When evening comes you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

- Jesus Christ.

INTRODUCTION

Today, we are experiencing the beginning of a combination of both massive global level tectonic geo-political power upheavals and societal-level cultural and economic metamorphoses, the likes of which have not been witnessed since the wheels of the Enlightenment hit the European road in a fertile uptake of groundbreaking reforms in the first half of the 1800s. New countries are about to rule the world; Marxist cultural and economic programs now hold sway with corporations, cultures and communities; and left and right wing political parties have completely changed their mission, agenda and constituency. The whole order of humanity looks like it is about to flip 180 degrees, to be replaced by something new. It all spells one thing, the one thing that so many people say they can feel, hear and smell approaching right now – revolution. The difference between revolution and evolution is that, whereas evolution is change at the fringe of something, revolution is change that occurs from the very core. It changes everything – even the fundamental form of the thing itself. It is water becoming ice; carbon becoming diamond. And, this kind of radical change can be both disorientating and disconcerting.

Where are we then, as Christians, to turn to find the meaning of these strange times and beyond? The place we always go of course – God’s word, the Bible. For, as it turns out, God hasn’t left us in the dark. The changes above all fit into God’s grand pan-historic plan for humanity. This is the plan that orders and makes sense of all that happens both to and around us. It started in earnest with Abraham, and it continues with us today. Therefore, in order to ascertain the meaning of these strange times and beyond, I will both uncover this expansive plan of God in the Bible from its beginning to its end, and locate where we are in it today. However, God’s plan has proven difficult to trace for theologians using conventional biblical exegesis down the centuries since Christ. Therefore, I will use two lesser-used methods.

First, to solve the problem of tracing the mystery of God’s plan for the whole history of humanity on earth, I will attack its toughest and most bewildering and difficult to nail down component – the antichrist of the Bible: Who? When? How? When I studied the antichrist, I found that the other components of God’s plan fell into place. This is because often, when trying to solve a mystery or a puzzle, it is the hardest part of the conundrum that is holding people back from finding the solution. In other words, despite the fact that a problem may appear to be completely unsolved, previous attempts at solving that problem may have come closer than anyone realises to finding the solution, but for one persistent complex factor that is stymieing all attempts at problem resolution. Thus, when this thwarting obstacle is removed, the backbone of solution opposition is crushed and the body of the problem falls away to reveal the solution. I correctly believed that this would more or less happen to the problem of the mystery of the God’s plan for the history of humanity, with the removal of the confounding obstacle of the very difficult and so far unfathomable antichrist mystery.

But, the problem of the antichrist has confounded theologians consistently. How could I be able to untangle this mystery?

This calls for my second lesser-used method. Whereas Biblical exegesis alone has taken us only so far, we know that the Bible exists in context. The book of Revelation plots an ascending and recurrent PATTERN of historical evil throughout the church age. In this book I will COMBINE these two: the exegesis of the Bible and the pattern of History. The result: a simple and elegant through-line into the heart of the problem of the antichrist that uses not just the left brain filter of exegesis, but also the right brain filter of pattern recognition, for double accuracy.

All in all, this is a new approach to penetrating the prickly conundrum that is the biblical antichrist. Come. Discover the antichrist of the Bible and, in the process, discover the meaning of these strange times and beyond.

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The antichrist will be a clown. Why? Because a clown is an ironic figure who tries to do one thing, yet only succeeds in accomplishing the opposite thing. The antichrist will be a man who is working tirelessly to draw humanity to himself in worship, yet will actually be implementing God’s salvation plans all the while. I will detail how this will be so in this book. I mention that the antichrist will be a clown because the prevalent theme of biblical prophecy is the security of the believer. In fact, the Bible tells us: ‘God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”’. So, we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”’ (Hebrews 13: 5-6). After all, even if I do die or suffer at the hands of evil people, death takes me to paradise and suffering for Christ covers me in glory. Thus, though the destructive details of an antichrist may be intimidating to some readers, it is important not to sink in to a mindset of fear when reading of this man. Indeed, the Bible tells us to ‘fear not’, but it goes much further than that. In 1 John 4:18 says: ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The man who fears is not made perfect in love’.

Nonetheless, once the threat of fear has been overcome, the details of a study of the antichrist can reveal penetrating truths about both God and people. A group I was in was once asked, “Who do you think will bring the future’s mega-calamities: Islamist terrorists, international crime cartels, or the leader of state capable of creating a bomb system that no other country can beat?” I said, “None of them. It’ll be the people who think that they can solve humanity’s problems by working together. It’ll be the people who don’t need God. It’ll be people like your next door neighbour and the nice man who serves at the counter of the corner shop.”

I write this as Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, has become one of the top two Democratic nominations for the US Presidency (who would have imagined it?), and I feel somewhat vindicated to see the evidence of a progressive swing to the left in US politics, since I have predicted it in this book, which is beginning to predict the ‘unpredictable’ the world over, but it’s all based on biblical prophecy.

THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT

The main purpose of this document is not simply to understand prophecy and the future. The purpose of this document is the central purpose of Christianity - to further the Great Commission by saving the unsaved, and by coming closer to God ourselves as we do this. In his book, God’s Purpose for Bible Prophecy, Robert McLeod identifies four reasons for studying prophecy. Whereas he intends these reasons to apply to prophecy that is already fulfilled, I am applying them to the eschatological prophecy of the antichrist because this prophecy will be fulfilled, and I am confident that it will be fulfilled in the ways that I have laid out in this book. This is the Biblical prophecy that we know the least about, so if this can be correctly interpreted, and then fulfilled, it will be a mighty boost to the kingdom of God, both now and in the future.

These are the four reasons.

1) Prophecy is a big part of scripture. It is designed to bring us into relationship with God, then to deepen this relationship.

Every major Bible character has either: prophesied, heard prophecy or known about it. Most of the Bible is written by men who were prophets. There are very few prophecy-free zones in the whole Bible. Over one quarter of the Bible is prophetic. Over 10,000 verses out of a total of 31,000 verses in the Bible have prophetic content. Over 8,300 Bible verses are predictive. There are over 1,000 prophecies in the Bible, and 900 concern the Second Coming. These prophecies are included by God to draw all people closer to him in the following ways below.

2) Prophecy births faith by proving that God is real.

We can’t know the future by ourselves. However, we have prophecy that is fulfilled or fulfilling, and this shows us that God’s power is real. It brings us into relationship with him by showing us the faithfulness of God so that our faith and trust in God becomes relationship with him. For those of us who are already Christians, prophecy transforms us and improves our walk with Jesus by purifying us, motivating us and deepening our relationship with him when we see the control that he has over history. It is only through prophecy that we learn about the benefits of having faith in God.

3) Prophecy gives endurance to our faith by giving us hope.

Fulfilled prophetic promises give us hope for the fulfilment of God’ promises that pledge to give extravagant things to his people, for example eternal life. With hope, we can do things we ordinarily wouldn’t do, such as deny our flesh and live for Christ. This hope sustains our faith until we go to meet him. When we know that God is real, it gives us vision and direction. God wants us to know the future that he has prepared for us, for whatever may come. Throughout history, God has used prophecy to place a vision before generation after generation to give them hope, to help to prepare them for what is foretold, and to establish their true identity in Christ. For example, Jeremiah’s prophecy about the coming destruction of Jerusalem enabled him to go against the popular majority who believed the false prophets who said Judah would defeat Babylon in battle.

4) Prophecy equips us for evangelism.

All prophecies show God’s love. This gives us the strength to deal with anything that might come our way, and this equips us for evangelism. The Bible contains many examples of using prophecy in evangelism to prove that God is real, and this starts or increases relationships with Him. Thus, the evangelist can go out into the world equipped with words from the Bible that prove God exists.[1] Therefore, this increased relationship will enable us to bring more of our pagan friends closer to God. And, as pagans see prophecies coming true, they will be convicted of their need for God and made into disciples of Jesus Christ, as the Great Commission commands. This process is referred to in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25: ‘But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”’

SOME OTHER BENEFITS OF STUDYING THE ANTICHRIST

In doing this study of the antichrist, I am not trying to identify an individual as the final antichrist. Nor do I attempt to nominate a time when such an individual will come. Instead, I simply aim to gain a broad, but accurate, understanding of scripture.

Here are 12 benefits of studying the antichrist. These reasons will become more apparent throughout the rest of this document.

1) The Bible contains over 100 passages regarding the origin, nationality, career, character, kingdom and final doom of the antichrist.

2) Studying the antichrist teaches us more about scripture, which is God’s communiqué to us that he intends us to understand and to act upon. The Bible says a bunch of stuff that God communicates to us. And communication is intended to be understood, at least broadly. God wants that. Understanding eschatology correctly helps us to understand large sections of the Bible. Imagine if your boss gave you a long and detailed briefing about what he wanted you to do, and when you finally came of his office out you didn’t have a single clear idea of any of the things your boss wanted. God has done a similar thing with us, his people with biblical prophecy. All of God’s revelations in scripture either command or imply a response from us. It’s one thing if someone doesn’t perfectly understand every fine detail. But to not even have a clear general idea! Come on! God has given us many prophecies in the Bible and we still don’t even know with clarity whether Jesus is coming before or after the millennium. We have no clear idea as to whether God is reigning right now or not!! Thus, we don’t even understand the times we are in now! We have virtually no clear idea at all as to the nature of the antichrist. We still have many credible theologians claiming that the antichrist will be the Papacy, when the Bible indicates the antichrist will be directly responsible for worldwide mass murder on an unimagined scale, will be utterly lawless, will have the world’s greatest hatred of Jesus Christ, and will capable of mustering the world’s largest army. Really? The Papacy? And, others say he will be this, or that, or every other rogue or head of state they can think of. That is a substantial level of ignorance of God’s word, and that is unfortunate.

I know that Eschatology cannot be understood to the last precise detail. Indeed, when Jesus’ disciples asked him when he would restore the kingdom to Israel, he answered in Acts 1:7 – ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority’. However, even if prophecy cannot be understood in every detail, the Christian who loves God will never stop trying to broadly clarify God’s word. Then, once we do achieve a broad understanding God’s communication, he will use it to outwork the great Commission and serve the kingdom of God in his own way. This will likely be a way we never would have thought of, and possibly won’t even understand at the time. God is the conductor, we are the orchestra. He is the macro, we are the micro; we take the tiny step illuminated by the ‘lamp at our feet’. I try to do this. It is even a trend of evangelicals today, regarding new and slightly dangerous-sounding arguments like mine, to poo-poo what they don’t understand, giving no reasons for their stance, as if raw cynicism were intelligence. Rather, intelligence is approaching an argument with an open mind and listening to it, then forming a balanced and considered verdict such that one can give reasons for one’s conclusion. The guiding principle for Christian intelligence is not cynicism, but understanding God. It is not for us to make rules for God. It is for us to endeavour to understand his word.

The word itself tells us how desperately God wants us to understand what he would do in most situations because to understand that is to understand God’s values, and to be in right relationship with him. Imagine if your children showed no understanding of what your values are? Well, God doesn’t like it either. In Ezekiel 13:5, God berated a group of false prophets for not praying for him to reverse His threatened judgement against his people. He did this because they should have known God’s heart better than they did. In Mark 8:21 and Matthew 15:11, Jesus was angry that the disciples still did not recognise what is so important to him – spiritual purity. In John 14:14 Jesus urged his disciples to request what they needed in His name, in other words to ask for those things that God would give them, taking into account the character and values of God. God expects us to know his heart, to know what he would do in most situations, and this book seeks that knowledge.

God’s revelation is progressive revelation. His revelation progressed in the New Testament from what it was in the Old Testament. Then, it progressed to the creeds, then the correcting of the heresies through the many councils of the early church, then to Reformation, and to today’s superior exegetical knowledge of the meaning of the words of the Bible. Also, there have been many steps between these ones. Now, it is about to progress to an improved understanding of biblical prophecy, through many writings that God will bless.

3) In learning more about scripture, we gain many accessory blessings such as a better relationship with God, a more joyful life, and a more meaningful life.

4) It teaches us more about Christ, because the antichrist is the opposite to him in 3 main ways – (A) Christ draws worship to God, but the antichrist draws worship to himself; (B) Christ adopts our sin onto himself so that he can deal with it and send it away, but the antichrist projects his sin onto us; and (C) Christ promises us spiritual gains that last, but the antichrist pledges mundane, temporal and circumstantial gain that does not last.

5) It teaches us more about Satan.

6) The sin of the antichrist teaches us about our own sin so that we can better recognise and respond to this in Christ.

7) It teaches us more about what we are doing in today’s times. It has tremendous implications for the identity of the church and its mission, as well as its relation to the nations and empire of this age, and the hop for the future that drives us in the present.

8) It will enable us to recognise the antichrist when he comes and respond to him in the way that God would want us to. This also goes for lesser antichrists that come earlier in time, and those we encounter in our personal lives.

9) Contrary to the opinions of some Christians, it isn’t a waste of time to study the antichrist because the godly men of the OT couldn’t gain a handle on the prophecies about Christ, so we are unlikely to be able to do this with respect to the antichrist. Unlike the Old Testament holy men, in this present era, we have two advantages. The first one is the Holy Spirit. This helper from God gives us both a closer relationship to God, to understand him better, and a better insight into his scriptures. Also, the massive advance of history since the Old Testament era has given us critical clues regarding how God’s plans for the ages will roll out, and I have used these clues to help me to gain a better understanding of the Biblical texts concerning the antichrist.

10) Contrary to the opinions of some believers, the antichrist is not a topic that opposes the following Bible verse - ‘Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things’ (Philippians 4:8). When God urges us to avoid thinking about unworthy things, he means things that are deeply and spiritually unworthy, not things that are superficially unpleasant. After all, many of the things that the Bible describes in detail are superficially unpleasant: the cross, casting demons out of people, healing people, the tribulation, wars, tortures, and many more. And yet, there they are in the Bible for us to meditate upon. If God looks down on superficially unpleasant things, why did his son: die on a cross, heal awful diseases, cast shrieking demons out of maniacs, spend so much time with the filthy poor, and wash his disciples’ feet? No, God looks down on deeply and spiritually unpleasant things, such as idolatry, apostasy, the occult and leading others away from Christ. And he certainly doesn’t look down on his own broad-scale plans for mankind. And, the antichrist is central to God’s plans for the last days. Rather, it is God’s plans that embody all of the positive adjectives in the verse above. Thus, they are certainly to be studied, antichrist and all.

11) Contrary to the opinion of some churchgoers, who say that studying the antichrist is not a worthy pursuit but a waste of time in a world that desperately needs to be evangelised, it is a worthy pursuit. First, I have explained above that an understanding of prophecy actually assists the process of evangelisation. Second, I would ask where in the Bible it tells us not to study the antichrist. Some say that Matthew 24:42 implies this. That verse says: ‘Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come’. This tells us that we cannot know the exact date and time of the Parousia and the end of the age, as does Acts 1:7 (He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates that the Father has set by his own authority’). In other words, it’s not for you to know the exact time and dates and, besides, it’s a very long way off so they shouldn’t be focussing on that now. We can only keep ourselves ever ready for when it does come by living in right relationship with God. However, it does not say that we are not to find out all that we can about the broad time period in which Jesus will return and this age will end, and what these will be like. It doesn’t place a strict ban on enquiry into scripture. And nor should it, because, just before this, in Matthew 24:4-35, Jesus gives many signs concerning the last days in his answer to the disciple’s first question about when the Temple would be destroyed, via the double fulfilment of the prophecy he gave in response. So, Jesus doesn’t mind us enquiring as to the nature of the last days. However, he would not give the disciples a sign in answer to their second question ‘What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ (Matthew 24:3), because they asked for one and Jesus never gave a sign to anyone in response to them asking for one, including Satan in the desert and his crucifiers on the cross. In the disciple’s case, this was because he sensed that they wanted to know exactly when the Parousia would occur and the age would end, hence Acts 1:7 above. Additionally, it is a very long way off, so the disciples shouldn’t be concentrating on that. Also, in Matthew 12:39, he had already identified that the request to him for a sign is an evil request that is made when people want to try to take control of God. Here, Jesus calls those asking for a sign a ‘wicked and adulterous generation’. Understandably, Jesus wants to steer his disciples right away from this whole attitude. Therefore, God does want us to know something about the Parousia and the end of the age, and to enquire into them, but will not reveal the exact day or hour. Why is this? He will not reveal this because of the reason given in the next passage. In Matthew 24:45-51, a passage that is sometimes called the ‘Parable of the Wise Servant’, Jesus postulates that a person who does know the time of his master’s return could use this knowledge to defy his master until such time as his master’s return time came near, then start to obey his master in an attempt to manipulate his master into approving of him, because his master has now arrived home and found his servant obeying him. Therefore, if God did reveal the exact time of the Parousia, many people would be encouraged to do exactly that. That is why God refused to reveal that time when the disciples asked Jesus about it, and will never reveal that time. Rather, he advises all to live their lives in a sincere, and not a sham, relationship with him. But, he doesn’t ban us from finding out all that we can about the Parousia so that we can understand God and his plans better, and reap all the above benefits that come from knowing the scripture. In John 15:15, Jesus calls his disciples friends, and no longer servants. In Galatians 4:5-7, it says that we aren’t little children anymore, but ‘have received the full rights of sons’ and are, in fact, heirs. God trusts us to make such enquiries with the right spirit and attitude.

12) The broad nature and timeline of the antichrist that is given in the Bible are things that are very hard to work out. The best attempts of many theologians to work these two out have very often yielded completely bizarre results and conclusions. Many very credible and popular Bible teachers are a mile off. Therefore, there is a very great need to study this area of the Bible at which we are probably most woefully pathetic in our understanding.

