| Who
is the Antichrist and
When Will He Come? |
“Don’t
let anyone deceive you in any
way, for that day [the
Second Coming] will
not come until the rebellion
occurs and the man of lawlessness
is revealed, the man doomed to
destruction.” (2 Thessalonians
2:3)
The month
of December is renowned for its
primary holiday. Even though
Christmas is a manmade holiday,
Christians can use the season to
initiate a discussion about
Jesus’ birth, ministry,
death, ascension, and return.
There is a lot to talk about if
you can find an opportunity to do
so! Although few people
were aware of Jesus’ birth,
when he returns, the Bible
predicts “every
eye will see Him!” (Revelation 1:7) Before
Jesus returns, another being
called the Antichrist will first
appear on Earth. The Antichrist
(Lucifer) will not appear in the
same manner that Jesus appears.
Jesus and the Father will not
touch the Earth at the Second
Coming. Instead, they will hover
above the Earth and as Earth
rotates beneath them, every eye
will see them on a glorious
throne. (Matthew 26:64) When
Jesus returns, He will call the
righteous dead to life (John 5:28) and the
righteous living will then be
caught up with them to meet the
Lord in the air! (1 Thessalonians
4:13-18)
The
righteous saints meet the Lord in
the air because Jesus and the
Father will not descend to Earth
at the Second Coming! Instead,
the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and
the redeemed will leave this
planet and head for the city, New
Jerusalem. In this manner, Jesus
will keep the promise He made
just before His death: “In
my Father’s house are many
rooms; if it were not so, I would
have told you. I am going there
to prepare a place for you. And
if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come back and take
you to be with me that
you also may be where
I am.” (John 14:2,3, italics
mine) In this verse, Jesus
promised to take us to be with
Him. He did not promise to return
to Earth and stay here with us.
Unfortunately,
many Christians have not
considered John 14:2,3. They
believe that Jesus will return to
live on Earth and this allows the
Antichrist to loosely imitate the
Second Coming many times. Because
communication will be limited
between different parts of the
world, Lucifer will descend with
a giant cloud of brilliant angels
over large cities. People in
different regions of the world
will see him arrive at various
times. The important difference
between Jesus’ and the
devil’s appearing is that
the devil will be unable to do
what he intends to do if he stays
up in the sky. The devil has to
spend some time on Earth to
accomplish his evil goals.
The
Man of Lawlessness
Paul
indicates “the man of
lawlessness” (Lucifer, the
devil) will put on a big show
with counterfeit miracles, signs,
and wonders. (2 Thessalonians
2:9-12) Millions of evil
angels (actually demons) will
herald the fake news,
“Almighty God has arrived!
Come out to see him! He has come
to establish the kingdom of God
on Earth and there will be a
thousand years of peace and
prosperity for everyone!”
The wicked will be excited by
this announcement. Yet, we can
only understand this deception if
we learn the events that occur
prior to the Antichrist’s
appearance.The first four
trumpets will devastate Earth and
ruin its many infrastructures.
People who live then will be in
very primitive, miserable
conditions. I believe the devil
and his angels will appear about
two and one half years after the
first four trumpets occur.
Consider the devil’s
appearance as John saw it:
“The
fifth angel [that
stands before God in Heaven (Revelation 8:2)] sounded
his trumpet, and I [John] saw
a star [a term used
to describe angels (Revelation 1:20), a
brilliant being] that
had fallen from the sky to the
Earth [cast out of
Heaven]. [At
the appointed time,] The
star was given the key to the
shaft of the Abyss. When he [the
devil] opened the
Abyss, smoke
rose from it [a
great cloud of angels appeared in
the sky, the cloud was so dense
that it looked] like
the smoke from a gigantic
furnace. The Sun and sky were
darkened by the smoke from the
Abyss. And out of the smoke
locusts [millions
of angels with wings, the number
of them was so great that they
looked like a giant swarm of
locusts] came down
upon the Earth and were given
power [from God to
hurt certain people, the harm
they caused was] like
that of scorpions of the
Earth.”(Revelation 9:1-3,
insertions mine)
In
John’s day, the Abyss was
thought to be a mysterious region
located beneath a flat Earth.
