Saturday, June 14, 2008

Antichrist?

I'm sure many of you have seen this email going around. A family member recently emailed me asking if it is true. See my comments below.

The Email:
The Book of Revelations!

This will make you re-think : A Trivia question in Sunday School : How
long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelations ? Guess the
Answer? Revelations Chapter 13 tells us it is 42 months, and you know
what
that is.
Almost a four-year term to a Presidency. All I can say is Lord Have
Mercy
on us.!!!!!!
According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is:
The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40's, of MUSLIM descent, who will
deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE
Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him
and
he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power,
will
destroy everything ..
Is it OBAMA?? I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to repost this as many
times as you can!
Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media
outlet...do
it! I refuse to take a chance
on this unknown candidate who came out of nowhere.


My comments:

There are a lot of different interpretations of where the Anti-Christ will come from. But this email is silly. First of all, there is no book of Revelations, it’s the book of Revelation. John had just one revelation. So, that tells me from the beginning that the writer of this probably doesn’t know what they are talking about. I have no idea where they would get that it is a man in his 40s of Muslim descent. The Muslim religion was founded in the 7th century…long after the Bible was written. So, it wouldn’t mention anyone coming from Muslim descent because it didn’t exist at that time. What I would say is you should ignore emails trying to point out who the antichrist is. It doesn't matter...when the antichrist comes, he will come into power and there is nothing we can do to stop it. I do believe we ARE very close to the end times, but those of us who are covered by the blood of Christ don’t have to worry about the antichrist. The tribulation will not begin until after Christ has returned and raptured us into the clouds with Him and we will live with Him forever (1 Thess. 4:17). What we need to worry about are those who will be left behind. We talk to several people each day who do not know Christ as their savior…some of them are friends and family members who we love very much. And if Christ were to return today, they would be left here to suffer the tribulation and if they don’t receive their salvation during that time…they will suffer eternal hell. So, what we need to focus on is winning those lost souls to Christ. That is the most important thing. And we need to remember that we are the only Bible some people will ever read, so we must constantly examine ourselves to make sure we are properly representing Christ. When was the last time you shared the joy of your salvation with a lost soul?

Rev. 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, "Surely I come quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Our preacher has been preaching on the book of Revelation on Sunday evenings for a few months. You can listen to any of them online here http://www.cbcnlr.org/view/96

7 comments:

MakeLifeDelicious.com said...

You have a great response to this email. When I get emails such as these, I email back and suggest that they use www.snopes.com if they have questions as to whether or not an email is true (these days you can count on 99.9% of forwarded emails such as these to not be true!). This site researches popular email 'forwards' such as this one. When I get one of these silly emails, I check it out and email the person back with the link to this site letting them know that the story is in fact not true (http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp). It has tremendously cut back on the number of forwards I get.

Anonymous said...

I'm not voting for Obama. Just getting that straight up front.

Personally, I don't think we are living in the last days.

There is a lot of confusion about the term antichrist. There is no one overarching individual spoken of in the bible as a "The Antichrist." It is found in First and Second John and it is a plural term indicating multiple antichrist--as in those opposed to Christ or Christianity.

Regards,

PW

Beth said...

pjm13,
thank you for your comment. First and Second John speak of many deceivers and antichrists who have and will come. However, there will be one antichrist of the end times who will have Satans power. He will rule the earth and deceive many to worship him. This is the antichrist spoken of in Rev. 13:1-9. He is a single person who will have all these qualities.

Have a blessed day! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hello Beth,

I'm curious, how do you equate the beast mentioned in those verses as being "The Antichrist."

I think the beast mentioned here and identified as 666 would have to be Nero who was often referred to by early Christians by the cryptogram 666.

The words Nero Ceasar equate to 666 when spelled in ancient Hebrew. here is a link that breaks it down letter by letter and explains it in detail so I won't repeat it here.
http://modelsofeschatology.com/14/

Regards,
PW

Beth said...

Hi pjm,
I understand there are many different interpretations of the symbolism in the book of Revelation. I believe Rev. 13 speaks of the antichrist, you believe this is Nero. I do have many reasons through studying the scripture and with the guidance of my pastor for believing this is the antichrist. If you would like to hear a sermon from my pastor, who I totally agree with, you can go to http://www.cbcnlr.org/view/96 and scroll down to click on Rev. 13. But I'm not going to go into that here because the most important thing for us to realize is that the entire book of Revelation was written to point people to Jesus. The important thing is that we know Jesus as our Lord and personal savior and share His love with others so that they might know Him, too. We could spend days debating the symbolism of Revelation, but sharing Jesus is much more important than that. I love you and pray you have a personal relationship with Jesus so you can experience the joy of salvation as I have.

Thank you for your comments on my blog.
Beth

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your blog.

We agree that the important thing is to know Christ as your personal savior. That is important, one's views on eschatology is not really that important in the scheme of things.

I'm listening to your preacher's sermon on the Tribulation. There are several sermons here I will look forward to hearing. Even though I disagree completely with his dispensational premillennial view of eschatology I do find the DP model to be very entertaining and enjoy hearing someone talk about the rapture(only found in the DP model) and antichrist and tribulation, etc.

I'm a Southern Baptist too. I find it interesting that DP has creped into the S Baptist denomination over the years. Historically DP (what the Schofield Bible he keeps mentioning teaches) was not part of any Baptist teaching (Southern or other wise). Indeed, Charles Spurgeon the great Baptist preacher who was a contemporary of John Darby who fathered DP in the 1800s said it was unscriptural among the other things he said about it.

If you don't believe anything else I ever say trust me when I say that if you want to believe the DP model just take it on faith and don't do any research on John Darby and how he created the DP model in the 1800s.

I also find it interesting that people despite overwhelming evidence that Nero was the beast and there isn't even any mention of any single "The Antichrist" in the bible (it was always plural)don't want to give up on the notion of there being a "The Antichrist". I think there is some fascination of this fellow and how he first appears as good and deceives everyone and then becomes the world's greatest villain. It seems to give people an adrenaline rush that they are addicted to and don't want to give it up.

Just finished your pastor's sermon on the tribulation and I look forward to listening to more of your pastor's DP teachings. I disagree with them, but they are always fun to listen to.

Regards,

PW

Beth said...

I'm glad to hear you are saved by the blood of Jesus. It is interesting to hear different opinions on the interpretation of Revelation. I think one thing we can agree on is that the beast in Rev. 13 is Anti...Christ. Meaning it is against Christ and a blasphemer, no matter what name or label we give it. Thanks for all your input and comments.