THE SECOND COMING

I know that many ill-founded books exist on the subject of the antichrist. Don’t worry. This is not one of those books where someone claims to know the time of the Second Coming or the end of this world. If any Christian ever says they do, they are wrong. God won’t reveal it – and for good reasons.

Indeed, many Christian believe that God will not reveal any details of the end times to people this side of heaven. As a result, they believe that people like me should not attempt to piece together biblical prophecy in an effort to formulate a cohesive message, because it is ultimately vain and futile to try to do this.

I agree that God will never reveal certain details. In Matthew 24:36, Jesus stated that he does not know the exact time of his Second Coming and nor do the angels in heaven. In fact, in Matthew 24:37-39 Jesus bluntly stated that nobody will know the date of the Second Coming. So, exactly when God will execute Jesus’ Second Coming is indeed a mystery. And, it is important that it remain a mystery. If the date of the Second Coming were known, people would be tempted to try to manipulate God by carousing in sin until just before Jesus’ return and then ‘repenting’. Therefore, who am I to know this date? Thus, this book does not seek to ascertain every single exact detail about God’s actions in the future. However, progressively through the recent history of the last 220 years, I believe that God has revealed the true meaning of the much of the prophecy in the Bible regarding the antichrist and the future of mankind. Therefore, this work does seek to understand, in broad terms, how God’s plan for mankind will pan out in the centuries following this one, in order to understand the Bible on this subject.

However, it should also be said that, whereas no one can know the exact date of the Second Coming, just as in the days of Noah, when nearly everyone was oblivious of the upcoming flood, God may reveal to a small number of people the broad period of time in which Jesus’ return will occur. In Matthew 24:37-39, Jesus compares the days of the Second Coming to the days of Noah, commenting that these days will be similar to the those days because, in general, ‘people knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came’. But, when one looks at the situation of Noah in Genesis 6-9, it can be seen that clues of this impending disaster were present if people wanted to see them. First, Noah was building a boat that was two football fields long, and situated nowhere near the sea. And second, it rained continuously for forty days and nights. Similarly, the Bible lists many signs that broadly point to the Second Coming. Thus, just as Noah was privy to God’s prophecy of disaster, which was accompanied by clues that almost no one recognised, so it will be at the Second Coming – some will be able to place it in a broad time period, most won’t care. Thus, in this book, I nominate a broad time period as a possibility for the Second Coming, whilst not being able to, nor wanting to, identify the exact time.

THE INVESTIGATION OF THIS BOOK

This book investigates the meaning of biblical prophecy. Biblical prophecy is the number one most valuable yet underused resource in the world today. It has the power to direct lives, provide hope and strengthen Christian faith with a certainty and an accuracy that nothing else outside of the Bible can match. It also has the power to inform us of God’s basic, overarching plan for mankind in the form of either Premillennialism, Postmillennialism, or Amillennialism, and what part the antichrist will play in this. Why is this important? It is important because it tells us how we can spiritually prosper in any circumstance, and specifically how the power of the cross enables us to do this. Under an amillennialist theology, and hence experiencing the ‘1,000 years’ of God’s righteousness and justice now, the cross takes on incredible power! Alternately, to not even ascertain the basic overarching superstructure of God’s plan for mankind regarding the millennium would have Jesus saying if he were here, “What?! You haven’t worked that out yet! Come on. Haven’t I told you?”

We have just lived through the greatest discovery of biblical meaning and clarity in recent history thanks to a generation that is the peaceful and loving counterpart to the current radical militant Islamist one. This current generation of those Christians who are over forty has been radical for Christ by going back to his book, the Bible, and thrashing out its truest and most precise meaning. The time has come to get these Bible truths out to the next two generations who will need them for spiritual strengthening as they fight religious battles we never had to in the new and more dangerous world of the 2050’s and 2060’s. And, one of these Bible truths is the swathes of unfulfilled prophecy and their meanings.

We now have more clues about the configuration of the future than ever before. I will explain these passages later in this book. However, suffice it to say that many theologians have started at Revelation 20 and determined whether they were Pre, Post or A-millennial, then placed into the picture the Second Coming of Christ, the Great Tribulation, the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24 and Mark 13, and the fate of Israel (the Jews) from Romans 11. And maybe they got a lot of this right. But could they also insert a broadly accurate picture of the antichrist of 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 12-17 into his correct geographical and time position? Not that I know of. Thus, in this book I shall make my own humble attempt to fit together all of the major pieces of the puzzle of the Bible’s picture of the antichrist.

Because God wants us to understand his heart and his word, he has given me enormous assistance as I have laboured to understand the Bible. In fact, I have been surprised by how this book has come together. Again and again, in fact virtually always, the pieces of this puzzle have supported and backed each other up to form one coherent and convincing whole picture. This picture will be unpleasing to most, and many will try to discredit it – but the weight of evidence, oh the weight of evidence, it is so great that any honest person will have to assign some credibility to this thesis. And the most authoritative proofs of them all are always the verses of biblical prophecy, and these form the spine of this book.

SOLA SCRIPTURA

The ideas above neatly segue into the issue of Sola Scriptura.

Sola Scriptura is the doctrine that the Christian scriptures are the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. This means that authorities such as ecumenical creeds, church councils, preachers, Bible commentators, private revelations and angelic messages are all subordinate to, subject to, and dependent upon the original authority of the Bible. Therefore, this book primarily seeks to exegete the Bible to discover more of what God is trying to tell us. In doing so it attempts to combine both the constructivist approach (i.e. building up meaning) of hermeutical exegesis with the deconstructivist approach (i.e. deducing meaning) of pattern-based exegesis – something that very few books do, as most books just do the first one.

However, hasn’t the Bible already told us the whole story? Since Jesus has already issued the last big announcements of God’s truth, many Christians see eschatological prediction as a waste of time because there is nothing more to know. However, the truths that God has led me to have been a progressive revelation of the hitherto uncovered smaller truths within this large truth that Christ has revealed. So, eschatological prediction progressively fills in the details of Christ’s revelation, as it did at the time of the Reformation. Biblical teaching does a similar thing. An example of this occurs in Romans 9, where Paul teaches God’s truths about the subject of predestination. Here he isn’t extending the covered range of God’s truth, but filling in the details inside of that range.

Therefore, this book reveals no new big ideas, but rather clarifies and de-mystifies important future developments that God has already revealed in the Bible. Hence, it always agrees with and resides inside of the circumscription of biblical prophecy in both doctrine and prediction. Any Christian eschatological finding that strays outside of this boundary is false. This is prohibited in Revelation 22:18 – ‘I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecies of this book: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book’.

Biblical prophecy is the only prophecy that is perfect and infallible in every respect. It is the prophetic plumb line. Whereas I am a mere man, and thus evil and flawed; the prophecy of the Bible is perfect. Therefore, this book is a revelation from God of the full meaning of biblical prophecy within the boundaries of that biblical prophecy. It helps to clarify biblical revelation as, for example, a preacher or hymn writer would clarify the word of God. Each of these two could be said to proclaim the word without adding to or changing the word.

The scripture of John 7:18 is appropriate here – ‘He who speaks on his own does so to gain honour for himself, but he who works for the honour of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him’. Personally, I aspire to the ideal of this verse with the help and the strength of God.

Another verse of relevance here is 1 Corinthians 2:4 – ‘My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, that your faith might not rest on man’s wisdom but on God’s power’. I have, at all times, tried to allow the power of the Spirit to discern the truth of the Bible, so that this may be the driver of this book, and not merely my human intelligence.

WHO IS THIS DOCUMENT WRITTEN TO?

Ephesians 2:1-2 says that pagans are people who are ‘dead in their sins’ and who are subject to Satan. Therefore, the following messages are written primarily to Christians. These are the people of the Lord Jesus Christ who are given a new heart and the Holy Spirit to move them to follow God’s laws, as it says in Ezekiel 36:26, 27 – ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws’. Only such people can hope to correctly discern and use the truths of God herein. Therefore, I am not primarily writing this to non-Christians. If you are not a Christian, I ask you to please seek the guidance of a Christian if you read this. For, when it comes to the satanic veil that prevents spiritual discernment, ‘… only in Christ is it taken away’ – 2 Corinthians 3:14.

Therefore, the following is a document for those Christians who are trusting enough and faithful enough to peer into human history to see what happens. I have included an encouragement with each section to continually remind the reader that God has everything in hand, and is faithful.

WHY HAS GOD REVEALED ALL OF THIS NOW?

I believe that God has used the events of history to help to reveal the truths in this book in 2020 because preparation is currently underway for all-out war in the 2050s and 2060s, and God wishes to prepare Christians for this.

It is safe for God to reveal these truths at this time because the world is now so cynical and pessimistic that this revelation won’t do much to change what must happen – two disastrous future events of worldwide magnitude that are primarily designed to shake many agnostics to a seemingly unlikely repentance. Just as Jesus urged his followers to treat the unrepentant person like a pagan and a tax collector in Matthew 18:17, and Paul pledged to expel the immoral brother in 1 Corinthians 5:5, each in order to cause that person such anguish that they will repent from their wicked ways, so God does the same to pagans with major wars and other traumas. In Ezekiel 38:23, it says that the suffering caused by wars will ‘show my greatness and my holiness, and will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am Lord.’

In provoking this repentance, God also intends to do what is required to encourage Christians to become open to having an even deeper relationship with him. As it says in Hebrews 12:10, ‘… God trains us [Christians] for our good that we may share in his holiness’. That isn’t to say that God particularly wants to hurt anyone. However, often, God will allow a person to suffer, even a Christian, because to not do so would allow them to head towards something even worse, an eternity without God.

SUFFERING

Let me include a word about suffering. From the time of the Garden of Eden to now, Satan has convinced mankind to oppose God. As can particularly be seen from the time of Cain’s killing of Abel, this persuasion has as its secret goal destruction and murder. This force is most enabled and liberated in those who have no belief in any God. For my purposes in this document, I will call them Humanists.

The fullest extent of this capacity for evil will be reached in the relatively near future, as many hundreds of millions of people flood into this category of Humanists and become more connected with each other and more able to work together on their shared objectives as a team – like with the Tower of Babel. This will entail death and destruction on a level that has never been seen before. It may be hard to understand why Christians must suffer these trials. However, my fifth immutable principle of the behaviour of God (see earlier) is that he always prepares his subjects before he blesses them, so that they may be able to appropriate those blessings in their lives beneficially and constructively. For Christians, the fact that God allows this suffering represents him getting them ready for a blessing – a blessing he keenly wants to give them, and a blessing which will be worth the suffering it took to become prepared for it. For example, if hardship is experienced, remember that ‘the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you do not lack anything’ (James 1:3-4).

MY METHOD

What is my method of investigating the meaning of biblical prophecy? I am a Christian futurist. That means that I seek a systematic and pattern-based understanding of the past and the present to explore the possibilities of future events and trends by analysing sources, patterns and causes of change and stability to develop foresight. As a Christian futurist, I am the first kind of futurist that there ever was. The earliest use of the word ‘futurist’ in English dates back to the Christian eschatology of 1842 in England.

A futurist must take a multidisciplinary approach because this field of work includes a bigger and more complex world system than, say, physical sciences. In this book, to construct my arguments about the future, I use the disciplines of: theology, history, politics and literature to identify analogies and themes in the literature of the Bible and history. My expertise in these areas springs from my Theology qualification and my Arts qualification which includes subjects in History, Politics and Literature. This has given me an ability to identify and analyse biblical and historical patterns. Additionally, to write about my conclusions in such a manner as to teach them to my readers, I have used my career as a playwright of 22 performed short plays, and my educational qualifications and teaching career which have given me an ability to explain and communicate difficult concepts in a systematic and readily understandable manner.

Being a Christian futurist involves inductive prediction, in other words drawing conclusions about future instances, stated as likely or unlikely, from past samples. This induction gives my book a somewhat speculative quality for which it could be criticised, as against other scholastic works. However, in the absence of the Bible detailing much at all about the antichrist, induction is the best rational predictor that is available. Moreover, while ever this induction is well substantiated, well reasoned and therefore responsible in its practice, my conclusions will be similarly responsible.

The repetition of these patterns and cycles, however, is neither precise nor exact. History doesn’t exactly repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Thus, any conclusions, or even any extrapolations thereof, must be expressed cautiously, and without attempting to discern too much fine detail. Also, whereas the patterns of the past don’t necessarily repeat themselves, I have endeavoured to identify the largest big-picture patterns, representing self-contained systems of balance and diversity that history indicates will reliably replicate into the future. Examples of such big-picture patterns include: Jesus came once and he will come again, Satan was free once and he will be free again, and the cross is the opposite of the judgement because it saves whereas the judgement judges – so the cross will occur, then the judgement. Any patterns or predictions that are closely related to these big-picture patterns will display a similar reliability of replication into the future. Thus, the patterns that I detail about the antichrist are discerned and inferred from these big-picture patterns so that I can know that they will repeat themselves.

For this type of inductive prediction to be valid there must be some causal link between the past and the future. In this case, that causal link is God. I assert that all of creation and providence, and therefore all of the past and the future, is linked by being the work of an orderly God whose world and its history is an integrated one (Genesis 8:22; Psalms 104:14-27) that points to and is centred upon Christ. That which points to and is centred upon Christ is necessarily integrated because Christ himself is integrated. This idea of an integrated creation means that every part of God’s world is subject to his influence: Romans 11:36 - ‘For from him and to him and through him are all things ’. Moreover, if God’s redemption involves everything in the world and not just people, then God is sovereign over all and works for all: Colossians 1:19-20 - ‘For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross’. This shouldn’t be surprising. The Bible states that God is love: 1 John 4:16 – ‘…God is love…’ And, the salient quality of love is to integrate. Love is integration because love draws that which should be drawn together in true unity; all that God intends to be joined by his creation will be joined by the power of His love. Thus, God and all that he makes should contain a level of integration, even notwithstanding the fall of man and its effects. One result of an integrated creation is that a macrocosm-microcosm analogy is present whereby the macrocosm of God is analogous to the microcosm of his creation.

There also exists an orderly elegance to creation such that cyclic history, or the social cycle theory of history, applies whereby the various events and stages of history often repeat in cycles. This is particularly evident in the biblical book of Revelation. There, we see an ascending cycle of evil that will recur throughout the church age until the Parousia. It is also evident in the verse John 14:14 – ‘You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it’. When Jesus says ‘in my name’ he means if we ask God to do the things that it is in his character to do, the things he would do, then he will do them. This implies that God’s actions are to some extent predictable. This implies that God is a God of order and patterns, and thus so is his word, and also the widest sweeps of the history of his people, which God controls. Moreover, in Amos 7:2-6 and Ezekiel 22:30 God indicates that he expects his people to pray to him to act according to his great faithfulness and compassion. In the first of these examples, Amos prayed to God to save Israel from a plague of locusts and a terrible fire, and God relented because Amos prayed according to his knowledge of God’s past goodness. In the second example, God threatened to destroy Israel’s land because of their very great corruption but could find no one to make intercession with him for the people, so he poured out his wrath on them.

The apostle Paul cites this patterned characteristic of the actions of God in Galatians, chapter 4. Here, Paul talks about Christians who live under grace and Christians who live under the law. Then, he explicitly compares these two to the sons of Hagar and Sarah. When he does this, he establishes a principle of biblical interpretation in Galatians 4:24 when he says, ‘These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent the two covenants.’ For the word ‘figuratively’, Paul uses the Greek term ‘allegoroumena’, meaning ‘These things may be taken allegorically’. Thus, history embodies theology and anticipates later events as fuller manifestations of the principle in view. This implies that history contains patterns. Was this the only instance of pattern citing in the New Testament? No, we see this more than once. The New Testament describes Christ as the second Adam, and then as a priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Thus, both the Bible and history contain many large-scale patterns. I say ‘large-scale’ because this kind of patterning becomes ever more inaccurate the more small-scale you go. At all times, I try to begin with the widest patterns of truth that can be known with certainty, then work my way down towards the difficult small details of truth that have traditionally been explained with contesting interpretations. Thus, this book does not try to use biblical prophecy to predict every minor historical event, just the big picture of history. The main question I wish to answer is: Regarding the event of the political reign of the antichrist, when will it happen, what will it look like, and what should our response be?

What are some of these patterns of the Bible?

The themes of the Bible facilitate patterns and are numerous: the Kingdom of God, the righteousness of God, the sin of man, the refinement and development of man, the creation of a remnant, and God’s purpose for the earth.

Here are some specific patterns of the Bible: the virgin birth has been linked to the virgin ground out of which Adam was made; Eve’s creation out of Adam’s rib has been linked to the birth of the Church out of Christ’s side; the Last supper has been linked to the Passover; Christ giving the disciples food to remember him by at the Last Supper has been linked to Eve giving Adam food to forget God; Jesus’ temptation in the garden of Gethsemane has been linked to Adam and Eve’s temptation in the garden of Eden; Adam and Eve’s shameless nakedness has been linked to Christ’s crucifixion nakedness as he was covered with our shame; Adam’s side being opened to take his rib has been linked to Christ’s side being opened on the cross; Paul from the tribe of Benjamin persecuting Jesus has been linked to King Saul from the tribe of Benjamin persecuting David; Moses’ lifting of the snake in the desert for the victory of God’s people has been linked to Jesus being lifted for the victory of the saints; Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers in their time of hardship has been linked to God’s forgiveness of the Jews in the difficult last days; and Abraham’s call to sacrifice his only beloved son on a mountain has been linked to God’s sacrifice of his only beloved son on a hill. Read the gospel of Matthew and notice how numbers form patterns. In the genealogy of Jesus, Matthew lists the generations in sets of 14, which is also the numerical value of the name ‘David’ who was Jesus’ most important descendant.

