord which means facing or against the Lord
-based on the Hebrew sentence structure, Jewish scholars believe this means Nimrod was a hunter of men’s souls in competition with God
-chapter 11 tells us that Nimrod united people under himself with the motive to replace God’s plan with his own
-Nimrod aligned himself against God
-men led by the spirit of antichrist
-Babylon became a worship system that refers to both the city and a false religion
***all cultic and occultic beliefs and practices can be traced back to the ancient Babylonian worship system
-the spirit of the antichrist first appeared in the the Old Testament and carries through to the end of the New Testament
1 John 2: 22-23
“Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”
1 John 4: 3
“but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”
-calling someone a liar and antichrist is a strong statement that incorporates the members of every cult that can be names
John 10: 30
“I and the Father are one.”
-believing anything less than Jesus’ confession is the spirit of antichrist
The Antichrist Will be Physically manifested:
-Satan will possess a living, breathing man
-when we think of possession we think of demon possession, but it will happen that the Antichrist himself will come inside a man
-just as he entered Judas in the upper room while Jesus was celebrating the Passover meal with the disciples
Luke 22: 3
“Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve.”
-the Antichrist will not operate alone
-Satan will provide him with an assistant
-the Bible refers to him as the false prophet
-he will be the public relations man
-he will go where the Antichrist is and perform miracles designed to exalt him
Revelation 13: 11-13
“Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people.”
Revelation 16: 13
“Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet.”
Revelation 19: 20
“But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”
***It is important to remember that Satan cannot create anything original. He can only copy and pervert what God has established
The Antichrist Well Be the Consummate Politician:
-he will be a political powerhouse
-everything about the Antichrist’s thinking and actions will be satanically engineered
-the United Nation sways the European Union to outmaneuver the United States
-the Antichrist’s rise to fame will happen very quickly
-he will backstab and lie his way to the number one position
Daniel 8: 9
“Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land.”
Daniel 11: 21
“He will be succeeded by a contemptible person who has not been given the honor of royalty. He will invade the kingdom when its people feel secure, and he will seize it through intrigue.”
***the false messiah will have both smooth and charisma characteristics in excess and he will also have something else: the perfect hook = a peace treaty
He Will Broker Peace in the Middle East:
Joel 3: 1-2
“In those days and at that time,
when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
I will gather all nations
and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.[b]
There I will put them on trial
for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel,
because they scattered my people among the nations
and divided up my land.
-you and I live in the time and space following the fulfillment of God’s promise to return the Israelite captives back to Jerusalem and his promise to gather all nations into th eValley of Jehoshaphat
-the captives of Judah and Jerusalem are back in the land of Israel, but gathering of the nations for judgment is yet future
-God will judge the nations because of their repeated offerts to divide up His land
-politicians have been advocating this for decades
-Daniel speaks of Israel
-the Antichrist will go beyond promising, but will do what no president has been able to do, he will secure peace between Israel and its angry neighbors
Daniel 8: 25
“He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.”
***The Bible’s prophetic accuracy should astound even the most stubborn doubter
-the Hebrew word for “craft” translates to the word deceit or intrigue
-the Antichrist will deceive and destroy by using peace
-the world will be in a daze of a false sense of safety and security
-Daniel tells us the peace treaty will be for seven years
Daniel 9: 27
“He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’[a] In the middle of the ‘seven’[b] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple[c] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”
-there will be no lasting peace
-Ezekiel informs us that the peace treaty will not last
-the world’s strategically engineered peace by Satan will end when the Antichrist breaks the agreement halfway through the seven years
He Will Bring Prosperity:
-the bible indicates that the Antichrist will usher in a new world order that leads to global economic prosperity
-he will provide economic security worldwide
-the Antichrist will have brilliant solutions to complex economic problems
-an increase of information technology and digital currency
-the Antichrist will use cashless transactions and digital currency to his full advantage
-everything is tracked and monitored to ensure everything is safe
-the Antichrist will implement some type of electronic biometric identification system or personal authenticator
-the Antichrist will need to make this mark palatable
-the mark will promote equality among all peoples and nations and supports global prosperity
-all in the name of the common good
-taking the mark(electronic identification)will become easy and the socially acceptable thing to do
-people around the world are becoming acclimated to the idea of using an identifying mark for their personal lives and business dealings
Revelation 13: 16
“It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads,”
Daniel 12: 4
“But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”
***Word of warning-if you are a believer and are left behind then you had better be ready to say no, so get right now so you are prepared to be raptured
Revelation 13: 18
“This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[a] That number is 666.”
Revelation 20: 4
“I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They[a] had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”
The Antichrist Will Be the Ultimate Deceiver:
-unifying the world’s religions under the banner of false religion is a necessary component of the Antichrist’s agenda
-secularists argue that religion is the problem so the goal will be to have one world religion that worships the Antichrist
-the Antichrist will demand complete command, control, and compliance
-reason to focus on Europe is because the Antichrist will rise from this area
Revelation 2: 41
“Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay.”
Daniel 9: 26
“After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.[a] The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.”
-Christianity is on life support in Europe
-deceptions obscures, and at the same time infiltrates, what Satan has desired from the beginning to usurp the worship that belongs to God alone
-the European Union celebrates its pagan roots
-there is a direct tie between Europe’s pagan history and the ancient Babylonian system of worship that began with Nimrod
-the souls of many will believe in this paganized global church as an accepted religious system endorsed by the global community
Revelation 17: 3
“Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.”
***The Antichrist’s unified church will be an unholy marriage of Babylonianism to the church, Revelation 17: 5 calls her “mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.”
It Is About Worship:
-secular or sacred, it all comes down to worship
-every culture practices some form of worship
-deception obscures
-Satan has desired front he beginning to usurp the worship that belongs to God alone
Old Testament:
Isaiah 14: 13-14
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
New Testament:
Matthew 4: 8-9
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
2 Thessalonians 2: 3-4
“Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness[a] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”
-the Antichrist will use anything and everything within his power to entice people to worship him
***Only the Holy Spirit that dwells within every true, born-again child of God is our safeguard to our worship
How to stay a healthy worshipper?
-Get into your Bible daily and then get up and walk in the Spirit; which is to obey Him
-Do not get into legalism in how you worship-you can worship anywhere and at any time
-Pursue holiness by keeping your reverence for God so worship to give Him his due for being your Lord
-Be passionate with gladness toward the one who indwells in you who invites you into His presence daily
-Give expressively as it costs you nothing but your time and heart to worship the God who loves you
-Love deeply the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul because He is your daily strength
***understand there is a war being waged for your soul with deceptions all around trying to get you to reject, yield, resist, or deny the holy righteousness of God
***It is your choice to decide to accept and allow into your worship as it is to whom you bow the knee to that matters to your soul