People believed that demons
dwelled in the Abyss and
volcanoes served as chimneys for
the fires that burned down there.
The shaft (or bottomless pit) of
the Abyss was considered to be a
hole that went through the flat
Earth. In this case, the star is
Lucifer who was cast out of
Heaven. As the angel king of the
Abyss, he is given a key so that
he and his followers can escape.
This language indicates that
Jesus deliberately and precisely
controls when the Antichrist
appears.
“They [the
demons] were told
not to harm the grass of the
Earth or any plant [crops] or
tree [they are not
permitted to physically destroy
anything], but only
those people who
did not have the seal of God on
their foreheads. They were not
given power to kill them, but
only to torture them for five
months. And the agony they
suffered was like that of the
sting of a scorpion when it
strikes a man. [The
torture was so great that] During
those days men will seek death,
but will not find it; they will
long to die, but death will elude
them. The locusts [the
angels from the Abyss] looked
like [well-armed]horses
prepared for battle. On their
heads they [the
demons] wore
something like crowns of
gold [showing
authority over mankind],
and their faces resembled human
faces. Their hair was [long] like
women’s hair, and their
teeth were [deadly,
powerful] like
lions’ teeth. They had
breastplates like breastplates of
iron [they were
invincible, human beings could
not stop them, injure them, or
kill them], and the sound
of their wings was like the
thundering of many horses [very
loud] and chariots
rushing into battle [they
had intimidating power].
They had tails and stings like
scorpions, and in their tails
they had power to torment people
for five months. They had as king
over them the angel of the
Abyss, [the star
who received the key] whose
name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in
Greek, Apollyon. [Whether
Jew or Gentile, his title means:
The Destroyer.]The first
woe [the first
curse on the wicked] is
past; two other woes are yet to
come [upon them].” (Revelation 9:4-12,
insertions and italics mine)
John saw
a representation of Lucifer and
his demons in the same way that
he saw the seven-headed beast
in Revelation 13:1. If you
remember, the seven-headed beast
looked like a leopard, but it had
feet like a bear, and a mouth
like a lion. These features are
representations that describe
Babylon’s powers. Lucifer
and his demons will not
physically look like locusts
having scorpion tails. Instead,
the devil and his angels will be
brilliant, glorious beings with a
human-like appearance, because
like mankind, they were made in
God’s image. (Genesis 1:26; Job 38:7) The
demons from the Abyss will be
much larger and more powerful
than humans. People will not be
able to control, stop, or kill
them. God will release them from
the Abyss and give them power to
rule over the whole world for
about fourteen months.
God only
releases the devil and his angels
from the spirit realm (the
Abyss), after the world has
rejected the clearest evidence of
His will and higher authority.
When the fifth trumpet occurs,
Lucifer will confront each wicked
person with the clearest evidence
of his will and authority.
Standing about fifteen feet tall
and deceptively cloaked in
brilliant light and charming
benevolence, the devil will tell
the wicked that he is
“Almighty God.” I
believe that Lucifer is
physically “15 feet
tall” using the following
texts. Psalm 8:3-5 reveals
that Jesus created man
“smaller” or
“shorter” than the
angels and 1 Kings 6:23-26 documents
that Solomon constructed a
life-sized likeness of the two
angels for the Most Holy Place.
To prove
the lie that he is “Almighty
God,” the devil will call
fire down from the sky on
command. (Revelation 13:13) The
devil will declare he has come to
establish God’s kingdom on
Earth and he invites everyone to
join him for 1,000 years of peace
and prosperity. The devil is
called “the false
prophet” for this reason.
Behind the scenes, demons will
arrest and torture everyone
caught refusing to worship the
devil for blasphemy and
insubordination.
The
Beast from the Abyss is the
Antichrist
In Revelation 9:1-11, John
saw “the angel king of the
Abyss” released from the
Abyss. In Revelation 13:11, John
saw a beast come up out of the
Earth (inferring this beast will
come up through a shaft in the
Earth). In Revelation 11:7, John
says the beast from the Abyss
will kill the Two Witnesses and
in Revelation 17:8, John
says the wicked will be
astonished when they SEE the
beast from the Abyss because
currently, he is not visible.