Here is the pattern of 12 biblical principles relating to God’s character and behaviour:

1) God wants all people to be saved;

2) God encourages salvation by provoking repentance, sometimes involving suffering;

3) In severe tribulations, God allows Christians to suffer right up to the point where they cannot continue to endure then intervenes to rescue them, in order to give them an opportunity to grow in Him and to prepare them for blessing;

4) Despite tribulations, believers are spiritually secure at all times;

5) God always prepares people before he blesses or judges them;

6) Because he is love, God is the only being in the universe who is truly internally united and integrated;

7) Jesus’ First Coming and Second Coming will be opposite in nature;

8) The majority of prophetic descriptors, including numbers and visual qualities, are symbolic;

9) The antichrist will parody and oppose the Christ;

10) Historical examples of Mega-Conquests, such as the Roman Empire, employ the full power of Satan (under God’s will, of course).

11) When God reforms something, he transforms it from the core outwards by ridding the core of sin and, in that way, destroying the old version so that it can progressively transform into its best self. Similarly, when God enables a major military conquest he tends to first win the seminal and core victory then moves outwards to take the rest of the territory later – revolutionising it.

12) When God proclaims something, he never explains every single detail, but neither does he leave his followers totally in the dark about it. Instead, he provides just enough solid evidence to assure his followers of the reliability of his proclamations – no more, no less.

What about the patterns of history?

In history, one example of God’s providence, as an ordered set of patterns, is the cyclical history of the book of Revelation. Today it is widely accepted that Revelation is the description of a cyclical history that will progressively become more and more oppressive for God’s people. In the book of Revelation, the period between the days of the apostles and the final end times is covered from Revelation 6 to 16. However, this will not occur in just a few generations as many early scholars used to believe. Instead, it will occur over thousands of years, and involve seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls that describe many ascending patterns or cycles of evil on earth over many years. It is a pattern of both prophecy and history.

Also, Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Washington, George Modelski, wrote a book in 1987 called ‘Long Cycles in World Politics’ which argues that there are substantial connections between war cycles, economic supremacy, and the political aspects of world leadership.

How did I approach the prophecies of the Bible? Using the supreme theological pattern of the kingdom of God as a type of penetrative mining tool, I have approached these prophecies from a kingdom perspective. That is, I have kept in mind three immutable doctrines, God ensures the absolute security of destiny for believers in him, God uses harsh circumstances to bring people closer to him, and this coming closer to God occurs in stages: the Old Testament to the New Testament, paganism to conversion, our earthly relationship with God to our heavenly relationship with God. This was how Jesus taught his disciples to think on earth, and the Kingdom of God concept that he used more than 50 times in Matthew sums it up perfectly. At all times, I have asked who and what in prophecy and history is supporting or opposing the Kingdom of God. For instance, the antichrist will oppose the Kingdom maximally, whilst God will support it maximally. Like a miner’s lamp, this has illuminated the Bible and history as a series of elegantly ordered and ingeniously laid out patterns and cycles of God. All of these patterns are ordered under the principal ordering pattern of the Kingdom of God, and that is why this kingdom perspective illuminates them so well. Ultimately, it was the adding of patterns to exegesis that gave me the penetrating vision of the future, and particularly the antichrist, which uncovered these discoveries, many of which form predictions, which may one day be the very things that finally prove my antichrist theory.

At all times, God led me around every corner of this investigation to revelations that affirmed my contentions. It was his journey. At times, I felt like his scribe.

HOW THE BIG PATTERN METHOD FITS IN WITH CONVENTIONAL EXEGESIS

Usually exegesis takes the form of the Historical-Grammatical Method which examines a text by analysing its grammar, syntax, historical background, literary genre and theological context to discover the author’s original meaning. However, when it comes to investigating the meaning of the text of the Bible, I use a two-pronged method of exegesis, not just the single filter of exegesis using the Historical-Grammatical Method, but a double-barrelled approach. This approach combines both the constructivist method (i.e. the building up of meaning) of the Historical-Grammatical Method with the deconstructivist approach (i.e. the deducing of meaning) of the Big Pattern Method of exegesis – something that very few books do, as most books just do the first one. I use the Historical-Grammatical Method as my first filter, to sieve out some errors in interpretation. However, I also use a second filter – the Big Pattern Method. As this approach is roughly the opposite of the Historical-Grammatical Method, it filters out all of the residual falsehoods that exegesis normally leaves in an interpretation. The big pattern used may come from the Bible or from history.

Here is an example of how these two approaches may be combined. In the Bible, the pattern for bodily ascensions to heaven is that they occur precisely twice: not once, which is a unique event, and not three times, which is a trend, but twice. So, when looking at Jesus’ ascension and what it was supposed to mean for his disciples, it is significant to see the big pattern here. In the previous iteration of this event, Elijah promised to give Elisha his spirit after he ascended. This big pattern for ascensions in the Bible tells us that Jesus’ disciples were meant to be comforted into trusting Jesus’ promise of his Spirit, which would come after entered heaven by ascending as Elijah did, because a spirit had already been delivered to a prophet’s followers this way before. Thus, the Big Pattern Method adds all of this meaning to the Historical-Grammatical Method by first plotting a Big Pattern across the whole Bible, then logically deconstructing this pattern into its constituent parts, one of which is the biblical passage in question. Note also that this deconstructivist approach is the opposite of the constructivism of the Historical-Grammatical Method, which builds meaning by compiling textual interpretation in passages. Therefore, its benefits, being opposite, are complementary, and thus it covers the weaknesses of the first method by seeing what it can’t.

LAST WORDS

This book aims no insults, offense, criticism, vilification, judgement or condemnation, against any race, skin colour, sexual orientation, gender, age, or ethnic group. It simply delivers rational arguments against doctrines that God considers to be false. Anyway, since all people sin, how can sinners be the ultimate judge of other sinners? This document follows the doctrine of Romans 2:1 – ‘You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things’. Finally, in the face of all that I have learned, I wish to encourage Christians that God is utterly reliable in protecting them to the end and keeping all of his promises.

The encouragement segments at the end of each major section of this book have been included so that the reader may ‘laugh at the days to come’ (Proverbs 31:25) which God controls, and through which they will be protected and provided for. They also help us to see what a clown the antichrist truly is! All Christian predictions should strengthen, encourage and comfort according to the principle of 1 Corinthians 14:3 – ‘But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort’.

May, 2020.

IMAGE 1 - CONSTANTINE

PART ONE – MY JOURNEY OF ENQUIRY

(1) WHAT WAS MY JOURNEY OF ENQUIRY?

The aim of this book is to discover the meaning of these strange times and beyond by tracing God’s grand historic plan for humanity from the Bible. I have determined that the best way to do this is to unravel the most difficult mystery of all regarding God’s plan, the antichrist of the Bible – see ‘Introduction’ for why this is the case. It has been so difficult to determine the exact nature of the antichrist that is mentioned in the Bible that contemporary scholars have proffered as many wildly differing versions of this Biblical character as there are hot breakfasts. They really don’t know. My contention is that, often in problem solving, if one starts one’s attack from easiest part of the problem, little ground is made. By starting at the hardest part, I hope to unearth significant new findings that will provide the vital missing links to the Bible’s eschatological puzzle.

For me, this whole episode in my life was like taking a journey. First, it was a journey of enquiry, when I was mainly trying to get a handle on the whole subject of the antichrist. Then, it was a journey of discovery, when I pursued the galloping tail of an elusive theory to what became a whole new land of knowledge.

My journey of enquiry began when I spent much time thinking about both the Bible and antichrist, and was shown by God and many of my teachers that the single most useful tool for understanding the Bible and also penetrating its mysteries is the concept of the Kingdom of God. This is the timeless truth that God is in charge of the universe and is gathering together a community of people who will submit to his authority. It explains all of God’s actions in both the Bible and history. And, when it comes to the mysteries of the Bible, it provides a plumb line of God’s word by which to evaluate truth and untruth. But there is more. If one enquires into biblical truth using the Kingdom of God as a lamp, this lamp seems to provide a penetrative insight through difficult mysteries. This is because truth itself is constructed along the lines of the Kingdom of God.

In my journey, I looked at what the Bible says that an antichrist is. Then, I began to think about the two most evil forces in the world today, the concentrated force of Militant Extremist Islamism and the widespread power of Atheistic Secular Humanism, and I asked myself these two questions: Which is the most satanic force of evil? And, from which of these forces would the antichrist of the Bible be most likely to emerge. I then enquired into these subjects.

Now, let me go back to the start of my journey of enquiry, and let the journey begin.

(2) PORTRAYALS OF THE ANTICHRIST IN THE BIBLE

WHAT IS AN ANTICHRIST?

As the first step of my journey of exploration about the antichrist I will examine a few of the leading Bible passages on this subject as background information from which to launch a meaningful enquiry.

Antichrist? What does that word even mean?

Some say he will literally be a satanic incarnation into humanity in the way that Jesus was. But, this is impossible. Satan cannot breathe life into anyone.

The term ‘antichrist’ literally means ‘against Christ’. In 1 John 2:22 the term ‘antichrist’ is defined as follows: ‘Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist – he denies the Father and the Son.’ The biblical essence of an antichrist is one who denies the lordship of Jesus.

Regarding antichrists, John also mentions the following in 1 John 2:19: ‘They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For, if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going out showed that none of them belonged to us.’ The people John calls ‘antichrists’ had been living a lie in the church by superficially conforming to it but internally opposing it. The antichrist’s chief strategy is lies, because that is Satan’s chief strategy.

ARE THERE MULTIPLE ANTICHRISTS?

In 1 John 2:18, John says that ‘there will be many antichrists’, but in the same verse he also refers to one special one, and this Antichrist (I will use a capital ‘A’) will be the worst one, and will appear in the last days: ‘Dear children … you have heard that The Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come’. Hence, there were many antichrists, but the final Antichrist had not yet come. The early church expected that a powerful figure, the final Antichrist, would appear in the last days.

The final antichrist, I shall call AC4, the Man of Lawlessness (MOL) or the FINAL ANTICHRIST. For the last of these terms, I capitalise the whole name to denote that this last antichrist will have much more power than any other. Thus, the term ‘Antichrist’ refers not to the many antichrists that John said would come, but to the special FINAL ANTICHRIST that John also identified, and implied would be different from the rest.

What does the Bible say about this Antichrist? Let’s look at five passages: (1) 2 Thessalonians 2, (2) Revelation 13 and 17, (3) Revelation 12, (4) Daniel 11 - 12, and (5) Revelation 20.

5 PORTRAYALS OF THE ANTICHRIST IN THE BIBLE

(1) THE MAN OF LAWLESSNESS

Who is The Man of Lawlessness?

The first passage I wish to look at is 2 Thessalonians 2. This is where the Man of Lawlessness is described.

The Antichrist is referred to symbolically in both Revelation and Daniel, amongst other books, but is also more literally referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2: 3-12, where theologians are widely agreed that, here, a single evil man is being indicated, The Man of Lawlessness (MOL). This passage is largely mirrored in Jesus’ great prophecy of the last days, the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, which I cover in ‘Appendix 2 – Jesus’ Olivet Discourse’.

3 Do not let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day (the second coming of Jesus) will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

5 Do not you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Let’s look closer at this important passage about the Man of Lawlessness (MOL).

Verse 3: …the rebellion occurs – this indicates a rebellion of the population of the world that will incite them to persecute God’s people. In Revelation 20:7-8 it says that Satan will deceive the nations of the whole world for the purpose of gathering them for battle against God’s people. It also says that this will happen when Satan is released from prison. As this rebellion of the world did not happen prior to 70 AD, this is a future prophecy that had not yet come to pass when it was written[2].

Verse 4: …he sets himself up in God’s temple – the Greek word for ‘temple’ here is never used for a physical temple, this metaphorically refers to the MOL’s attempt to put himself in the place of God using political and miraculous satanic power. Therefore, the MOL will be a prideful person with no reverence for God.

Verse 6: And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time;

Verse 7: …but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.

What is holding him back? Only God could ever have the power to establish a restraint to hold back such a spiritual force, and this is echoed in Job 1:12, Revelation 7:3 and Revelation 20:1, 3, where God uses his power to restrain or hold back Satan. So, the thing holding the MOL back can only be God’s angels. And, just as it could only be God who could ever establish such a restraint of Satan, likewise, only God could ever remove such a restraint. This event of God’s angel moving the restraint out of the way for the MOL is also prophesied in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 20:1, 3, it says: ‘And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain … He threw him into the Abyss and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations any more until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time’.

Verse 7: For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work – This power is an invisible satanic power which strives to create a favourable anti-God environment for the future MOL. It was already working in Paul’s day, and it continued to build for centuries as it prepared for the coming of the MOL.

Verse 8: And then the Lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and by the splendour of his coming - The ultimate source of the destruction of the MOL will be the spiritual power of Jesus.

Verse 9: The coming of the Lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie - The MOL will be the ultimate liar and will be a parody of Christ and his rule by being accompanied by actual miracles. Revelation 13:13-14 says: ‘And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given the power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth’. Note that these miracles, however, will be powered by Satan.

Verses 10–12: …They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. - The MOL will come to a world that is so evolved in its anti-God ways that people have closed their minds to the truth of the gospel and, thus, they will be particularly persuadable by this manipulative Antichrist. When God executes a judgement event on earth, such as the lies that deceive those who are perishing, those who choose against God are judged (condemned), but those who don’t are not. Those who are judged are consequently shown the extent of their sin, folly and evil, and this often happens by giving them precisely what they demand in sin. This usually involves them experiencing suffering of a sort: either anguish of conscience or bodily suffering. Some people react to this by seeing their wretchedness and repenting, and some don’t. In 1 Corinthians 5:5, the immoral brother was expelled from the community so that he could be handed over to Satan that he might suffer such anguish and/or physical affliction that he would repent from his sin. This approach also worked for the Prodigal Son, and will work for Israel when that nation repents at the end of the age. Therefore, the display of spiritual perishing by the many, because God has allowed their hearts to continue to harden, will prompt some to repent and join the remnant because their spiritual choice has become starker. Nonetheless many Christians will turn away from the faith. And, for most unbelievers, God will seem to have disappeared. This will be something like the inter-testamental period of the history of Israel before the first coming of Jesus, when the prophets were silent and the abomination of desolation defiled the Temple. Yet, in Matthew 24: 13, it says that ‘he who stands firm to the end will be saved’.

(2) THE BEAST

The Antichrist is also described as the beast. What does this mean?

Our second passage is Revelation 13 and 17. These chapters talk about the beast.

Theologians are widely agreed that the Man of Lawlessness is also referred to as the beast in Revelation 13:7-8 where, ‘He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was give authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast – all whose names have not been written in the book of life’. Revelation 13 identifies not one but two beasts – and one of these describes the Antichrist. The first, the Beast of the Sea, is the Antichrist. To be precise, he is the human Antichrist who will lead the antichristian empire, most probably representing a tyrannical nation that oppresses the world. However, the second beast, the Beast of the Earth, is merely the heathen executive that performs the demonic work of the Antichrist and is led by the Antichrist.[3] The Beast of the Sea, on the other hand, is an empire and a nation but more particularly the leader of that nation.[4] Why do I denote him as an individual person? In Revelation 17:8, this beast is described as he who ‘once was, now is not and yet will come’. This description refers to the beast’s apparent ability to defeat death. I will look at this phenomenon in detail later. Then, in Revelation 17:10, this same beast, who once was and now is not, is called the ‘eighth king’. This denotes the Beast of the Sea as an individual person and, probably, a national leader. Also, the fact that Revelation 19:20 records that the beast will be thrown into the lake of fire suggests that an individual person is in view here.

The Beast of the Sea is the beast who parodies Jesus and puts himself into the position of God. The sea, in this case, stands for spiritual power and supreme authority, and the fact that he comes out of the sea like the Dragon (Satan) the leviathan (Job 40) and the behemoth (Job 41) means that the sea also stands for evil. The three characters, the Dragon, the Beast of the Sea and the Beast of the Earth, form an evil trinity. The Dragon parodies God, the Beast of the Sea parodies the true Israel, and Jesus, and the Beast of the Earth seeks to persuade the world to worship the Antichrist by his witness in word and deed, roughly as the Holy Spirit witnesses for God’s Christ. Also, through the mark of the beast (an imitation of the seal of God), he creates a devilish imitation of the church of Christ. As I said, the second beast, the Beast of the Earth, merely stands for a secondary form of power which supports the supreme earthly authority of the Antichrist and his evil empire. This beast is the same beast that is referred to as ‘the false prophet’ in Revelation 19:20, when both beasts are captured to be banished to hell for eternity. This beast ‘deceived the inhabitants of the earth’, and ‘compelled the earth’s inhabitants to worship the Beast of the Sea’ (Revelation 13:12-14).

How will this beast of the earth support the Antichrist?

This beast will provide support using an evil system. Revelation 17:18 refers to a prostitute, the woman who is ‘the great city that rules over the kings of the earth’, also known as ‘Babylon the Great’ and ‘the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth’ (Revelation 17:5). This prostitute is the economic, social and political system to be formed by the Beast of the Earth, the false prophet, and it will support the reign of the Antichrist, the Beast of the Sea. In Revelation 17:6, she is described as having persecuted God’s people viciously – ‘I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus’. She is compared to a city of people, because she is the living expression of the Antichrist’s evil agenda conveyed through the masses of the people.

(3) THE WORSHIP STEALER

Why do I call the Antichrist a worship stealer?

