THE CHEAP COPY AND THE REAL THING
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I ran into one of the women of our church in the checkout line at Costco the other day. “I can hardly wait until Sunday. When is all this going to happen? Who is the AntiChrist?”
Of course the Bible does not answer either of those questions specifically.
However, it does give all sorts of clues and promises that those who are wise will be able to read the signs and figure out what is happening near the end of the age.
Today we come to see the Biblical teachings about the Antichrist himself.
Sometimes we don’t know a cheap copy until we see the “real thing.”
Dr. Pepper from Texas–Hardly existed in Tucson 20 years ago. Julie sneaked them into Mexican restaurants in her purse.
And Mr. Pibb. Now even have Dr. Wells. Just cheap imitations of the real thing!
I want to compare the coming cheap imitation of Christ with the real thing.
Antichrist can be such an oppressive subject. So as we see him, we will keep our eyes on Jesus.
READ REVELATION 13:18
Who is this beast? Number of the Beast is 666. Now, if we just find the man who signs his name with three sixes, we’ll know who the Antichrist is.
Several possible explanations of 666.
1. Gematria. Ancient practice of adding the sum total of the numerical equivalent of letters of a man’s name.
In Greek and Hebrew the letters of the alphabet had definite numerical equivalents.
Roger=R+O+G+E+R=100+70+3+5+100=278
While it’s easy to turn a name into a number, it’s much harder to turn a number back into a name. Incidentally both Caesar Nero and Bartholomew = 666. (Ronald Reagan = 415, Clinton = 530)
2. Symbol of a man.
#6 is the number of humanity in the Bible. 666 may be taken to mean an individual who is trying to imitate the Trinity of God (Three sixes in one person).
3. A symbol of imperfection.
The number “7” is the number of “perfection”. Jesus is 888 (one more than perfection). 666 is consistently one less than perfection. 666 could be the personification of evil.
The name of Jesus is 888. Anyone with intelligence can calculate the number. Iota=10, Eta=8; Sigma=200; Omicron=70; Upsilon=400; Sigma=200.
1. ANTICHRIST WILL BE WANTED–NOT REJECTED.
READ Revelation 6:2
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
All Hell is breaking loose and AntiChrist comes on a white horse of peace.
Look at our world.
ECONOMIC CRISIS: labor-management problems, unemployment, debt, urban blight
DISEASE: drugs, aids, tb, most of the world is a ghetto
WAR in Bosnia: ethnic stress, racial strife, ethnic cleansing
FAMINE: ecology
US NEWS: RUSSIA: CAUGHT BETWEEN THE JUNGLE AND THE ZOO
Our world is becoming more ripe every hour for a voice that will say, “I have the answer. I can offer peace. I can bring an answer to the chaos in which we live.
The Addictive Organization by Ann Schaef and Diane Fassel:
“In times of crisis we allow people to take over and enact unusual procedures. Crisis feeds the illusion that control can bring the situation under control. Crises are used to excuse drastic and erratic actions on the part of managers. When crisis is the norm, management tends to assume an unhealthy amount of power on a daily basis.”
Henri Speak, one of the early planners of common market and Secretary General of NATO expressed the mood in Europe: “We do not want another committee; we have too many already. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all the people and to lift us out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man and be he god or devil, we will receive him.”
PICTURES OF WORLD LEADERS: Time of world emergency. Satan always has an Antichrist ready.
Antichrist will be wanted, not rejected.
What a contrast with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ “came unto his own, and his own received him not.” (John 1:10-11)
“He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.” (Isaiah 53:3)
2. ANTICHRIST WILL BE APPEALING–NOT REPULSIVE.
READ 2 CORINTHIANS 11:14-15: “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. it is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.”
One of the problems is the name given to him in scripture. Who wants to spend the afternoon with a beast? Or the Man of Sin? or an Antichrist?
We must not think that because these names are used that the Antichrist when he appears will be repulsive.
We think of the prefix “Anti” and think of one opposed to Christ and we mistakenly identify him with the worst of tyrants. Now the prefix “anti” can mean opposed or against, but it can also mean, “instead of.” Instead of Christ.
That is the meaning here. Antichrist will be a substitute for Christ. He will be as much like Christ as it is possible for a tool of Satan to be like Christ.
