 Joined: 10/3/2007(UTC) Posts: 1,191  Location: São Paulo, Brazil Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 2 post(s)
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What religion will the AC be? Seems like I got my answer in chapter 11 of FH: kp wrote:Eventually, this leader will show his true colors. No more diplomacy; no more politically correct peace process, no more Mr. Nice Guy. When he finds himself on top, the mask will come off. “Then the king shall do according to his own will: he shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the wrath has been accomplished; for what has been determined shall be done.” (Daniel 11:36) It’s not unusual for godless rulers to “do according to their own will.” What’s unusual here is that no matter how much he blasphemes Yahweh, no matter how evil his empire becomes, he will prosper—right up until his horrible end. In fact, his prosperity is part of God’s plan. If he looks like a winner to those willing to shut their eyes to the truth, he will present the clearest possible choice: Yahweh or Satan, Christ or Antichrist, God’s way or Man’s way. The Antichrist is given free reign for a time so God’s overdue wrath may be accomplished on an unbelieving world. It’s a question of permission, not volition. God won’t have to lift a finger to effect wrath upon the earth, at least at first; all He has to do is stop protecting us from ourselves. The Antichrist will be everything the world thinks it wants—he will certainly be what the world deserves.
Yahshua saw it coming: “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.” (John 5:43) Because the Jews rejected the “good shepherd,” they would be given a bad one. “And Yahweh said to me [Zechariah], ‘Next, take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd. For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those that are broken, nor feed those that still stand. But he will eat the flesh of the fat and tear their hooves in pieces.’” (Zechariah 11:15-16) “Hooves” is the Hebrew: parsa—metaphorical of “the might of an enemy raised by God Himself against His people,” according to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. The Antichrist will pose as the shepherd of Israel—their savior and Messiah, defending them against their mortal enemies (as we shall see). He will even occupy the Land (see Daniel 11:40). But his real agenda is personal power, and he doesn’t care how many Jewish sheep he has to fleece to get it.
Daniel’s next few verses explore the Antichrist’s “religion.” The picture is disturbing, for its roots go back to the very beginning of man’s purposeful rebellion against Yahweh. “He shall regard neither the God of his fathers nor the desire of women, nor regard any god; for he shall exalt himself above them all. But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses; and a god which his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things. Thus he shall act against the strongest fortresses with a foreign god, which he shall acknowledge, and advance its glory; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and divide the land for gain.” (Daniel 11:37-39) The prophet is saying that he will follow no traditional religion. If he’s a European, the “God of his fathers” would most likely be the liturgy-encrusted caricature of Yahshua promulgated by the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. It’s also possible, considering the part of the world he comes from, that he will arise from Muslim stock, in which case the god he doesn’t bow to would be Allah. (Few secular Muslim leaders really do, in point of fact.) Roman Europe has a steadily increasing Muslim population both in the east and the west. Think about this: if Nebuchadnezzar’s big statue, the one Daniel interpreted as four coming gentile empires, has ten toes, it stands to reason that five of them were seen on each foot. Is the right foot Catholic and the left Islamic? All of Rome’s eastern component, Byzantium, is now in Muslim hands, so it’s dangerous to dismiss the notion out of hand. What’s clear from the passage at hand, though, is that no matter his cultural heritage, the Antichrist won’t bow to anybody’s god, not to the Christians’ Jesus, the Muslims’ Allah, or the Jews’ ha-Shem (known to you and me by his real name, Yahweh). He won’t worship any god in anybody’s pantheon.
Instead, he will worship himself, following the tradition of the ancient Babylonian mystery religion of Nimrod. This cult is the original Satanic sun-god counterfeit of Yahweh’s grand plan of salvation for all mankind, and it still exists today. It began within a few generations of the flood. Emulating the true God, this bogus religion presents a trinity of sorts. The “father” figure is Cush, Noah’s grandson. As this false faith spread, he became known as Bel, Belus, or Ba’al, Hermes, Mercury, Nebo, Janus, Chaos, Vulcan, and Merodach, among others. The “son”—the false Christ—was Nimrod himself, who took the personae of Tammuz, Osiris, Jupiter, Pluto, Kronos (otherwise known as “the horned one,” as was his Nordic counterpart, Gesus), Bacchus, Cupid and others, depending on where you were and when you lived.
Rounding out the hellish trio was the “Madonna” figure. Semiramis, Nimrod’s wife, morphed into Astarte or Ishtar (where we get the name “Easter”), Isis, Cybele, Fortuna, Rhea, Ceres, Minerva, Athena, Venus, and Diana. Satan apparently figured it would be easier to sell people on a tangible goddess than on an ethereal forgery of the Holy Spirit. But in a rare turn of fortune, we can learn something significant about the real thing from studying the counterfeit. The real “Trinity’s” indwelling manifestation of Yahweh, the Holy Spirit (Ruach Qodesh in Hebrew) is actually a feminine noun in the original language. So in a very real sense, “She” is our “heavenly Mother,” and indeed, we find that the functions of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us are maternal in nature: comforting, nurturing, gently but firmly confronting us with our shortcomings. It all puts the fifth commandment, “Honor your Father and your Mother,” in a whole new light: Yahweh structured our families—going so far as to design our anatomies as male and female—to teach us what God is like.