Our third passage, Revelation 12, will tell us.

Here is where we find out two more major details: (1) Satan’s purposes and strategies in producing the Antichrist, and (2) the results of those purposes and strategies.

Satan’s purpose is to make all people worship him, and his aim is to deceive and corrupt people until they do. This can be seen in Revelation 13:15 – ‘He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed’. To this end, Satan tried to destroy Jesus and the church as objects of human worship. He tried to destroy Jesus in Revelation 12:4 by attempting to devour the child (Jesus). This took the form of tempting Jesus to leave God and follow him. This can be seen to have been Satan’s intention in the words of the third and most important temptation of Jesus in the desert – “All of this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). Satan also attempted to force Jesus into leaving God and worshipping him by torturing him with the trials of Gethsemane and the cross. Having failed to do this, Satan then turned his attention to the church in Revelation 12:6.

However, before he could persecute the church, Satan was hurled to the earth by the power of God (vv. 8 and 9), so that he could not accuse Christians directly to God anymore (v. 10). God did this to protect his people by ensuring that nothing could separate them from the love of God (Romans 8:39). Satan then persecuted the church but was not allowed to destroy it. However, in the end, using their closeness to God, God’s people overcame Satan by their testimony and willingness to die for Christ (v. 11). Finally, with Satan having been temporarily defeated in this way, God bound him for a long time.

After the millennium of Satan’s imprisonment had finished, Satan was released to deceive many people into persecuting the people of God. Satan, still obstructed but determined to win, stood on the shore of the sea to call up an ally (Revelation 13:1 – And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea). Furthermore, God granted him permission him do this. This permission from God is the releasing of Satan (see later) to once more persecute God’s people. It spawned the major Antichrists. The dragon (Satan), in his determination to annihilate the church, called to his aid not one helper but two – the Beast of the Sea and the Beast of the Earth (Revelation 13).

In the process of persecuting God’s people, both Jews and Christians, Satan will also deceive and corrupt people, because he wants to make them evil enough to persecute God’s people to fulfil his purposes of destroying the church. God will also use this to provoke the repentance of some pagans.

The book of Revelation says that the Antichrist will galvanise and co-ordinate evil in the world against the people of God, progressing to the final battle, the battle of Armageddon, which will be resolved by the triumphant Second Coming of Christ.

(4) THE ANTIOCHUS IV EPIPHANES MAN

What will the Antichrist’s character be like? It will be like the character of a man who lived a long time ago called Antiochus IV Epiphanes, whom I will now explain.

The fourth passage I wish to look at is Daniel 11-12.

(Incidentally, Daniel is a good book of the Bible to go to for information about the Antichrist. Personally, I think that Daniel is possibly the greatest of all of the prophets, other than Jesus, due to the time range and the accuracy of his predictions.)

The passage Daniel 11-12 talks about Antiochus Epiphanes, but part of it also describes the Antichrist of both of the books 2 Thessalonians and Revelation. In doing this, the passage is equating the two and saying that Antiochus Epiphanes had a character that was quite like what the Antichrist’s character will be.

Let’s look at Daniel 11:36 – 12:13, the part where the Antichrist is described. The picture that is seen here provides significant support and backup for what was discovered in 2 Thessalonians 2. The whole of this passage is both long and detailed beyond our needs here. Therefore, rather than quote it in full, I will just look at bits of it. It deals with the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. He was the Antichrist-like Hellenistic King of the Seleucid Empire from 168-164 BC who made a determined effort to destroy the Jewish faith. It is important to understand that he is not being portrayed by the Bible as the Antichrist. He was a minor king of a minor nation – Seleucis. God inspired Daniel to include him in his writings for two reasons: (1) He had a particularly devastating effect on Israel by totally defiling their temple when he burnt a pig on its altar, and performed all sorts of other sacrilegious practices in it; and (2) he bears as good a likeness as any ancient figure to the character of the Antichrist in both 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation. Thus, he is an Antichrist type in the way that Genesis portrays Joseph as a Jesus type. It is for this last reason that I study him.

By describing him, Daniel conveys an Antichrist portrait of uncanny detail and likeness. In Daniel 8:23-25, Antiochus is the very essence of the last Antichrist: ‘… when rebels have become wicked … a master of intrigue will arise … he will become very strong but not by his own power … he will cause astounding devastation and succeed in everything he does … he will destroy holy people and cause deceit to prosper … he will consider himself superior … he will take his stand against the Prince of princes … yet he will be destroyed (defeated), but not by human power.’ Immediately, it can be seen that this tyrant sounds very similar to the one described in 2 Thessalonians 2. In his commentary on Daniel, Sinclair B Ferguson described Antiochus Epiphanes as having the spirit of the Antichrist.[5]

We can know that Daniel intends to link Antiochus with the last Antichrist because some of the details of the passage of Daniel 11:36 – 12:13 do not confine themselves merely to what is known of Antiochus Epiphanes, but tell a far larger story than his, a story that sounds much more like the story of the end times that the book of Revelation tells. Therefore, in this passage of Daniel, the chief tyrant of the distant future is being described and, as such, nearly all of the observations made in that range of verses are echoed in Revelation. Thus, they are also a prophecy of the Antichrist.

Here are five verses from this passage that suggest a distant future interpretation:

11:36 – ‘The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place.’ This is the main description of the Northern King, Antiochus Epiphanes. It resembles the picture of the Man of Lawlessness given in 2 Thessalonians 2 (see Table 1 below). Thus, he will appear in the last days.

11:40-45 – These verses describe a king conquering many lands, including Israel, by sweeping through them like a flood until he will come to his end with no one helping him. This did not happen in the time of Antiochus. Therefore, this massive and powerful campaign is best interpreted as a portrayal of a distant future conflict in terms of that period’s political map. It is a reference to the final scenes of world history in terms of the ancient world order.

12:1-3 –12:2 states that ‘Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake’. Thus, this section also suggests that the end of all history may now be in view. Verse 12:1 announces that ‘There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then’. The extent of this prediction of evil exceeds the level of Antiochus’ evil in his time, but not the level of evil to be seen in the last days.

12:12 – ‘Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1335 days’. This verse sets the time limit of this military campaign, but even here it manages to symbolise events that will occur in the distant future. 1,335 days is the time of Christ’s ministry. This time duration consists of a symbolic time of about 1,290 days, or three and a half years (time, times and time and a half - see later in this book for an explanation), plus about 40 days from the resurrection to the ascension, plus about another 10 days to Pentecost. Thus, just as Pentecost symbolised the blessing of the victorious Christ at the end of the Old Testament age, so this period of 1,335 days symbolises the blessing of the victorious Christ at the end of our current age and therefore pertains to a far-distant event from the time of Antiochus. It is important to note here that the maths is only approximate, but that is standard for the maths of that time. Three and a half years (1,278 days) plus 50 days equals 1,328 days, not 1,335 days. But, for its time that is quite close.

When all of the abovementioned is taken into account, this passage Daniel 11:36-12:13 is quite similar to what we already know to be the portrait of the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation. Table 1 briefly compares the main character of the passage of Daniel 11:36-12:13, Antiochus Epiphanes, to the Man of Lawlessness from 2 Thessalonians 2.

Table 1 – Antiochus Epiphanes and the Man of Lawlessness.

Antiochus Epiphanes

Man of Lawlessness

Daniel 11:36(a) - He will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will exalt himself saying unheard of things against the God of gods.

2 Thessalonians 2:4 – He will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called god or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Daniel 11:36(b) - He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place.

2 Thessalonians 2:8 – And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming.

The rest of this passage continues to describe what appear to be Antichrist-like qualities in Antiochus Epiphanes that resemble Antichrist descriptions in 2 Thessalonians and Revelation.

11:38 – …he will honour a god of fortresses – he will be a warmonger.

11:39 – …he will greatly honour those who acknowledge him – he will gain allies by forming alliances.

…he will distribute land at a price (meaning for a reward) – this also refers to how he will gain allies.

11:40 – … he will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood – he will expand his empire.

11:41 – He will invade Israel. However Israel’s enemies will not fall – Israel will be surrounded by her enemies. In Revelation, the Antichrist will seek the conquest of Israel (note that Israel can also mean the worldwide church of God or all of God’s people).

11:44 – Foreign reports alarm him and he sets out in a great rage to destroy his enemies. – see later for the significance of this.

11:45 – He will pitch his tent at the holy mountain. – He will come up against the might of God.

–Yet he will come to his end and no one will help him. – This is the experience of the Antichrist in Revelation.

12:1 – … there will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.

Yet …

… everyone whose name is found written in the book will be delivered.

12:7 – When the power of the holy people has finally been broken, all these things will be completed. – Just when God’s people have no defences left and have been taken to their absolute limit, God will intervene. In days of trouble, Christians often find themselves in a position where they can only cry out to God, and must have faith that, as Paul puts it, ‘our troubles on this earth are only light and momentary’ (2 Corinthians 4:17). Thus God often allows Christians to suffer for just as long as they can bear it, but no longer. This was the case in the time of Daniel when the faithful suffered via the abomination that causes desolation, which was the presence of the heathen sitting upon the throne of God in Daniel 12:11.

Additionally, as will be explored later, the earlier verses of Daniel 11:21-23 also give Antiochus Epiphanes similarities to the Antichrist. In The Message version of the Bible, these read as follows:

Daniel 11:21-23 – His place will be taken by a reject, a man spurned and passed over for advancement. He’ll surprise everyone, seemingly coming out of nowhere, and will seize the kingdom [through intrigue – NIV]. He’ll come in like a steamroller, flattening the opposition. Even the Prince of the Covenant [confederate Prince] will be crushed. After negotiating a cease-fire, he’ll betray its terms. With a few henchmen, he’ll take control.

(5) THE MILLENNIAL MAN

What on earth is a millennial man?!

The word ‘millennial’ means of or relating to a millennium (a period of 1,000 years). And, according to passage five, which is Revelation 20, the Antichrist cannot come until this millennial period has ended.

Revelation 20 states that Satan will be bound ‘for a thousand years’ (Revelation 20:2) ‘to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended’ (Revelation 20:3). However, it then says, ‘After that, he must be set free for a short time’ (Revelation 20:3). ‘When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth…’ (Revelation 20:7). Therefore, this will be the time slot when Satan will execute his Antichrist program on earth, as is indicated in 2 Thessalonians 2:6 – ‘And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time’.

Satan’s imprisonment is also mentioned in Isaiah 24:21, 22 – In that day the Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be released after many days.

So far so good. Right?

However, it is what must be fitted around this release of Satan that causes complications when it comes knowing exactly what will happen and when.

The following events need to be fitted in around this millennial Antichrist release, because they happen at around the same time:

1) Jesus will return;

2) A group of honoured dead Christians will come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years;

3) All of the true Israel (believing Jews) will come back to God; and

4) The world will be judged and make way for the new earth.

Now, in trying to fit all of these biblical events around the millennial Antichrist release, some confusion and apparent contradictions can occur when reading the relevant texts of the Bible.

Events three and four above are less important that the first two events, therefore I will deal with them later in this book. I will cover the third event concerning Israel coming back to God in ‘Will All of The Jews Be Saved?’ in Chapter 14 of this book. Also, I will cover the fourth event regarding the judgement of the world and the new earth in ‘How Will the New Earth Come About?’ in ‘Heaven and the New Earth’ in the Conclusion chapter of this book.

Therefore, let me take the first two events, the most important events, one by one and explore them.

A) JESUS WILL RETURN

Reading the various texts of the Bible, there is confusion regarding how to fit Jesus’ return in with the millennial period during which Satan will be imprisoned, the millennium. Will Jesus (1) return to earth for his Second Coming before this millennial period, or (2) after it, or (3) will Jesus return after this period, but the period won’t be a literal 1,000 year millennium but a symbolic 1,000 years, meaning God’s complete and perfect amount of time? The first option is called Premillennialism, the second is Postmillenialism and the third is Amilleniallism.

The correct choice can only be made using the text of the Bible.

I favour Amillennialism – the last one. I will not spend a long time here explaining why. Rather, I will give that explanation in Appendix One at the end of this book. In Appendix One, I have laid out a brief critique of both Premillennialism and Postmillenialism, to show why I disapprove of both of these theories and favour Amillennialism. Today, more Christians adhere to Amillennialism than the other two.

Thus, I will assert that there will be a period of God’s complete and perfect time, which will last for an unspecified number of years, to be called the millennium, and which will climax in the release of Satan in the form of the Antichrist, after which Jesus will come back to the earth.

B) A GROUP OF DEAD CHRISTIANS WILL REIGN OVER THE EARTH WITH CHRIST FOR A THOUSAND YEARS (A MILLENNIUM)

What does this mean?

The Bible says that a group of honoured dead Christians will come back to life and reign over the earth with Christ for a thousand years. Revelation 20: 4 - ‘And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.’

Who are these honoured dead Christians who will come back to life and reign with Jesus? The phrase ‘the souls of those who had been beheaded’ represents all of the Christians who have already died.

Will they reign for a literal 1,000 years?

No, they will reign for God’s perfect and complete amount of time – however long that will be.

Is this the same millennium as the millennium of Satan’s imprisonment?

Yes it is. Let’s look at the beginning and the end of this millennium.

First, I will cite the beginning of this millennium. In Colossians 2:15 it says – ‘And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross’. This means that Jesus took authority over the Abyss (where Satan was imprisoned) at his resurrection. Therefore, this was when he imprisoned Satan. At this time, Jesus took all authority, and thus the reign of the saints also began.

Now, I will look at the end of the millennium. We know that Satan’s imprisonment ends at the end of the millennium because Revelation 20:7 says so – ‘When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison’. Also, this will mark the end of the reign of the saints. Revelation 20:4 says that the sains ‘reigned with Christ for a thousand years’. Therefore the Bible conflates these two. As Augustine said in his theological classic ‘The City of God’, ‘During the thousand years when the devil is bound, the saints also reign for a thousand years. Without any doubt, these two time periods are identical and point to the time between the first and second coming of Christ’. They are just two sides of the same coin – the same event viewed from two different ‘camera angles’. As God applies his spiritual power to stop Satan from deceiving the nations into wiping out the church, another way to say this is that God imprisons Satan, thus nullifying his influence in this area.

As the saints are with Christ when they reign, they are in heaven with him, in a disembodied state. After this, the saints will be given new bodies and will live with God in the new earth.

How will they reign?

The one thousand year reign of God began at the cross of Christ. It is exercised from earth but from heaven, although it manifests on earth. It is spiritual in source, but it affects earthly actions. It refers to the gospel age between the two earthly visitations of Christ. For most of this time, Satan will be imprisoned for a symbolic 1,000 years, during which time his power will be limited.[6]

But, how does Christ execute a spiritual reign on earth?

He does it in two ways. In Revelation 20, it says that Satan was bound to keep him from deceiving the nations because if he could he would gather the nations to surround the people of God. Indeed, this Bible chapter says that Satan will do exactly that when he is finally released. Therefore, first and foremost, God has restrained Satan in order to give Christians physical bodily protection. This protection would ensure the survival of the church by prevention the nations from being deceived and persecuting the church. With the survival of the church, the message of Christ could be spread and the kingdom of God could expand on earth. Matthew 16:18 says ‘And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it’. Thus, it was not enough for Jesus to die on the cross, the church needed to be protected so that his salvation could be spread throughout the earth. To see that this protection is actually occurring, one must simply observe the extraordinary spread of the gospel around the earth – the gospel age that has seen the kingdom of God grow and grow. This spread is so extraordinary that Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going back to the Father.’ (John 14:12). We will do even greater things than Jesus? Now that is extraordinary. Yet, look at the amazing progress of the gospel in the roughly last two millennia, and that is what has happened. When will all of this happen? When Jesus died on the cross Satan was hurled down to earth, so the cross marks the beginning of God’s reign on earth from his throne in heaven.

Even though the above physical bodily protection is what Revelation means by the reign of God and the saints, the protection of the souls of Christians also points to another kind of protection that gets thrown into the bargain. God performs a small, quiet and inner work upon each individual believer to spiritually protect them by sealing their soul to be his. And, he does this by changing the hearts of pagans so that they become willing believers. As I will show later, this spiritual protection of God that is afforded to the souls of the saints will not ever end, and gives Christians effective soul protection against any circumstance, because no external force ‘can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:39). This is so because, at the cross, Satan was hurled down from his position of power, and can no longer accuse Christians to God and thus have them condemned by God (Revelation 12:10), such that Christians are now ‘no longer under the Law’ (Romans 6:14) but instead have the ‘full rights of sons’ (Galatians 4:5). Indeed, ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). The best thing about this protection is that, unlike the physical protection, it will never be withdrawn by God (Matthew 28:20 – ‘And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’).

However, this work of God’s is diametrically opposed by Satan. Rather than performing a small, quiet and internal work upon each individual heart, Satan tends to perform a big, loud, external work upon society and the world as a whole. He most aspires, as the apex of his ambitions, to do this by into instituting into power an expansionist, militant, tyrant who direct his millions of satanically deceived subjects to do the will of Satan by killing God’s people and compelling the rest to worship him – the Antichrist.

How can it make sense that this thousand year reign is exercised from heaven?

The kingdom of God is described in the Bible as being a principally spiritual thing, even though it affects the physical world, thus the reign can be a spiritual one from heaven. In Matthew 12:28, Jesus states that, from the act of driving out demons, the kingdom has come. In Luke 17:20-21, it is said that the kingdom cannot be observed but is among the followers of Jesus. In Romans 14:17, Paul speaks of the kingdom of God in terms of Christians’ actions. In John 4:24, Jesus states that ‘God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and truth’. Remember that the Jews expected their Messiah to give them physical domination. Instead, the kingdom came in the form of spiritual domination. In John 18:36 Jesus states that the Kingdom of God is ‘not of this world’.