He will talk about justice…love…peace..prosperity. Will be brilliant. Hailed by millions as the one who will save mankind. He will come as an angel of light.
We can safely say that the Antichrist will be far more like Albert Schweitzer than Satan. Schweitzer, of course, did not believe in the divinity of Christ or accept the full authority of scripture. Yet, he went to Africa as an angel of light.
The Antichrist will be attractive, not repulsive. He’ll be wanted…appealing.
What a contrast with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2)
Lowly, in a cow’s stall, in a manger.
3. ANTICHRIST WILL BE A GENTILE, AN ARYAN OF “EXALTED” RACE–NOT A JEW.
READ Revelation 13:1.
Emerges out of the sea. Reference to Gentile world powers.
Magogite: Descendant of Noah through Jephthah. Germanic peoples of Central Europe and Volga River valley south of Moscow in Russia.
Christ came as a Jew as “the lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David.” (Revelation 5:5)
Describe anti-semitism in Germany and Russian states today.
Hildegard Janssen: No wonder German youth hate Jews. The will never forget. They keep holding a grudge. Why can’t they forgive Germany? Germany has paid out over $39 billion in retribution and pensions of the Holocaust; and that money has taken food, jobs, and the future from this present generation of youth in Germany. And they resent it greatly.
$39 billion somehow is a drop in the bucket compared to 5.8 million lives.
4. SATAN WILL INHABIT THE ANTICHRIST AND BE THE SOURCE OF HIS POWER.
READ REVELATION 13:2.
His power comes from the Dragon who is identified in Rev. 12:9 as Satan.
READ REVELATION 12:7-9, 12.
Joy in heaven, but woe to the earth!
In Rev. 12 there is a picture of war in Heaven between Michael and Lucifer and Satan is cast out of Heaven to the Earth. Picture of Satan coming to inhabit the body of Antichrist.
This occurs in the middle of the tribulation when Satan falls from heaven to indwell him.
If Satan really wants to operate, what does he do? He gets a man!
Read Luke 22:3; Satan entered into Judas.
Demons in Gadarene demoniac.
Then he accomplishes such wicked things.
Christ is “in the Father and the Father is in Christ.” (John 17:21)
“Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” (John 17:21)
“I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The One who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.” (John 8:28-29)
5. ANTICHRIST SURVIVES A MORTAL WOUND (A COUNTERFEIT RESURRECTION).
READ Revelation 13:3.
One head of the beast receives a mortal wound and lives.
Greek words mean “slit the throat with a knife.”
Dramatic entrance onto the world scene. Satanic counterfeit resurrection.
As if JFK. Lying in rotunda. Sits up and says, “There’s something that I want to say…” Don’t you think that he would have the undivided attention of the world?
One of the seven heads is wounded.
Could be the leader of one of the previous seven Beast nations! Instantly recognized! (Hitler)
Adolf Hitler’s final words from “World at War” series on television.
Direct quote from a film made by a personal aide to Hitler just before he shot himself in his bunker in Berlin. Hitler’s last words to his aides were to break up and scatter to the west. In response to that statement the aide asked, “For whom should we fight now?” With that Hitler said in a monotone: “For the coming man.” Then he closed the door and shot himself in the head with his own gun.
What a contrast with Christ.
Christ was “resurrected just as He said.” (Matthew 28:6)
“He is not here; He has risen, just as He said.” (Matthew 28:6)
“From that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Mat. 16: 21.)
6. ANTICHRIST SUBDUES KINGDOMS BY DECEIT, FORCE, BOASTFUL PROMISES, AND MANIPULATION.
READ Daniel 7:19-25.
See if you can tell me who said this:
“The streets of our country are in turmoil; the universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country, and the Republic is in danger – yes, danger from within and without. Without law and order our nation cannot survive!”
Who said that? Adolf Hitler in 1932. In 1930, Germany was in desperate financial straits – riots, unrest, communists, etc. Then Hitler appeared on the scene; a voice of authority arose. Great promises of peace, prosperity, and hope for Germany. People proclaimed “Heil Hitler”
It’s said that 80% of the evangelical Christians in Germany in the 1930’s voted for Hitler, because they really believed that he could bring peace, law and order, and prosperity to Germany.
Talk to people who were in pre-war Germany and they tell of how the people viewed Hitler as the savior to straighten out their sordid society. KIssing babies, etc.