By the time of Christ, the mystery religion started by Nimrod had, in one form or another, spread from the British Isles to China, from Africa to Scandinavia. Today, its rituals and superstitions subtly permeate most every culture on the face of the globe, and show up where you’d least expect them: Roman Catholicism is to this day immersed in the trappings of Babylon.
The key to the Antichrist’s beliefs is found in Daniel’s mention of “a god of fortresses.” This is far more significant than merely saying he relies on the force of arms, like a thousand rulers before him. This is actually a reference to Nimrod’s mystery religion. Many permutations of the Babylonian Madonna (Rhea, Cybele, and Diana, for example) were depicted wearing a crown resembling a tower or fortress. The root of the matter is that Semiramis was credited with building the first city fortifications in the post-flood world, making her the goddess of fortifications, and her husband, Ninus/Nimrod, the god of fortresses.
You may be asking, “Why should I care about all this ancient mythology?” It’s because these myths have a basis in history—the history of a powerful ruler selling out to Satan and deceiving much of the earth into believing that God is something He’s not. History is about to repeat itself. Satan doesn’t much care what you believe, as long as it’s not the truth. The truth, after all, will set you free.
So just as Nimrod set himself up as god, the Antichrist will too. And just like the real God, he will honor those who follow him. How? “He shall cause them to rule over many, and divide the land for gain.” That is, he will split up the spoils among his “worshipers.” Good grief; this is such a tired old tune. The Antichrist, in the end, is nothing but a thief; he’s in it for the money, for the power, for the glory. The only difference between him and a hundred other wannabes throughout history, from Alexander to Attila, from Hannibal to Hitler, from Muhammad to Mussolini, is that he will be very, very good at what he does.
It has been said that Daniel and Revelation are the bookends of prophecy. It certainly seems that way as we jump to John’s narrative without missing a beat: “Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.” (Revelation 13:1) The imagery has shifted subtly here. The “beast” is seen coming from the sea—a consistent Biblical metaphor for the gentile nations. The political reality is that there are ten horns (national entities) but only seven heads (governments or national leaders). This is a refinement of what we read in Daniel: three of the original ten nations have ceased to have their own independent identities. Again in John’s vision we see the Antichrist’s kingdom united in blasphemy against Yahweh.
Now we get a more detailed picture of this beast: “The beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. (Revelation 13:2) The symbols describing him speak of his nature. Leopards are known for their ability to kill swiftly. The bear’s feet speak of brute strength. And the lion’s mouth in indicative of the beast’s verbal authority—his roar commands attention. But for all his ruthlessness, power, and charisma, the beast is nothing without the Dragon—Satan—the real source of his strength.
That’s why Paul calls him “the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (II Thessalonians 2:3-4) Sounds like our old buddy Nimrod. The Greek word for “perdition” is apoleia, which means destruction, perishing, ruin, or waste. In other words, the apostle begs to differ with Antichrist’s self-assessment of his own wonderfulness.
God will too, when the time is right. “Yahweh will consume [him] with the breath of His mouth and destroy [him] with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (II Thessalonians 2:8-12) A great many will eventually believe that this politician is God, or at least a god, because he will apparently be able to perform all kinds of miracles—including rising from the dead. After all, what would a false Christ be without signs and wonders? Of course, it’s all Satan’s sleight of hand—lies and trickery—but those who have rejected the real Messiah will swallow it whole.
This is not the first time God’s role in man’s condemnation has been addressed in scripture. Since some folks look at these passages and grumble, “How unfair of Him,” we need to clear the air. As far back as the Exodus, we see the same sort of thing. There it is said that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” In the first chapter of Romans, He is said to have given sinners up to “uncleanness,” to “vile passions,” and to a “debased mind.” Here He is seen “sending them strong delusion.” What gives? I thought God loved sinners! He does—so much that He set aside His glory, became a man, and sacrificed Himself to pay the penalty for their crimes. But when people purposely turn their hearts from God’s mercy, there is a limit to how much time He will give them to repent. Remember Noah? Remember Sodom? God never closes the door on people who are looking for Him, but he sometimes locks doors that people have already slammed shut. There is a difference.
Without getting prematurely wrapped up in the things the Antichrist will do during the Tribulation, we have explored his appearing, his political situation, and his character. We know that he comes from somewhere within the old Roman and Greek empires, emerging as a world figure in the days following the rapture. He overcomes three nations on his way toward dominance of an influential ten-nation league. We know that he’s an oily-tongued politician whose solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict makes him the most respected diplomat on earth. And we know that he, empowered by Satan himself, has ambitions—concealed at first—to become a god on earth, worshipped as the promised one, the Messiah.
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