Putting these pieces together, I
conclude at the fifth trumpet,
Jesus releases “a higher
power.” At this point, the
devil and his angels will
physically appear and descend
from the sky. They will torture
everyone except those having the
seal of God as they take control
of the world and rule with
absolute authority. Paul calls
the devil, the man of lawlessness
in 2 Thessalonians 2 because
he will not be subject to manmade
laws.
When the
five months allotted for the
fifth trumpet end, the sixth
trumpet will sound. At that time,
Jesus will permit the devil to
kill one-third of mankind. (Revelation 9:15)
When he receives this power, the
devil will demand a one-world
government be formed. Lucifer
will set himself up as King of
kings and Lord of lords and no
one can stop him. He will demand
everyone who refuses to worship
him be put to death. To make his
dominion complete, the devil will
abolish and outlaw the religions
and governments of the world.
There will be one faith, one
Lord, and one baptism. At this
time, the 144,000 will announce
an inflammatory third message to
counter this global
development: “If
anyone worships [obeys] the
beast [from the
Abyss] and his
image [his
one-world government] and
receives his mark [a
tattoo] on the
forehead or on the [right] hand,
he, too, will drink of the wine
of God’s fury, which has
been poured full strength into
the cup of his wrath. He will be
tormented with burning sulfur in
the presence of the holy angels
and of the Lamb.” (Revelation 14:9,10,
insertions mine) The
devil’s one-world government
is described in Revelation
13 as an image (or a
likeness of the government set up
by the seven-headed beast)
because it will be similar. The
seven-headed beast will be a
global church/state directed by
seven heads, but the devil’s
image will be a global
church/state directed by an evil
impostor claiming to be Almighty
God.
The
Mark of the Beast
If we
want to understand the mark of
the beast, we have to understand
the dire situation that will
exist on Earth at the sixth
trumpet. After the devil
abolishes the religions and
governments of the world, he will
establish ten “puppet”
kings as task masters. He will
give these kings an assignment to
build God’s kingdom.
Everyone must work on this
project or be punished for
sedition. The devil will resort
to an ancient method for dealing
with large numbers of people to
enforce his laws and manage his
subjects. He will divide the
people of Earth into groups of
1,000. (Exodus 18:24-26, Numbers 31:48-54, Deuteronomy 1:15, 1 Samuel 22:7, 1 Chronicles 27:1)
One person will be chosen from
each group to serve as its
captain. After the devil divides
the people, he will tell each
captain that the first 666 people
willing to receive a tattoo on
the right hand showing
“666” can live.
All others must be put to death.
(Revelation 9:15)
This gruesome tactic will expose
those who have the slightest
reservation about worshiping the
devil and obeying his laws.
People who immediately accept the
devil’s mark will live.
The
phrase, “the mark of the
beast” is a poor translation
from the Greek language.
The phrase should be translated,
“the engraving of the
beast.” The Greek
word: charagma is
translated “mark” in
English, but the Greek word means
an engraving, such as an
engraving on a tombstone or a
tattoo, an engraving on the
flesh. A tattoo is a very
simple, low tech, easy way to
control people in large numbers.
Hitler tattooed millions of
prisoners and the devil will do
the same. A tattoo is not
reversible, transferable, or
subject to theft or
counterfeiting. To conduct
business (some buying and selling
will be possible at that time), a
tattoo showing “666” on
the right hand will be
required. The dire
circumstances on Earth at the
time of the sixth trumpet require
strong action.
The Bible
also describes Lucifer’s
government as a great prostitute
(Revelation 17:1), riding
on (controlling) the seven-headed
beast. This caricature indicates
that everyone who goes along with
the devil to survive will behave
as a prostitute. A prostitute is
a person without morals. A
prostitute is willing to violate
his or her body for something
even though he or she knows that
doing so is evil. The parallel
will be obvious. When the mark of
the beast is offered, billions of
people who refused to love the
truth, people who refused to
trust in God and depend on Him
for survival will sell their
souls and bodies to the devil to
survive. This is a profound
lesson found in Revelation’s
story: When people reach
a point where they value life
more than righteousness, the
Creator of life has determined
that such people are unfit to
live!