U.S. NEWS: “HE CAME IN ON CAT’S PAWS”
How could anyone be duped into accepting the Antichrist? Remember how the Antichrist comes into power? Revelation 6:2: Rider on a white horse!
In a time of great economic problems and turmoil, the Antichrist will appear as a smooth-talking peacemaker! The world will embrace him as a savior and solver of its problems.
He gains control of a ten nation confederacy and subdues three kings who fail to yield to his control. (Daniel 7:20,24). This beginning forms the nucleus for his rise to world domination.
He makes a peace treaty with Israel which marks the beginning of the Great Tribulation.
He breaks treaty after 3 1/2 years with Abomination of Desolation in Matthew 24:15-16, and begins great wave of Anti-Semitism. He attempts to exterminate all Jews.
Christ was led “like a sheep led to the slaughter.” (Isaiah 53:7) He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 8:36)
7. ANTICHRIST DEMANDS TO BE WORSHIPPED.
READ Revelation 13:11-13
It is critical to Satan’s plans that he have a religious structure to his kingdom. The reason is because man is unable to exist without religion.
God has placed a throne-shaped vacuum inside every human heart that he intends to occupy. If man doesn’t worship God then he’ll worship something in its place. A stick, mountain, sun, stars (in primitive culture), car, job, himself, a sport!
We saw this with the Roman emperor worship in the first century. “Caesar is Lord.”
See it in Japanese emperor worship in WWII. Japanese wrote it out of their constitution; yet, new emperor just took divinity vows.
READ REVELATION 13:14-15.
This is Abomination foretold by:
Daniel (Daniel 9:27; 11:36)
Jesus (Matthew 24:15)
Paul (2 Thess 2:4)
As he lays his plans for strategic final attack to dominate the earth, he attacks 3 major fronts: Political/Religious/Economic.
The Worship Is Enforced By Economic Sanctions. Here is the Infamous Mark of the Beast.
READ REVELATION 13:16-17.
All beast worshippers are compelled to receive a mark!
How could this happen?
Invent a system to house all the data – Done.
Remove all currency and substitute controlled credit – Being done.
Have central control on everyone’s financial status and credit rating – Done.
Do all major economic work are institutional level – Done.
Give government complete control of finance – Moving in that direction! Fed controls economy, inflation, recession by limiting or increasing the money supply.
So why then bother to have credit cards? Get one number, social security number and tattoo it on forehead or back of right hand.
Put it under bar light reader at grocery store and automatically debits bank account.
Man from Communist Bulgaria said that “the most terrible instrument ever devised by man is the innocent ration card. You can’t buy or sell anything except according to that little ration card. If they please, they can starve you to death…dispossess you of everything you have, for you can’t trade nor buy nor sell without that little card.”
Under the Beast all will be controlled by that same sort of central economy.
The cost of following Jesus is really going to be high.
May I also add that the cost of not following Jesus is going to be higher yet.
READ REVELATION 16:2; 14:9-11!
The price will be high for the one who refuses the mark, the price will be infinitely higher for the one who takes it.
Can take a spiritual mark today.
Madonna has been much in the news. Julie: “She is a very intelligent woman. I am surprised. She is seducing a generation of American youth; and she knows exactly what she is doing.
Christ receives worship only after humbling Himself to death on a cross.
(“Matthew 28:9 He allows Mary to worship Him at the empty tomb;” Philippians 2:5-11)
8. THE ANTICHRIST WILL BE DESTROYED AND CAST INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE.
READ Revelation 19:20; 20:10.
He is defeated by Christ and cast into the lake of fire forever.
Christ will reign forever as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. (Revelation 5:6-14; 17:14)
WHO IS THE ANTICHRIST?
Nero
Hitler
Mussolini
Henry Kissenger
The Pope
Vladimir Putin
Likely someone we haven’t recognized
PUT IT INTO PERSPECTIVE: The spirit of antichrist can be anyone of us.
READ 1 John 2: 18, 22-23: “Many false Christs . . . This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the father also.”
READ 1 John 4:1-3: This is the spirit of Antichrist, every spirit which does not confess Christ is not of God . . .”
DON’T BE SEDUCED BY A CHEAP IMITATION. COME TO JESUS.