Further, the relationship between spiritual and physical seems to dictate that the spiritual precedes the physical. Thus, we were first known by as spirit God before we became flesh and bones, Hebrews 11:3 tells us that God made the world such that ‘what is seen was not made out of what was visible’. Also, the spiritual victory of Satan being ‘hurled down to earth’ from heaven according to Revelation 12:13 precedes the establishment of the new earth.

If the thousand year reign is exercised from heaven, yet manifests on earth, what will all of this look like in practice for most Christians?

It primarily means that the saints are physically bodily protected in the ordinary course of their lives, because Satan cannot deceive the nations into persecuting Christians as he would like to because he is bound by God. Their souls will also be sealed by God.

There is also another meaning which is the result of this. Just as the spirit reigns in is us, yet we are a mix of good and evil, so God even though reigns on earth spiritually, yet the world is a mix of good and evil. Hence, in the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, a man sowed wheat in his field, but while he was sleeping his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. This represents godly and ungodly people living beside each other in this present age. They will be judged separately at the harvest (the end time). So, in a world where both the force of evil and the force of good each have significant power, the idea of God reigning means that God reigns amongst that.

It is all very well and good to state these theories from Revelation 20. But, if they are true, surely we would see evidence of this in other parts of the Bible; on earth and in our lives. Is there such evidence, and what is it?

What is the evidence of Christ and the saints reigning during the millennium?

I will begin with the evidence of God’s physical protection of the saints.

The following texts in the Bible talk about the Messiah’s universal reign in heaven and on earth: Numbers 14:21; Psalms 2:8, and Psalm 72; Isaiah 11:9; Zechariah 9:10 (His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth). In Matthew 28:18, Jesus says ‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me’. In 1 Corinthians 15:25 it says, ‘For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet’.

In the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:30-31, Jesus talks about the glorious period of the victorious reign and progression of evangelisation that is about to occur. In verse 30, he uses Daniel’s language, which describes the Son of Man coming on the clouds, to paint a picture of the vindication and enthronement of Jesus after the cross. He mentions that ‘At this time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky’. The ‘sign of the Son of Man’ is best translated ‘the victory banner’ and, along with the trumpet, is a military image for the beginning of the reign of the Son of Man. In verse 31, he then says that, ‘he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather the elect from the four winds’. This description is based on three passages that describe Israel’s return from exile (Isaiah 27:13, Deuteronomy 30:4 and Zechariah 9:14), and points to the Son of Man gathering his new people from all of the earth. So, this mode of apocalyptic expression has been invoked by Jesus to describe the indescribable – the cosmic and massive historical changes that were to occur when Jesus took authority in heaven and instituted the new age of church growth and kingdom expansion, with Satan chained up. This prophecy of Jesus establishes that the reign of God that is about to commence on earth will be executed by the almighty and unopposable spiritual power of the true king of kings, and will result in the unstoppable spread of the gospel.

During the age between the advents, this reign has in fact resulted in the gospel spreading in a way that has been undefeatable despite fierce opposition. Satan’s goal has been to destroy the church, or at least the growth of it, but God’s reign allows the saints o be protected so that this cannot happen. This period has occurred over the course of the millennium. This requires the physical protection of the saints.

Also, in this time between the two comings of Jesus, there have been many occasions when the victorious power of Jesus has come to physically threatened Christians, and it has reigned. The following are just a few of the countless examples of this: (1) the Roman domination of the roads and seaways created Pax Romana, which allowed the spread of the gospel in Roman times when this ordinarily would have been impossible; (2) Jesus conquered Satan’s heresies to illuminate the true message of the Bible to Christians; (3) Constantine declared the establishment of a Christian Roman Empire that ended mass Christian persecution; (4) God protected the vulnerable monastic movement community, which saved the true faith of Christianity when the rest of the people of God were losing their way to Satan’s deceptions; (5) the earliest copies of the Bible were miraculously kept safe by God from those wishing to destroy the scriptures, so that today we have a secure basis for our faith and for evangelisation; (6) Martin Luther and others were revealed by God the true doctrine of justification by faith so that the basis of salvation that we preach would be secure and provable; (7) just as numbers of Christians were becoming very large and more and more copies of the Bible were being required, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and the Bible was printed about 15 years later, and thus it could be much more effectively distributed; and (8) after the Age of Discovery saw many countries and people groups discovered by Europeans for the first time, God implanted into the hearts of men such as William Carey the conviction to travel to these new lands and to spread the gospel as quickly as possible, such that nearly every country in the world had been introduced to the gospel by 1815, by which time evangelisation was just beginning to become more difficult.

Note that in each example the church was attacked by Satan with an opposition that could have permanently derailed evangelism, but God miraculously intervened and dominated the situation, over-ruling Satan and reigning for the sake of his gospel. Therefore, I repeat a scripture from just before, one of my very favourites: Matthew 16:18 - ‘… I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it’.

Later, I will cover how Hitler said that his intention was to conquer the world then kill every single Christian. This is what the church age would have looked like without the reign of Christ.

Now, I will look at God’s spiritual protection of the souls of the saints.

Part of understanding this reign of God on earth is to realise that it is spiritual in its source because it emanates out of the heavenly victory in Revelation 12 when Satan was hurled to earth. Thus, it takes the form described in Revelation 12:10 - Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have come the salvation and the power of the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. This takes the form of a personal blessing during this period of reign. The meaning of this statement is as powerful as its expression is euphoric. It means that now Satan cannot accuse Christians directly to God anymore, and thus their souls remain full forgiven, righteous and in union with God.

Also, the New Testament contains a number of verses that indicate that our souls are now sealed as God’s such that nothing on earth can break this bond. These verses include ones such as Romans 8:1 - Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and Romans 8:38-39 - For I am convinced that … [nothing] in all creation will be able separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. For an elaboration on these verses and more verses on this wonderful protection of souls and what it really means for Christians today, see ‘Appendix 4 – God’s Protection of the Souls of Christians’.

Thus in summary, it could be said that heaven will come down to earth in two instalments. The second is the new earth. But, the first is the spiritual victory that starts in our hearts and spreads to most areas of our lives. This spiritual victory gives us the heaven-like experience of soul union with Christ despite our circumstances.

C) MORE EVIDENCE FOR ALL OF THIS

How can one say that God has reigned during the millennium while plenty of evil has manifested on earth and still does?

It is true that plenty of evil has manifested on earth and still does. Satan continues to be the foe of man. He is a very dangerous foe who can be very difficult to deal with. Indeed, on earth, God’s reign is far from absolute. Ephesians 2:2 calls Satan ‘the ruler of the kingdom of the air (this world)’, 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls him the god of this age, and Galatians 1:4 calls this era on earth ‘the present evil age’. Therefore, it may seem that God has failed to reign. However, he cannot triumph over the church of God. Whereas Christians have suffered during the millennium, there has not been the extent of persecution against them that was seen during the worst times of the Roman Empire. And there has not been the extent of spiritual darkness. The gospel is here and the deceptions of Satan are being defeated with each new convert. Therefore, God has not failed to reign. It simply means that God is still giving human beings the choice between following him or not. God will never compel a person into relationship with him. Thus, he will always give people that choice. Thus, people are free to work for and obey Satan and commit all kinds of evil. However when people do choose God, that choice is spiritually victorious over all spiritual opposition, such that God’s purposes reign in the life of that believer. And, that is the spiritual reign of God on earth.

How can you say that Satan was bound during the millennium when so much evil happened in that period?

Also, if one looks at the history of the millennium, it may not seem that Satan was in fact bound, because so many bad things happened. Given the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the institution of commercial slavery and the evils of colonisation, people may say that Satan was far from bound, but was in fact freely active. To counter this, Ellicott notes, in his ‘New Testament Commentary For English Readers (1878), ‘To an Iranaeus, a Justin Martyr, a Tertullian the picture of the world during the Christian centuries would have the aspect of a Millennium, when contrasted with the age of Pagan domination and Pagan persecution. In their eyes accustomed to the darkness of heathenism, the world as influenced by a widely diffused Christianity would seem to be a world in which Christ ruled’.

In fact, the gospel has flourished and grown because Satan has not been allowed to deceive the nations into persecuting and eventually wiping out the earth’s population of Christians. This is what Revelation 20:3 said would be the result of Satan’s imprisonment, and that is exactly what has happened. In fact all of the promises regarding the kingdom of God that were given to Abraham, Israel and David have been fulfilled in the church age.

Thus, at length, I have shown what it will look like when a group of Christians reign with Christ for a thousand years.

D) PUTTING THE WHOLE CHAPTER TOGETHER

In this book I argue that the Bible favours Amillenialism, and that this explanation satisfactorily answers all of the many hard questions on this subject. However, it may still be confusing to the reader as to what happened, what will happen and when according to Amillennialism.

Here is the whole sequence of events that I will explain and substantiate throughout this book, both in this chapter and in later chapters.

THE WHOLE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

1) God imprisons Satan at the cross - AD 33 - The cross occurs and the reign of God and the saints begins – Jesus’ work is done, the essential battle is won and the spiritual hilltops are taken, dead Christians are raised in readiness for the church age, the symbolically quantified ‘1,000 year’ reign of God and the reign of the disembodied dead Christians begins, the main signs of which are absolutely unstoppable: church growth, salvation, peace and joy experienced by living Christians on earth;

2) Satan is hurled down to earth - Satan tries to destroy Jesus in Revelation 12:4 because Jesus was to be the child to rule all nations (v. 5), but Satan is not strong enough to do this and is hurled to earth (v.8) whereupon he can no longer accuse Christians to God, and thus have them condemned by God. However, he can manufacture a great deal of mayhem in this world. Satan’s imprisonment was also implemented to stop him deceiving the nations, so that the persecutions against God’s people would decline. This imprisonment, then, was also when Satan’s power on earth was seen to have declined;

3) Pentecost – The spirit is unleashed; man is changed at the innermost level of his heart;

4) AD70 - the old era ends - With the beginning of the Christian Diaspora Jesus comes in power to gather his elect from the world through the evangelism of living Christians on earth (Matthew 24:30, 31), it is the beginning of the decline of high-magnitude miraculous gifts, Israel loses the Temple System, the gospel has already been preached to all the nations immediately surrounding Israel, and the whole of the New Testament minus John’s books is completely written;

5) The Church is persecuted – Satan turns his attention to the Church (Revelation 12:13) but it is protected by God (v.14-17). Also, he cannot accuse Christians to God (v.10), and thus have them condemned by God, and they overcome him by their testimony and their willingness to die for Christ (v.11). Christians experience a great amount of suffering and death at the hands of the Caesars;

6) Church persecution declines – the worst of the persecution against Christians stops with the conversion of Constantine in AD 313. God physically protects the saints in the Age of Evangelisation.

7) God reigns on earth with the saints for his perfect and complete amount of time;

8) Satan is released – Satan stands on the shore of the sea to call up an ally from the abyss, his home (Revelation 13:1 – ‘And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea’). The dragon, in his determination to annihilate the church, calls to his aid not one but two helpers – the Beast of the Sea and the Beast of the Earth. God allows him do this, and this is the releasing of Satan;

9) God’s physical protection of the saints is withdrawn – now they can be persecuted by an Antichrist because God has freed Satan to deceive people en masse and support the Antichrist;

10) The Antichrist comes at the end of the millennium;

11) The Great Tribulation and final wars of Armageddon occur – At an indeterminate date – Satan gathers the evil forces of the earth for one last titanic battle against God. Satan and his forces lose that battle, the living Jews repent of the error of their ways and convert to Christ en masse;

12) The Jews turn to Christ;

13) The Second Coming resolves these wars - Christ’s Second Coming occurs and he wins the apparently ‘unwinnable’ battle for the Saints on the earth;

14) The judgement occurs;

15) The new earth comes - The earth is transformed into the new earth and the saints live in it with God.

This chapter is titled ‘Portrayals of the Antichrist in the Bible’, and in it I have looked at what that the Antichrist might be like, and what might be happening when he comes. However in doing so, I have always assumed that this Antichrist will be male. Is that assumption accurate?

AFTERWORD - COULD THE ANTICHRIST BE A WOMAN?

Why couldn’t the Antichrist be a woman?

A few years ago, a father I know battled in court to recover his children who had been falsely alienated from him by their mother. Despite the fact that he had done nothing whatsoever wrong but had, in fact, been a good father, he didn’t just lose that battle - he never had any chance whatsoever. The law gave her all the power. Then, I researched and found a similar situation in over 100 countries. It turns out that the best efforts of lobbyists and politicians over the last 40 years has not been able beat the power bias that ‘Mother Nature’ gives women on this one. And, right now, they don’t look like ever doing that.

The same is also true, but in reverse, of the highest positions of power in human societies, those of national leaders. Very few of these are women. Just as few judges, multinational company chief executives and senior ministers are women – despite great efforts to the contrary. ‘But some are’, you might say. Yes, but an antichrist is on a whole other level of power than even a national leader. To be an antichrist is to acquire an incredible amount of power, and, just as I believe that God will never allow technology to enable men to have children, I don’t think that God will allow a woman to have this. I think there are some gender distinctions that God will preserve right to the end of this world.

Please don’t shoot me as the messenger. I am just reading the pattern on this one. And, in God’s defence, he has the wisdom, he has the love and he has the rights that all fully entitle him to do this.

Although I have clarified a lot of biblical prophecy about the Antichrist in this chapter, from the Bible it is still very hard to work out exactly what sort of a person the Antichrist could be, and when he could come. That is what I will start to do in the next chapter.

ENCOURAGEMENT

IN ALL THINGS GOD WORKS FOR THE GOOD OF THOSE WHO LOVE HIM

In all of the descriptions of the ungodly behaviour of the future, for Christians it is important to keep in mind Romans 8:28-30 – ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified’.

One way that God makes all things work for good for Christians is by arranging all of our trials and sufferings, concocted by Satan, such that they develop us to be capable of possessing more peace, more love and more joy. But, God has even more blessings in mind for us than this. By bringing us closer to God, these tests give us something very valuable. In 1 Timothy 6:19, Christians who do their best to sacrifice under God’s testing will ‘lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life’. Thus in this short life, God draws us towards himself so that we may have more of heaven for the great eternal duration of glory.

One such trial is antichrists themselves. Antichrists are not a horrifying invasion of an evil alien force upon an innocent humanity. They are essentially produced by us. Were we not evil, we would never need the trials and testings of antichrists, just as in the opposite way we wouldn’t have needed the blessing of the crucifixion of Christ. They are our evil coming back to us, so we will deal with both this evil and ourselves, that we might be blessed.

Conversely, if God were to leave us alone, and not provoke our spiritual growth towards him, we would soon go astray and suffer. Proverbs 29:15 says, ‘The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother’. And, we are all children of God. That is why we are told not to eschew meeting together but to spur one another on in Hebrews 10:24-25, because those who meet together have their spiritual growth provoked regularly. However, those who permanently cease meeting with other Christians (and with God by reading the Bible) tend to eventually go astray.

Satan’s trials are lovingly arranged for us by God to produce the right areas of growth, at the right times and to precisely the right degrees of difficulty such that they will strengthen us but not crush us. If we see suffering as an opportunity to gain more of God and his goodness, it can become more of a friend than an enemy, more of a promotion than a smiting, more of a profit than a loss.

Hebrews 12:7, 10-11 - ‘Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they though best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest or righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it’.

Remember that suffering is just a loss of comfort, and comfort can be the very thing that causes our downfall if God does not allow it to be taken it away. Also, when he does allow it to be taken away, he does so to clear our table so that there is room for him to give us something good. So, look for the good things God wants to give you. Do not be afraid of experiencing loss at the hands of God.

Also, whereas prophecy plots the future course that history is yet to take, in a sense, the future of every Christian is also written. And this future is one in which God seeks to ‘draw all men to himself’ (John 12:32), including you, for ‘God wants all men to be saved’ (1 Timothy 2:4). We have a God who is both powerful and loving.

His good plans can never be stopped (Isaiah 46:11 – What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.). Jesus’ power is so great that he even rose himself from the dead using God’s authority: John 10:18 – ‘No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father’. Is there, then, anything he cannot accomplish?

God is building the eternal kingdom, and so too inadvertently is the Antichrist – the clown.

And, God’s plans and promises cannot ever be changed, blocked, reversed or threatened by any event of history.

And, they are better than anything we could ever imagine.

So, don’t try to take control of your own life. God writes the narrative of your life, and what a beautiful, glorious and ingenious masterpiece it will be. Watch as he writes, and you will be delighted, fascinated and entertained, like you never were by any story before.

So, pray for all of this, and for God to prepare you, and that you will see the part that he is giving you in His redemptive plan. For prayer is joy, it is the joy of uniting your will with God’s, ultimately guaranteeing nothing but success, because God’s will always succeeds.

IMAGE 2 – ANTIOCHUS IV EPIPHANES

(3) WILL THE ANTICHRIST BE A HUMANIST OR AN ISLAMIST?

WHAT IS HUMANISM?

Humanism is sometimes referred to as Atheistic Humanism. For these purposes, I will simply call it Humanism.

Humanism will shape the enabling environment for every antichrist. It is therefore, impossible to understand an antichrist without first understanding how he interacts with and is empowered by Humanism. But first: What is Humanism?

You only have to watch the news today to form a general idea of what a transparent thing like Islamism is. Terrorists usually clearly declare the intentions behind their attacks as glory and conquest for Allah. However, Humanism is more veiled and complex. There are many different definitions of it. Let me explain mine.

