the scriptures state that in the last days an evil leader will arise who will seek to rule the world what is the Bible say about the identity of this prophetic figure known as the Antichrist Dr David K Bernard explains next welcome to Apostolic life in the 21st century a podcast dedicated to helping modern day Believers live out the teachings of the first century church this podcast is part of the teaching min Ministry of Dr David K Bernard Dr Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping Believers apply its message to their daily
lives in Apostolic life in the 21st century Dr Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those teachings apply to Everyday Life most Christians and and even quite a few unbelievers are familiar with a Biblical figure that has come to be known as the Antichrist the Bible offers descriptions of this person in several different passages Paul for example calls him the Lawless one who will perform signs and lying wonders through the power of Satan most Christians or I should say many would would classify the Antichrist as this evil leader who's going to
arise in the end times and take over the world and persecute God's people what does the bible actually say about this person that we call the Antichrist well as you mentioned there there are references in the Book of Revelation in 2 Thessalonians there also some references in Daniel when you put them all together it seems there is an evil ruler who will exalt himself who will claim to be God or Andor the Messiah who will set himself up as a false Messiah Jesus prophesied about this in the olette discourse um and and so you find
in 2 Thessalonians he's called the man of sin the son of predition the Lawless one in the Book of Revelation he's called the beast he's never called the Antichrist in those passages but uh first John talks about a spirit of antichrist which was already at work in his day but would be manifest in the last times and so people picked up that term because it does seem to pretty accurately represent here is a man who will actually be a false Christ who will oppose himself to the true Christ who will offer himself as solution and
so that term has become the most popular now if you take all these passages together and you basically look at them as future prophecy and you look at the Book of Revelation although it's highly symbolic you you uh if you interpret these as true events that are really going to happen in other words not just very symbolic descriptions of spiritual warfare but symbolic descriptions of real events that are going to happen in the future so if you read the book of Revelation like that basically future basically chronological uh the symbolism representing true people and true
events that are going to take place then you come up with a picture that in the end there'll rise this evil ruler who will try to control the world he won't be fully successful but he will start implementing his power and you see economic power and religious power so he'll try to set up an economic system that the whole world will have to follow him and he'll try to set up a religious system where the whole world will worship him and so he will have a false prophet who is able to do certain amount of
Miracles no doubt by the power of Satan and he will be in the process of consolidating his power of course in Revelation 19 when Jesus Christ comes back to Earth with his Saints defeats the Antichrist and his armies at the Battle of armadon and then will be the last judgment the millennial Kingdom and then eternity uh will Usher well I guess the millennial Kingdom the last judgment and Eternity will Usher in from that so to answer your question the Antichrist appears to be under various names and guises an evil ruler um and many believe he
might he will be possessed by Satan because it's really the devil opposing God but he will try to be to set himself up as a false Messiah false Christ in opposition to the true Jesus Christ and he will will try to get worship to him instead of to Jesus Christ he will try to establish his Reign on this world and control it for his own evil purposes and so that's what's coming up uh now of course it's a debate for another podcast which I think we've had is when will the Rapture of the church happen
and probably most of us think the Rapture of the church or catching way of the Saints if you want to use the more biblical phrase will occur before that time some think the church will go through part of that that time where the Antichrist is operating which time we call the tribulation others believe at the end but in any case the main point is this Jesus Christ will come back and defeat the Antichrist and establish his kingdom on the earth so having a child having grown up in the 1980s with uh you know the Cold
War happening there was always the speculation about who the Antichrist would be what do you think are going to be the signs of that person what what what should Christians be on the lookout for um and I'm not saying that we should engage in this sort of guessing who the Antichrist is going to be but what are the what would the signs be if that person were going to power I think it's a mistake to try to guess because people tried throughout history you know if you go back to the early 20th century um Bonito
musolini rising in Rome itself which seemed to fit Revelation he became a dictator uh Adolf Hitler actually had a plan much as we've described and he tried to kill all the Jews and he tried to control the world uh then later communism you you have Stalin you have other leaders so different people ultimately none of them turned out to be the one but maybe you could see them as forerunners or prefiguring it so I think it is going to be probably um a charismatic person that is a person who can attract a lot of a
claim and you know he won't be perceived as evil the Bible talks about Satan himself is transformed to an angel of Light and they'll say peace peace and there'll be sudden destruction so he'll come with probably to a sinner uh who doesn't know scripture who's not serving the lord he'll be very deceptive he'll be seen as an enlightened ruler a wise ruler he's going to BR pre peace and prosperity he's going to be very likable very charismatic but I think the signs will be it will be by the power of Satan so uh I I
guess a Discerning person will be able to discern the the false Spirit behind it and maybe see the evil intention because underneath that peaceful surface is a ruthless desire to control the world and I'm even even an unsaved person with discernment should be able to discern that underlying desire for power ruthlessness deceit um and then when he starts doing things like trying to make peace with Israel but then coming over there reestablish lishing um the temple and then ultimately trying to demand Worship in the temple obviously if it wasn't revealed before that time it reveal
his true intentions would be re revealed at that time but any attempt by a world leader to gain control of the economy to gain control of the religious system that those would be warning signs and it does seem like at times we've had leaders as you mentioned a few that have leaned in that direction it seemed like do you believe the Antichrist might be alive today or do you feel like that's maybe baseless speculation you know it's possible I mean if we really believe the coming of Lord is soon if we really believe that the
events of Revelation could happen in our lifetime then yes I mean the Antichrist may not be a public figure at this point but it could be a child or a young person or someone working in obscurity we've seen other people rise to prominence almost overnight and uh again I don't NE want to name names but we've seen very popular figures that seem to be almost media Creations so they don't have a lot of accomplishments but they have they check the boxes of what the media wants and maybe they're eloquent of speech or maybe they are
charismatic in personality or maybe they fit a profile of what uh the media or popular culture is wanting and so it's more like you're choosing an image rather than than the person well that whole culture we're in a media saturated culture where literally someone can become a media celebrity not for anything they've accomplished substantively and people may not even know what their underlying philosophy is but because of a media campaign they can become popular overnight well I'm not identifying any individual that could fit I'm just saying we are now in a culture where literally we
could wake up tomorrow or in a few days or few weeks and this person that nobody really knew that not even done anything is now the most popular person in the world I mean that's the culture we live in so yes I think it's very conducive to the not only the gradual but maybe even the sudden emergence of a figure who could become the Antichrist thank you for listening to this episode of apostolic life in the 21st century if you enjoy this podcast please take a moment to give us a review on Apple podcasts Spotify
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