I define Humanism as an ever-present and inexorable reality of human behaviour that has existed since Eden – a spirit. I think of it as the essential human tendency in all of us to trust human reason, power and righteousness over that of God. In short, Humanism is the spiritual and religious force of Satan that entices humans to trust themselves over God.

The essence of Humanism is to believe that there is no god, and that human individuals and societies can successfully negotiate the challenges of life, human survival and fulfilment by working together to use their intelligence combined with their experience. Whereas in fact, all of this is just a clever way for Satan to make people follow him.

Humanism places its confidence in the power of human reason. The key mistake here is to think that human reason can give birth to the kind of ultimate values needed by people. For, without some belief in a higher order of some kind, human life becomes meaningless and loses direction. All humans seek some ultimate truth in answer to the big questions. They want to live in hope rather than in fear. They want life to be more expansive than enclosed in the microcosm of a brittle self, craving power and self esteem.[7] And it has been around since Eve believed Satan in the garden when he urged her to disbelieve God and think for herself.

Today, Humanism is rife in the West. However, before Humanism reached that level of social infusion, it first had to build gradually and steadily over the centuries, as it progressively eroded most people’s belief in the existence of God. Let me trace this journey away from God in the Western philosophical tradition.

PROUD THINKERS

Most empiricist and materialist philosophers do not believe in either spirituality or God, because they cannot connect themselves to them via experience. On the other hand, spiritual Christians advocate that both the Spirit and God reveal to humans all deep knowledge, because people are intrinsically incapable of answering the big questions on their own. However, they are told by empiricists and materialists that they cannot prove these phenomena through sense and experience. Christians then point to Jesus Christ to connect the two worlds of spirit and matter.

The Bible sets out this connection clearly in 1 Corinthians 1:20-24.

In 1 Corinthians 1:20 we see the taunt by Paul – ‘Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?’

In 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, God is described as being much wiser than humans so that the Christian’s wisdom comes by uniting with Him: ‘… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the ‘foolishness’ of God is wiser than man’s wisdom...’. Earlier, in verse 22, Paul prophesied that this wisdom, that comes to people from God, and by uniting with God through Jesus Christ, would prove to be ‘foolishness’ to Gentiles and Greeks in particular (i.e. all those later societies whose cultures are shaped by and obey the tenets of Western Philosophy whose origins are Greek).

It is also stated, in John 1, that this uniting with God to receive wisdom must be accomplished through Jesus Christ. John 1:18 records that, ‘No one has ever seen God, but God the Only Begotten (Jesus), who is at the Father’s side, has made him known’. This establishes that only Jesus can bring to people God’s wisdom, as only Jesus has access to it. Additionally, John 1:14 states that, ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten, who came from the Father full of grace and truth.’ This establishes that Jesus has come down to us to give us God’s wisdom.

1 Corinthians 2:12 goes on to say, ‘We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us’, and in verse 16, ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ’.

However, a belief in Jesus requires a relationship with God, as knowledge and wisdom come through relationship and love, and this requires a miracle of humility in order to counter sinful human pride. Thus, to gain this, a person needs to completely relinquish all proud notions of having goodness, wisdom, power and knowledge of their own, and submit to one who is far above him. It requires the defeat of human pride, the admission that we are sinful, weak and deceived by Satan, and the confession that we have spent our life warring against our creator and spiritual parent, the only entity in the universe that has ever fully and consistently cared for us.

This is extremely difficult to do if it seems that one is running one’s own life with any degree of success. Thus, it is usually done in response to a life trauma, and in the despair caused by trying to live from our own strength. It is done at the rock bottom of the addiction we all have to self-will.

Therefore, in the absence of the above humility, most often, empiricists and materialists find that Jesus insults their pride, and thus they find arguments with which to reject him and to continue in their anti-Christian claims; arguments that are invalid. They are proud thinkers.

Thus, the journey of philosophy moves further and further from God.

THE INTELLECTUAL JOURNEY AWAY FROM GOD

ANCIENT TIMES

This journey begins with the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus (624 BC – 546 BC)[8]. He was the first great philosopher in the western tradition to seek answers from his own reasoning power, and not by any recourse to notions of the divine, to explain natural phenomena. He was the creator of what we call ‘philosophy’ today. Having earlier completed geometry training in Egypt, he argued that thinkers should not ascribe natural phenomenon to the gods, but should understand the world by observing and applying logical reason.

Plato (428-348 BC) was the first great rationalist. He argued that all ideas start in the idealised world and are accessed through reason alone. Therefore, reason is a truer way to knowledge than sensory evidence. He said there are two levels of reality: 1) the visible world, and 2) the world of forms. This is the intelligible world that gives the visible world its being, for example beauty, courage, goodness and temperance. It is unchanging and exists outside of space and time, and thus is more trustworthy for identifying truth than experience is.

One could argue that these two worlds roughly correspond to the material and spiritual worlds, with the world of forms containing the direct revelation of God.

Democritus (460-370 BC) argued that worlds come into being and pass through random collisions of atoms without any guiding intelligence, and consciousness arises from an arrangement of the material stuff out of which everything is composed.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the first great empiricist. He argued that truths are gained from experience and by observation and classification. To process these truths, he invented a method of utilitarian logic called the syllogism.

He stated that, ‘We do not need to give any serious thoughts to mythical insights. On the contrary, we must seek information from those who argue with proofs.’

He argued that there is one level of reality – an unseparated world combining the visible world and the world of forms. Thus he destroyed Plato’s world of forms as a separate and more reliable world. Therefore, abstract thought is not greater, but rather experience, observation and logic are because they are reliable. Logic is therefore the arbiter of all knowledge. We are only a blank slate that waits for experience. Virtue is merely a utilitarian construct. The soul dies with the body.

It could be argued that, by destroying the world of forms as a separate and more reliable world, he set the scene for the eventual destruction of the spiritual world and the sanctity of God, as well as absolutes, in philosophy. It is easy to see how his visible world with forms could eventually become merely the visible world full stop.

THE 700s

By the 8^th century, Arab philosophers occupied Spain. This development spread the philosophies of Aristotle and empiricism to Western Europe. It also resulted in the writings of Aristotle being translated from Greek to Latin. Consequently, although the philosophical tradition had resided under the authority of God for many centuries among Western European philosophers, they now started to deal with topics without recourse to the authority of God. Thus, in the Middle Ages, many philosophers held to a dual truth represented by revealed religion on the one hand and rational knowledge on the other.

There were, however, some philosophers who tried to reinstate God as the supreme arbiter of knowledge.

THE 1200s

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) stated that, ‘For the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act’. He argued that the knowledge found in the scriptures is supernatural revelation. The knowledge found in philosophy is natural revelation. By this, God reveals himself to us through nature, and we process this using human reasoning which is God-given. However, due to the fall, supernatural revelation is far superior and natural revelation is far inferior, thus it should give way in any conflict between the two. He also stated five proof arguments for the existence of God.

THE 1300s

At the start of the 14^th Century, most people believed that everything contained God, and so they perceived God’s presence in all things. God was the centre of life. However, in this century, in large numbers, people started to believe that forms and abstract objects did not exist in any form other than name only – Nominalism. Thus, objects did not contain God, but were separate from God. This separated God from his creation. Now, people tended to study objects as things in themselves, and kept God out of the picture.

THE 1600s

In the 17^th Century, many philosophers tried to uphold and argue for mutual compatibility in these two areas of thought. A popular belief was Deism, the position that recognised God as creator and origin of the world, but not as a being who intervened in the affairs of the world, either through miracles or revelation. Humans occupied a special position in Deism as the operators of the mental and moral spheres, both of which were worlds that were removed from God.

In 1637, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) purported to provide an absolute foundation for knowledge, an unchallengeable assumption to platform all philosophy, with his ‘cogito, ergo sum’ – I think, therefore I am. It marked the beginning of the Enlightenment. Eventually, this argument shifted the basis of truth from a God who reveals himself to a human who can reason for himself. God had revealed himself as ‘I am who I am’. This phrase replaced it with ‘we think therefore we are’. People became the centre of the universe. The foundations of modern Humanism were well and truly being laid.[9]

In 1687, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) published his ‘Principia’ which established a new, more empirical approach to science by basing it firmly on mathematics and using a mathematical method. This new empirical approach to science marked the Enlightenment as a significant movement in human thought, which ended, according to most scholars, in 1789. In later years, this hyper-empirical approach would be transferred to general philosophy and, indeed, general life, where it certain does not belong, and never did nor will.

THE 1700s

However, as the 18^th Century approached, many Enlightenment-era Empiricists argued for the removal of God from philosophy altogether.

David Hume (1711-1776) of Scotland argued that all knowledge comes from experience, with ideas and experience being essentially the same. Therefore, because people cannot experience or gain a direct impression of God, a divine creation or the soul, these things do not exist. Therefore, accounts of alleged miracles cannot provide evidence for the supernatural. Additionally, he argued that Aquinas’ five proofs of the existence of God could not be established by pure reason alone.

Meanwhile, in France, they had their own Enlightenment-era empiricists, the French materialists. They also started from the position of deism, but moved on to materialism.

Baron D’Holbach (1723-1789) was a French materialist philosopher who argued that morality is based on bodily sensations and utilitarian demands. He saw the universe as being nothing more than matter in motion bound by the inexorable natural laws of cause and effect. There is, he wrote ‘no necessity to have recourse to supernatural powers to account for the formation of things’. He saw Christianity as a major obstacle to the spreading of happiness through society because it advocated false self-deprivation. He wrote ‘Man is only unhappy because he misjudges nature’. He also substantially influenced the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was a French materialist philosopher who specifically criticised both the Bible and the Abrahamic God, asserting that religious dogmas interfered with the natural organic development of human passions, and that Christianity was morally harmful for those who believed in it.

Other French materialists of that time included: Voltaire (1694-1778), Julien La Mettrie (1709-1751), Claude Helvetius (1715-1771), Pierre Cabanis (1757-1808) and Jacques-Andre Naigeon (1738-1810). Following them, and from other countries, were the anti-Christian materialists Charles Darwin (1809-1882) from England and Karl Marx (1818-1883) from Germany.

These philosophies started to affect a widespread loss of godliness in both French society and around the world. But perhaps the most significant thinker to directly influence the French Revolution was Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). His book ‘The Social Contract’ (1762) argues that ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains’, asserting that man is not born depraved but that civilisation has twisted man’s condition into one of unhappiness and guilt. He created arguments that contained reasonable propositions (e.g. the requirement of the consent of the governed, and the divine right of the populace to rule in preference to the monarch) and these advocated social equality, democracy, the advancement of human rights for the individual and, in particular, the right to think ‘freely’. The idea being that, at last, people would be liberated from ‘stifling’ religious constraints, to think, say and write much of what they pleased. But, in doing so, he eventually did as much as anyone to convince people that human beings are born good and have no need of a saviour or a God. His statement that ‘Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains’ is a heresy denying the fallen state of man from conception, and from it comes incorrect conclusions about the nature of man, of good and of evil.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

I have already mentioned the term ‘the Enlightenment’ more than once. Let me now look at what this was. Lasting from 1637-1789, it was an ideological movement of ideas concerning human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the sense, and individualistic ideals such as liberty, progress, Marxist ‘tolerance’, fraternity, constitutional government, and the separation of church and state. However, it also involved the attempted contrivance of beneficial outcomes for people and societies via an ideologically-led, satanic manipulation of God’s word. Whereas it did eventually help to procure many benefits for society such as fairer courts, more equal workplaces and an increase in democracy, it also included subtle, yet powerful, falsehoods, discriminations and injustices that appeared as generalised human rights which claimed to embody the purpose of serving the greatest good for the greatest number. However, as I will explain later in more detail, these vague rights actually contained deceptions of Satan and did not result in all the improvements to living conditions that they promised, for example, the rights of freedom of speech and thought were promised then crushed under the Robespierre Jacobins of the French Revolution. Edmund Burke, in particular, argued this point at the time. He was alone in predicting in 1790 that the Enlightenment inspired French Revolution would lead not to liberty, equality and fraternity but to terror, regicide, pillage and conquest.[10] Eventually, he persuaded the English Parliament of that fact, and changed England’s national position on this subject. In his publication ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’, Edmund Burke notes that the abstract basis of such rights ignores the complexities of both human nature and society. Society is more like a living organism than a mathematics theory – it is complex. His point is that it should be the forces and intelligence of God through the existent institutions of wisdom, tradition, religion and social hierarchies, and not the theories of humans, that dictate the running of societies. Why? Because only then will the beneficiaries of human rights be compelled to make choices that are reasonable, decent and reflective of some kind of reciprocal obligation.[11] He wrote: ‘Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions form their fetters’.[12]

AFTER THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Today, as a result of the Enlightenment, many more people trust experience and human reason above faith, and are prepared to base their entire life on this approach. Since the end of the Enlightenment, Satan has accelerated his mission of spreading and advancing Humanism throughout the world. He has done this by using of the pride of humans to deceive them into viewing themselves as a default God, to ever-increasing degrees.

The aftermath of the Enlightenment merely continued as its momentum of change continued unchecked. In the 1800s, philosophy, once again, veered further towards an ungodly direction. The Industrial Revolution began to progressively dissolve the social hierarchies of the family and village. The strongman philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche was directly used by Hitler to try to turn Germany into the super-race. Additionally, the likes of Charles Darwin and Francis Galton provided Hitler with the intellectual support he needed for his racial purification programs, including the Jewish Holocaust.

In the 1900s, the philosophy of Karl Marx, one of a classless society with resources being shared, caused unspeakable horror and misery in communist countries. Additionally, the Sexual Revolution made individual pleasure the new creed, as Freud ushered in a new worldview whereby people were no longer sinners needing to be saved but patients needing a cure, and Darwin reduced souls made in the image of God to mammals and nothing more.

The arguments of many of today’s modern philosophers are errant by virtue of being both incomplete and over-simplified. This is because they cannot fully reason out God and the spiritual world, as they are prohibited from gaining a complete understanding of them due to sin. Consequently, if they have not had this knowledge revealed to them by God, they reason from partial knowledge. Therefore, the longer this philosophy has continued and extended, the more bizarre its conclusions have become.

WHAT IS HUMANISM'S POSITION TODAY?

The International Manifesto of Humanism (2), 1973, states the following:

We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of the supernatural[13].

In short, modern Humanism will continue to seek to promote itself as a creed which is above any notion of spirituality. But it will do much more than that in the future.

WHY IS HUMANISM SO BAD?

Humanism is so bad because it is the direct result of sinful human pride, and human pride is the essence of all human sin.

Some say, due to the Woke movement of today, that the power of reason is declining because it is being superseded by the brute force of the practice of intimidating and silencing intellectual opponents rather than debating them, and thus that the Woke movement is an anti-Enlightenment movement[14]. I disagree. I would argue that, whereas it did much to encourage an attitude of testing theories using reason, ultimately when all is said and done, the Enlightenment was not in fact in its essence a ‘reason movement’ but a ‘sinful pride movement’ right from the start - that it justified its own arrogance in order to attempt to place human’s reason above God’s authority, and that this justification of arrogance was in fact an unreasonable thing to do. Therefore, the contemporary Woke movement simply reflects the sinful pride which was inherent in the Enlightenment movement, and thus represents a continuation of the Enlightenment.

The Bible often refers to this proud spirit of rebellion against God as Babel or Babylon, which are synonymous terms. In the Old Testament, Babel means ‘gateway to God’ and was the location of a ziggurat (literally a stairway to heaven) which reached towards the heavens. However, it was a false gateway to God. The people who put their trust in it are portrayed in Genesis 11:4 as being arrogantly self-absorbed, via the plentiful uses of the pronouns ‘us’, ‘ourselves’ and ‘we’ – ‘Then they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” It is the spirit of social engineering which says, “We know better that God. Let’s radically re-organise society according to our own intelligence”. Every antichrist will embark upon this radical re-organising of society and even life itself, and every one will reap horrendous results.

Pride always leads to idolatry. In the New Testament, the book of Revelation also portrays Babylon as the supreme idolater when it calls it ‘the great mother of [spiritual] prostitutes and the abominations of the earth’ (Revelation 14:8) which ‘made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her [spiritual] adulteries’ (Revelation 17:5). It is this satanic force, wreaked upon human attitudes and behaviours, that has acted upon all people since Eden, whether or not people actually chose to consciously believe in it and attempt to live out its creed. This force tends to ebb and flow in strength throughout human history. As an antichrist rises, takes power and then assumes a zenith of influence, this humanistic force rises throughout humanity in correspondence. Also, when 2 Thessalonians 2:7 says that the secret power of lawlessness is already at work it speaks of this anti-God force that I call Humanism. Moreover, I would assert that people manifest this force to widely varying degrees; some hardly at all, some almost completely. There are also many different mutations of the one humanistic force that may be manifested in human behaviour.

Regardless of any of this, the central truth about Humanism remains: the force behind Humanism is sinful human pride.

THE ANTICHRIST: A HUMANIST NOT AN ISLAMIST

The Antichrist will be a Humanist, not an Islamist, because the pride of Humanism is the most anti-Christian force in the world.

Regarding Islamism, some say that, because it is a spiritual position that hates the Judeo-Christian God, persecutes Christians and vows to expand to the end of the globe, it is this which is the most anti-Christian force in the world. However, I believe it is not.

As I will explain, in Genesis 4 and 16-17, the Bible posits evidence that a proud godless person can do much more evil than a radical Islamist. Therefore, what is much more potentially evil and tyrannical than a religious extremist is a proud and influential Humanist, and that is what 2 Thessalonians 2 has in mind when it talks about the Man of Sin.

The Bible contains much support for this argument. Let’s look at that.

The Bible begins with the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 and then the Fall of Man in Genesis 3. Following that is the story of Adam and Eve’s children, Cain and Abel, in Genesis 4. In that story, Cain killed Abel. As a result, God banished him from the land that he came from, thus separating his descendants from God’s chosen people. Genesis 16 contains a story that is similar to this one. In it, Abram sired one son, Isaac, from his wife Sarai, and another son, Ishmael, from Sarai’s servant Hagar. Due to Ishmael’s sin, his descendants were also separated from God’s chosen people, and they finally settled down in the south, near Egypt. The subsequent lineages of both Cain and Ishmael became two ‘nations’ (people groups) that behaved as counterfeits of the great Israelite nation of God because they imitated them in many respects (e.g. both had the protection of God, and Ishmael was the father of 12 rulers), although they were not the genuine article.

Today, these people groups are Humanism (from Cain) and Islamism (from Ishmael). The Islamic nation of Ishmael was the forerunner of the modern Islamist ‘nation’. Whereas most Muslims are well-meaning people, Islamism, on the other hand, is a violent religio-political ideology that has become the final religious position for many formerly Islamic people. The Humanist nation of Cain has become modern Humanism.

However, I hear you say, the descendants of Cain could not have become the modern people of Humanism because in Genesis 7 the Bible says that some years after Cain a great flood came and killed all of Cain’s descendants. In reply, I would state that both Humanism and Islamism began by being located in specific people groups, but subsequently spread to other people because they are spirits, and spirits spread from person to person. Therefore, the spirit of Islamism began in Ishmael’s line but spread to people in other lines and races. Similarly, Humanism began before the great flood of Noah, so that it became an established spirit on earth and could once more begin infecting souls after the flood when the earth’s people’s multiplied once more. This was suggested when God described their evil with the same phrase he used to describe the evil of the people of Noah’s day: ‘every inclination of their heart is evil’ (Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21). Also, Humanism can be seen to have survived to this day by anyone who looks at modern society.

This notion of the forces of Islamism and Humanism being spirits also explains why the spirit of Islamism began before the birth of the founder of its religion of Islam, Muhammad. This is because Islamism began as a spirit, way before it was ever a religion; a spirit waiting for a religion to clothe it.

I will now explain how this force of Humanism has become much more destructive than Islamism. Below, I will demonstrate this by using some tables to describe these two nations, and by analysing the Bible passages Genesis 16, Genesis 17:20-21 and Genesis 4.

Table 2 – The Islamist and Humanist ‘nations’.

The ‘nation’	Islamist	Humanist
The initiating people	Hagar meaning ‘to haggle’, and Ishmael.	Cain meaning ‘with the help of the Lord’, of which he ironically was the antithesis, and Enoch.
Where it is described in the Bible	Genesis 16 and 17:20-21.	Genesis 4.
The country associated with it in the Bible	Egypt. Sarai was Egyptian, and Egypt regularly persecuted the people of God.	Babylon. Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth (Revelation 17:5).
Its characteristic feature	Submission of Hagar to Sarai, then later false submission to Allah.	Justification by works. Then they said, “Come let us build a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we can make a name for ourselves…” (Genesis 11:4). The Bible describes the earliest city building, of the tower of Babel (Babylon), in terms of self- justification by works, for man to make a name for himself.
The root cause of its evil	Arrogance. When Hagar became pregnant and Sarai her mistress was still barren, Hagar despised Sarai because she regarded herself as superior to her (Genesis 16:4).	Self-pity. Cain’s response to his negative situations was always self-pity: when he was not favoured, when he killed his brother, when he justified this to God, and when he pleaded to God for mercy.
The means of its evil	Hostility. He (Hagar’s son, Ishmael) will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers (Genesis 16:12).	Technical progress that was used for the godless ends of humans. This was the case for Cain’s descendants: (1) Jabal the father of livestock farming (symbolising productivity), (2) Jubal the father of all who play music (symbolising communication technology) and (3) Tubal-Cain who forged tools out of bronze and iron (symbolising the instruments of war) (Genesis 4:20-22).
The ends of its evil	To be a hindrance to Christians. At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the spirit. It is the same now (Galatians 4:29).	Dehumanisation. Lamech was a descendant of Cain. All three of his sons had similar names – (1) Jabal, (2) Jubal and (3) Tubal-Cain which symbolises dehumanisation).
The ‘ism’ that it became	Islamism – It comes from the word Islam which means ‘submission’. Hagar was Sarai’s maidservant (Genesis 16:1) who was kept in false submission by Sarai (Genesis 16: 6) and submission by God (Genesis 16:9). Also, Islamism was shaped to be a false and oppositional version of the people of Judeo-Christianity. Thus, the descriptive language for Ishmael’s fate closely resembles what Israel becomes: And, as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of 12 rulers, and I will make him into a great nation (Genesis 17:20-21).	Humanism – The word Humanism means the belief in placing the activity of humans over God’s love. The building of a city was Cain’s attempt to redeem himself of his wandering state by the activity of his own hands (Genesis 4:17); Cain’s descendent Lamech married two women to try to attain the benefits of God’s primeval blessing by multiplying his wives (Genesis 4: 19) The names of his three sons all refer to man’s activity – (1) Jabal (to bring), (2) Jubal (to carry) and (3) Tubal-Cain (to lead). At the death of Babylon the symbol of all Humanism, Revelation 18:22 records the end of all: (1) millstones (productivity - Jabal), (2) music (communication technology - Jubal), and (3) workman’s trades (instruments of war – Tubal-Cain).
The final extent of its evil	Comparatively less - Islamism is less harmful than Humanism because: (1) it is submission to an authority, and thus limited by rules; and (2) it is characterised by conscious practices which limits its power to do evil.	Comparatively greater - Humanism is more harmful than Islamism because: (1) it is lawlessness and thus not limited by rules; (2) it is characterised by unconscious practices which frees its power to do evil.

Table 3 - Lamech’s Sons

NAME	BIBLICAL DESCRIPTION (GEN 4:20-22)	MEANING OF THE NAME	THE ACTIVITY IT REPRESENTS	WHAT CEASED AT THE DEATH OF BABYLON
JABAL	Father of livestock raising	Productivity	To bring	Millstones
JUBAL	Father of music playing	Communication technology	To carry	Music
TUBAL-CAIN	Forger of tools from metal	Instruments of war	To lead	Workman’s trades

I summarise Islamism and Humanism using Table 4 below.

Table 4 – Islamism and Humanism

	ISLAMISM	HUMANISM
CAUSE	The false raising of self (false superiority)	The false lowering of self (self pity)
IRONIC RESULT	The false lowering of self (false submission to Allah)	The false raising of self (replacing God - pride)

THE ISLAMIST NATION

From the table above, the first nation I will examine is the Islamist nation.

From the passages cited in the table above for Islamism (Genesis 16 and Genesis 17:20-21), it can be seen that the pregnant and arrogant Hagar despised her mistress Sarai because she regarded herself as being superior to her, so Sarai mistreated Hagar, and Hagar left Sarai. However, the angel of the Lord told Hagar to go back to Sarai and to submit to her. Hagar’s child, Ishmael, became a wild donkey of a man whose hand was against everybody including the chosen nation of Israel, the people of God. In Genesis 17:20, God established Ishmael’s nation of descendants as a false Israel – ‘And, as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of 12 rulers, and I will make him into a great nation’. In Galatians, it states that this nation is an eternal enemy of Israel. Even today, extremist Islamists can be seen as a people with a sense of superiority.

Islamism is also an enemy of Christianity. Its relationship to Christianity can be seen in Galatians 4:29, a passage regarding another enemy of Christianity, the Judaisers. It states that ‘At that time the son born in the ordinary way (the slave son) persecuted the son born by the power of the spirit’. It is the same now.

THE HUMANIST NATION

The second nation to examine is the Humanist nation.

In the case of Humanism, Cain responded with self-pity when he was not favoured by God. Thus, he killed his brother, and was then placed in a state of wandering by God. His response was to try to redeem himself from this state by using his own strength to build a city. Then, his descendant Lamech married two women to try to engineer a multiplication of God’s natural blessings by his own activity. To symbolise this works doctrine, his sons had names representing man’s activities, but the names, being almost the same, also represented the dehumanisation that is the result of this works doctrine. This force of Humanism is described in the Bible as Babylon (Babel), ‘the mother of prostitutes and abominations of the earth’ (Revelation 17:5).

The primary characteristic of the force of Humanism is a works doctrine, see Galatians 4. This doctrine was caused by the self-pity of Cain who, when confronted by his crimes, always pleaded self-pity. For example, when the Lord looked upon Abel with favour but not upon Cain in that way, Cain became angry and downcast; then, when the Lord punished Cain for murder, Cain complained that it was more than he could bear and proceeded to portray himself as having been treated unjustly by God. As I will explain later, this self pity is actually a chronic form of pride, and is more prideful than the arrogance of Islamism.

WHICH IS MORE DESTRUCTIVE HUMANISM OR ISLAMISM?

Although some point to Radical Islamism as the most destructive anti-God force in the world, it is not, Humanism is more destructive, and as I have shown this is backed up in the Bible. Why is it worse? I will provide two reasons: lawlessness and unconsciousness.

Humanism is the satanic promise that humanity can take the place of God, the promise that has enthralled pagan humanity down the millennia, and towards which they have unceasingly reached and striven. This is the promise that was given in the Garden of Eden by the serpent (Satan) in Genesis 3:4, just after God had told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or he will definitely die – “You will not definitely die”, the serpent said to the woman, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Interpreting the language of the original text here, to know good and evil, is to determine what is good and what is evil, and thus to have the power of God; and to be like him is to take his place by pushing him out. This is chronic pride, the most destructive force of Satan.

Humanism then uses this pride, this false power of man, directly against God. It does this by presenting the only salvation options, brokenness and submission before God, as shameful and humiliating, thus causing an increase in pride. This, in turn, decreases his humility and the real likelihood of him ever bowing before God. This is a vicious cycle that becomes ever worse and worse. Therefore, if a man worships himself, how will he ever find fault with his ‘god’, human pride? In Humanism, we are our own supreme being. Its symbol is the tower of Babel (“Let us build a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves” [Genesis 11:4]). Humanism binds people by the ego so that they do not even want to see through its deceptions. Thus, it addicts people with great power. As this addiction cycle continues, its obsessed followers try to further justify themselves by their acts and achievements, which become more and more extravagant and complicated.

The power behind Humanism is the illusion of human pride superseding God’s rules, thus it is lawlessness. This obsession and lawlessness result in unlimited destruction at the hands of Humanism. Why? Because, if you are God, what are the limits that restrict your behaviour? There are no limits. Just look at the destructiveness of some of the twentieth century’s worst tyrants. For example, the Great Leap Forward of Mao Zedong resulted in the deaths of up to 50 million people.

In contrast to Humanism, Islamism is merely false submission under Allah (because Hagar submitted to Sarai). Thus, it is submission under a set of known rules. This intrinsically limits the extent of its evil. This weakening of its evil primarily arises because its characteristic of submission to Allah is a form of humility and discipline in itself and forms a partial bulwark against the extremist evil tendencies in Humanism. In fact, generally speaking, any religion is better than none. This is because if a person subscribes to and obeys the tenets of an organised religion they are limited in the evil that they can manifest by the rules, the fellow followers and the social infrastructure of that religion, and thus they cannot commit the most extreme forms of evil, such as the Holocaust of the Jews. Thus, the Antichrist will not operate under the limitation of any laws – hence, he will be the Man of Lawlessness.

I will now list three ways in which the above phenomenon of restriction and lawlessness occurs.

1) In the case of Islamism, it is the tenets of Sharia Law that limit the evil done in the name of this creed. An example of this is the cutting off of a hand in the case of a thief – it limits the punishment to being less than the death sentence. But, even when the death sentence is carried out for adultery and blasphemy, this limits the punishment to being less than an all out attack on the offender’s family or tribe. This is why, when avenging infidels, Islamist attacks tend to be measured and limited in severity.

2) By adhering to their religion and its rules, Islamists concentrate their mental focus on their God, and not on themselves, and this tends to limit the effects of pride.

3) In the case of Humanism however, the rules of this creed are not dictated by any external force, but by the whims of people. Thus, it lacks the consciousness that is required to comprehend, commit to and actually carry out a set of imposed rules which operate as a fixed and unchanging external authority existing above the individual. Lacking this consciousness, it therefore involves a certain level of unconsciousness, and this can result in obsession, exaggeration and even self-defeating actions. Unconsciousness can allow the full force of Satan to be expressed and manifested (e.g. North Korea where people are misinformed by fake news all their lives; or the workaholic who fills his life with work and distractions and is not aware of the harm he does). However, the practice of a religion implies a certain level of consciousness. Thus, Islamists are too conscious to be the agents of the worst evil in the world. This limits their evil in one key way. Their rules are all written down and thus they consciously refer to a restraining authority outside of themselves. This consciousness delimits the force of Satan which is much freer to operate in a climate of unconsciousness.

Thus, as a result of the lesser degree of inherent evil that is contained in Islamism, Satan has restricted Islamists to side tasks that are peripheral to the antichrist’s core business of destroying the church and killing God’s people, such as: committing acts of terrorism to create red herrings so that people do not see antichrists forming; checking the spread of Christianity, and even reversing it by converting people to Islamism and then applying the death penalty if they become Christians; and blocking the Jews from having access to their own Temple Mount. It is ironic that each one of these Islamist side tasks may actually work towards achieving God’s plans of evangelisation for his kingdom by creating hardship, pain and trauma in people which often has the effect of provoking their repentance back to Jesus Christ. Hence, in harshly Isis-controlled parts of the Arab world, there have been many Christian conversions.

THE BABEL PRINCIPLE

In Genesis 11:4 we find the tower of Babel account (“Let us build a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves”. Here, God responded by confusing their language saying, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” (Genesis 11:6). The problem here was the sheer number of people who could be co-opted into a co-operative scheme of evil. In the case of Humanism, this is far more people than for Islamism. I call this ‘the Babel Principle’, and it renders Humanism much more potentially evil than Islamism.

THE SUBSUMPTION PRINCIPLE

As I will demonstrate later in this book, the Humanist movement will eventually subsume every other movement that it can by absorbing many other movements into itself. And, one of these movements that it will absorb will be Islamism. Now, if Humanism will absorb Islamism under its own umbrella and into subservience to its own purposes, I submit that Humanism is a stronger force of evil than Islamism.

NOT THE GREAT DECEPTION

Revelation 20 speaks of Satan instituting a great deception upon the human race. This will be the greatest evil ever known. However, this cannot refer to Islamism, because, as a force for evil, it cannot deceive the world, due to the consciousness of its followers, and their openness with the world about Islamism. People will see it coming. Humanism, however, by rendering its followers unconscious of its powers and agendas, could completely deceive the world. It could perform its evil work on people, while simultaneously rendering them completely unaware of its existence.

ENCOURAGEMENT

GOD’S POWER TRANSCENDS OUR CIRCUMSTANCES

Prophecies of doom often seem to promise physical circumstances of suffering and pain. And, these physical circumstances may indeed manifest. However, there is nothing that a set of physical circumstances can do to lastingly affect one’s spiritual life. This is because one’s physical circumstances and one’s spiritual life are actually mutually exclusive of one another. This argument is presented in Philippians 4:12-13 – ‘I have learned the secret of being content in every situation…I can do [cope with, deal with] everything through him who gives me strength.’ If a Christian really wishes to hold onto and obey God, and receive the peace and joy that comes from that, no circumstance can stop that.

It is good to remember Christ at his crucifixion. Christ hung on the cross, tortured, naked and dying as God withdrew His Spirit from him and placed upon him the sins and pains of all humanity over all of history and all of the future. Christ was without any earthly resource or earthly hope. All he could do was call out to his Father quoting Psalm 22, a cry to God for deliverance. It is history now that, within a short amount of time after that cry, God raised Jesus and, soon after, installed him permanently upon the throne of glory.

If we rely upon the material realm, we are more or less inexorably subject to its dictates. For example, when we give things away we have less. The spiritual realm, however, is a parallel realm of reality operating outside of the material realm. In it, we have a choice as to whether or not we bring spiritual realities into our material lives. When we do, we find that many of the material realm’s ‘immutable’ laws melt away, and God can transcend what seem to be insoluble problems. For example, when we walk in the Spirit, to give is to gain, surrender to God ultimately wins us victory, and instant peace and contentment are attainable even in the midst of the greatest troubles.

Inside us we have the kingdom as a parallel reality of life. This is a realm of no condemnation, but rather, God’s love. We can live through this reality despite our outer circumstances. This is the comfort that God brings us. And we can live in the spirit of Psalm 27:4-6:

‘One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and seek him in this temple. For in the days of trouble He will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.’

And, finally, remember that Jesus has power over everything – ‘All things have been committed to me by my father’ (Matthew 11:27). If your future is in Jesus’ hands, ultimately your spirit is safe.

IMAGE 3 – JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

PART TWO – MY JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY

(4) WHAT WAS MY JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY?

MY JOURNEY

My journey of discovery began when I started to investigate Napoleon and Hitler. In my thinking about Napoleon, I had always felt that he was similar to Hitler, and also that they were different from every other expansionist megalomaniacal tyrant the world has ever seen. Each seemed to be extreme examples of people who fought against the Kingdom of God. Napoleon’s actions resulted in the deaths of 5-7 million people, including both soldiers and civilians.[15] This is a large number of people for the early 1800s. And Hitler forced the world into a war that killed approximately 60 million people and largely extinguished an entire race of people from Europe. And yet, each was protected for a time by an invisible force as they gained unprecedented power and used it single-mindedly and unswervingly, even in the face of defeat.

However, when I conducted this investigation, I was only expecting to find a modest number of similarities between these two. I never could have dreamt that what was originally just a razor-fine vein of curiosity would yield such a gold mine of findings.

In the end, I found 90 unlikely similarities between the two. And, when I did, I felt that a deeper truth may lie silent and potent underneath this unlikely correlation. Could these two extreme examples of antichrists possibly tell us something about the most extreme Antichrist of them all – the final one?

Now, let me go back to the start of my journey of discovery, and let that journey begin.

(5) NAPOLEON AND HITLER COMPARED

NAPOLEON AND HITLER

Observing the seemingly super-human influences of these super-expansionists, it will become clear that only God could have given each one the power and providence that they required to wield such great influence so quickly, and be so indestructible for most of their political careers.

Satan operated in the lives of each one in ways that show deep trends of commonality. Therefore, when I compare them and identify the trends amongst them, I do so regarding the deep features in common to each, not for the superficial details of their personal characteristics or history.

If, one compares Napoleon and Hitler, not purely as politicians, military commanders or even citizens, as nearly every other comparison has done, but in how they acquired and used massive amounts of satanic spirit as evil spiritual titans, if you will, a remarkable resemblance materialises. Whereas many tyrants have a few character points in common, read to the end of this and the next chapter, and I think you will find that Hitler and Napoleon’s commonality goes way beyond this.

90 SIMILARITIES BETWEEN NAPOLEON AND HITLER

I will group 90 similarities between these two into six categories. These will include: (1) the major turning points in the life of each, (2) the major life events and patterns of each life, (3) the character and personality of each, (4) the commonalities in their imitation of Jesus Christ, (5) the mega-conquests, and (6) how they both correspond to the beasts of Daniel. In summary, the first category numbers 7 similarities, the second numbers 52 similarities, the third numbers 9 similarities, the fourth numbers 4 similarities, the fifth numbers 13 similarities, and the sixth numbers 5 similarities making 90 similarities in total. In addition, there are even more similarities listed in Chapter 7.

(1) THE MAJOR TURNING POINTS FOR EACH

Table 5 below lists the seven similar major life turning points for each man. Note the similarities between the major turning points, and the 129 year difference between each similar life event.[16] This 129 year difference shows that each major turning point happened at the same stage in the life of each man.

Table 5 – Napoleon and Hitler

No	Napoleon’s Life	Hitler’s Life	Difference (in years)
1	National revolution – 1789.	National revolution – 1918.	129 years
2	Intensive political rise – 1790-1794.	Intensive political rise – 1919-1924.	129 years
3	Arrest and temporary suspension of activity – 1795.	Arrest and temporary suspension of activity – 1924.	129 years
4	Coronation – 1804.	Became Chancellor – 1933.	129 years
5	Occupied Vienna – 1809.	Occupied Austria – 1938.	129 years
6	Invaded Russia – 1812.	Invaded Russia – 1941.	129 years
7	Unsuccessful battle of Waterloo – 1815.	Unsuccessful invasion of Allies – 1944.	129 years.

(2) THE MAJOR LIFE EVENTS AND PATTERNS OF EACH LIFE

Some similarities of major life events and patterns in their lives include:

8) Both required a previous agitation of the lower classes in order to rise to power (Napoleon a war of revolution, Hitler an economic depression and a soft civil war involving 100 political deaths in 1929 alone);[17]

9) Both rose to power during the time of a new European democratic republic, and became dictators afterwards;

10) Both invaded the majority of Europe through a massive war/series of wars, plus campaigns in North Africa, with the intention of conquering all of Europe. Napoleon pledged that Europe is ‘a rotten old whore whom I shall treat as I please’. Hitler declared his ‘unshakeable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe’, and later claimed that ‘I had to rape it in order to possess it’ (although he never fully possessed it);[18]

11) Both initially allied with the Russians, then fought against them;

12) Both took massive armies to fight for the Russian capital city and prophesied that the campaign would be over in a few weeks, but lost this campaign;

13) Both found that this loss became the turning point that ultimately led to their downfall;

14) Both lost this Russian campaign, in part due to the ineptness of the foreign troops they were forced to use in it;

15) In this loss, both suffered from shortages of supplies and soldiers;

16) Both suffered from underestimating the Russian winter;

17) Both suffered from the implementation of a scorched earth policy by the Russians;

18) Both were defeated by a coalition that included a large contingent of the British;

19) Both were considered 'foreigners' in the nations they ruled - Napoleon was Corsican and Hitler was Austrian;

20) Both rose from ‘nowhere’ to ‘save’ their nation;

21) Both were loners, despising the rest of humanity and being very cynical in their assessment of human nature;

22) Both loathed intellectuals and suppressed freedom of thought using censorship by secret police;

23) Both briefly restored their country’s prosperity and self-confidence, then conquered much of Europe;

24) Both were obsessed gamblers who kept the game going to the end, regardless of the costs to their peoples. Napoleon declared that he ‘cared little about losing the lives of a million men’, and Hitler boasted that he can ‘send the flower of German youth into the hell of war without the slightest pity’. Napoleon threatened to ‘bury the world beneath his ruin’, and Hitler insisted that if the Nazis were defeated they would ‘drag the world down with them, a world in flames’[19];

25) Both navigated the middle road of politics, centrism, towards the end of their reign of power;

26) Both intended to conquer India after Russia;

27) Both instituted massive building programs in their own countries shortly after acceding to power. In time, both completely physically reformed their nations;

28) Both had an artistic bent. Napoleon wrote a gothic novel, and Hitler worked as a drawer. Furthermore, both used this in their leadership approaches;

29) Both came to power by a bloodless political coup where ultimate power was not seized, but a measure of power was elegantly attained giving their rise an air of legitimacy. That political coup then became a military coup. (Interestingly, in Daniel 8:23 it says ‘a master of intrigue will arise’. This was Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a very antichrist-like king. However, he was not the rightful successor to the Seleucid throne. If one researches his rise, it is very similar in its manoeuvring to Hitler and Napoleon.);

30) Both initially shared ultimate national power in their country, however, within weeks, the power cohorts were manoeuvred out of power in favour of a sole dictatorship;

31) Both quashed bona fide religion in favour of state controlled religion – Napoleon describing it as excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet;

32) Both ran police states that suppressed freedom of speech – Napoleon’s enforcement was run by Joseph Fouche, and Hitler’s by Hermann Goering;

33) Both broke and thus nullified a peace treaty with Britain;

34) Both claimed to free their people from the greedy privileged classes;

35) Both, when young, despised their fathers as turncoats who submitted to the powers that bullied their country. Napoleon despised his father Carlo for his support of Louis the XVI. Hitler despised his father Alois for identifying with the empire of the Habsburg monarchy;

36) Both were prevented from realising the dreams of their youth: Napoleon to be a Corsican politician or a fiction writer and Hitler to be an artist. This vacuum in their life allowed Satan to influence them;

37) Both used battle plans that they compared to lightning. Napoleon said that warfare should be like lightning to shock the enemy. Hitler calling his military strategy ‘Blitzkrieg’;

38) Both trusted no one and found it extremely difficult to delegate important tasks and responsibilities. Rather, each trusted himself, believing himself to be invincible. Thus, each continued in hopeless warfare quests, refusing to take advice to pull out;

39) Both loved London and aspired to take it, Napoleon even wanting to live out his final days there. And this affected their later war plans;

40) Both conquered massive amounts of territory in order to spread their ideals to build a new world order that would be ‘best’ for all people;

41) Both lacked genuine consistently applied political convictions, craving order and power. Their political justifications for battles were often mere pretexts;

42) Both were far more adept at work than they were at love, tending to work long hours, sleep short hours and never be content that their ambitions had been fulfilled;

43) Both were militarily brought undone by urban warfare that utilised guerrilla warfare tactics and makeshift weapons – Napoleon in Spain and Hitler in Russia;

44) Both were defeated by peasants, not soldiers;

45) Both were prepared at all times to commit suicide. Napoleon carried poison on his person. Hitler believed that an honourable military suicide demanded that one shoot oneself. Hitler either had to be talked out of suicide or nearly committed suicide after: (1) the Beer Hall Putsch failed in 1923; (2) the death of his niece in 1931; and (3) the disastrous Battle of the Bulge in 1945. Napoleon seriously contemplated suicide in May 1786 due to his early hatred of the French as a result of their oppression of his fellow Corsicans.[20]

46) Both men later actually attempted suicide. Hitler succeeded, Napoleon failed;

47) Both were subjected to an opposition coup in their home country as their armies fell, including having some of their own senior military personnel turn against them for wanting to continue to fight;

48) Both had the records of their rule destroyed as they were invaded;

49) Both amassed the greatest concentration of liquid wealth, valuable assets, intellectual property and power, as well as the greatest number of trained and capable people of anyone in the history of the world so far, and thus the greatest percentage of world power since the height of the Caesars;

50) Both dictated largely fictitious autobiographies that preserved their legacy;

51) Both employed the mass use of gas chambers to liquidate ‘inferior’ peoples. When Napoleon was First Consul, he asked how to eliminate, in as short a time as possible, and with a minimum of cost and personnel hours, the maximum amount of people described as racially inferior. As a result of this he brought into mass use for the first time the gas chamber, calling it an etouffier (choker), and used it on a medium-scale. He was the first man in history to do this. Hitler upgraded it and extended its use to murder on an unprecedented level[21];

52) Both were the only men in history to come anywhere near conquering the enormous Eurasian land mass. Hitler visited the tomb of Napoleon to salute him on his one and only visit to Paris, three days after the fall of France in 1940. He stood in front of it for a long time before he removed his cap in deference and gazing down at his ‘soul mate’. The next day, during his official sightseeing tour of Paris, Hitler again visited Napoleon's tomb to salute him. He then ordered that the tomb be protected with sand bags and wooden floorboards to guard against war damage. He was said later to have described this moment as one of the proudest of his life[22] ;

53) Both were alarmed by foreign military reports that informed them of bad news for their armies, then set out in a great rage to destroy their enemies with catastrophically bad results (see Daniel 11:44 on the antichrist-like Antiochus Epiphanes, and my earlier mention of him). Hitler did this regarding England, and his short-tempered impetuosity and inability to curb his obsession resulted in his losing World War 2[23]. In 1812, Napoleon was told of a Russian plan to attack Warsaw and Danzig in Poland which had been devised because the Russians felt that French foreign policy had excessively restricted their trading options. Napoleon therefore sent a French force to invade Russia. This battle was a disaster, and it marked the beginning of the slide to defeat for Napoleon and his Grande Armee[24];

54) Both sought the conquest of Israel;

55) Both entered politics from a military background;

56) Both were soft on the Islamic leaders of the lands they conquered, compared to their treatment of Jewish and Christian leaders, and preferred to control rather than kill them;

57) Both blamed their military losses on a lack of support from their countrymen;

58) Both resorted to using armies made up largely of boy soldiers towards the end of their military campaign.

59) Both dominated the arts by instigating artistic movements that outlawed other movements that didn’t suit their worldview. This was indicative of their leadership style.

THE CHARACTERS AND PERSONALITIES OF EACH

Additionally, a strong resemblance between the characters and personalities of Napoleon and Hitler can be confirmed by both political and historical research.

60-62. In childhood: both were (1) impatient, impetuous, determined egotists, and (2) emitted spontaneous surges of wrath relying on the effects of abruptness. However, (3) with cold and substantial calculation and passion they realised their own wishes.

63-65. In youth: both were (1) highly talented and possessed excellent memories, and (2) were rejected by ‘respectable’ society. Additionally, (3) despite hardships, their ambitions, as well as the assurance of their own excellence, were rarely dented.

66-68. In adulthood: (1) both had personalities that were magnetic, charming and inspiring. The Mannerheim recording of Hitler’s surprisingly deep normal speaking voice reveals him to be someone who was mesmerising.[25] (2) Both were very much in control of their emotions, they could manipulate the feelings of others with great aplomb and dexterity. To this end, they were very controlling. Their emotional undercurrents of aggression were well hidden by their apparently cool exterior. And (3) each one’s relationships with his father was insufficient, giving their ambitions a lack of restraint. They could be seduced by their own powers and ambitions, and would continue in a foolish or futile gesture, against good advice, to their own destruction.

Politically, each lacked what only a father or father figure can give a boy – genuinely internalised ego boundaries. To try to compensate for this, their mothers excessively fawned over them – Hitler more so than Napoleon. In combination, this gave them both a cold and merciless emotional life and a monarch complex. This also resulted in them lacking a healthy masculine ability to project their own principles onto the world. Consequently, each became the demented ‘wife’ of their country by submitting and acceding to its lowest and most debased character, one dominated by a victim mentality and the need for revenge.

Regarding the maternal gender swap above, interestingly, the German country was referred to as the ‘Fatherland’ by its people. This is significant because in mythology land is feminine; hence, nearly every country refers to its land as the motherland. This points to a mythic displacement in German politics. Very few other countries refer to a ‘fatherland’. One of them is France, according to their national anthem, La Marseillaise. Another is Japan.[26]

I will now continue this list of similarities with more examples.

69. BOTH NAPOLEON AND HITLER REVIVED THE SPIRIT OF THE CAESARS

Both Napoleon and Hitler wanted their empire to have the power and resilience of the Roman Empire. As a result, they styled many of the features of their empires on imperialist precedents. But, there seems to have been more to their imperialistic fervour than that. They seemed to have been almost channelling the Roman emperors as they breathed out the Caesar’s spirit of false gigantism, the spirit of parody of God’s awesome expansiveness, the spirit of Satan.

As I will later detail, Napoleon styled his rule on the Old Regime of the Roman Empire that the French had lived under and admired from 51BC to the late 400s AD. He even went to the lengths of posing for an emperor portrait in a Roman laurel wreath and a sceptre with a Roman Aquila on its peak. He wrote a lengthy commentary on Julius Caesar’s wars in which he compared himself to Caesar many times, and also felt complimented when others made that comparison. Once he even commented that his military success was because “I am of the race that founds empires”, indicating that he considered himself an heir of sorts to the Ancient Romans.

He also employed the Empire Style design movement in architecture, furniture, the decorative arts and the visual arts. This movement was the second phase of the neoclassicism that coincided with the Enlightenment and revived the design elements of classical Roman architecture. It began with Napoleon turning to the opulence of old Imperial Rome and its many treasures, recently rediscovered in the 1700’s, to give Paris a look that was grand, strong, liberated and enlightened. Thus, the Empire Style took its name from the Emperor Napoleon. Napoleon’s employment of this style included such examples as the Arc de Triomphe, the Vendome column and La Madeleine.

However, Hitler went much further down this track of reviving the spirit of the Caesars.

It has already been mentioned that he hand-picked the elite of his security forces to comprise the SS, who were to serve him only, and were directly modelled on the security force of the Caesars called the Praetorian Guard

But, he went much further than this.

Hitler modelled the architecture of his many planned new cities on that of imperial classical Rome (who modelled theirs on classical Greece). He planned to have great cities in every land he conquered, and had already started to clear the required space in the centre of the Warsaw CBD. But the greatest of these would be the planned new capital city of Germany – Germania. The following are some of the elephantine imperial classical Roman features he had planned and, in some cases, actually started to build:

a) A Great Hall – an indoor 180,000 seat capacity people’s dome to be 16 times the size of St Peters dome, with a height of 290 metres. It would be much bigger than any other building in the world. Engineers had to solve the problem of the cloud that would form just under its ceiling from the water vapour breathed out by so many people.

b) Streets that would be 120 metres wide.

c) A Nazi rallying area called ‘The Zeppelin Field’ designed to resemble the Pergamon Theatre of Greece, which was a 10,000 person capacity, 36 metre high theatre. This one would feature a 360 metre wide grandstand and would contain some 200,000 military personnel at once.

d) A Nazi Party meeting centre called ‘Congress Hall’ modelled on the Coliseum of Rome. It would seat 50,000 people indoors and be 70 metres high. It was half-finished by 1939.

e) A sports stadium called Deutsche Stadium that would seat 400,000 people and hold war games modelled on the Coliseum.

f) A series of open-air amphitheatres providing cheap theatre entertainment to the public and featuring a semi-circular stone stage surrounded by stone steps in the style of the classical imperial Greek and Roman theatres.

g) A torch relay based on the Ancient Greek Olympics to feature in the Olympic Games (they actually did this in 1936).

h) Hitler’s Chancellery Building office measuring 400 square metres in area.

i) The Berghof reception hall that was the size of a gymnasium.

j) This reception hall was dominated by a mountain-view window that was the largest piece of glass that had ever been made.

k) In the Nazi headquarters of 1927, The Brown House, Hitler made sure that the backs of the chairs bore the crest of the sovereign eagle that was copied from Ancient Rome.

When Hitler met Mussolini, he was impressed by his bearing and said that he realised that Il Duce was ‘one of the Caesars’.

70. BOTH WERE AFFECTED BY FEMINIST MOVEMENTS

Both of these two hated their father and bonded closely with their mother, in Hitler’s case extremely closely. Napoleon’s father was absent because he chose to live far from home as Corsica’s representative to the court of Louis XVI. As a result, Napoleon formed a particularly close relationship with his mother. Hitler’s father was also largely absent. Consequently, his relationship with his mother was so close that when she died the elderly doctor who had attended to her remarked that he had never ever seen anyone so grief stricken as Adolf in his life.

It is significant that both came to hate their fathers as weaklings and traitors. Napoleon did this because his father identified with the corrupt French monarchy; and Hitler because his father identified with the empire of the old Habsburg monarchy of 1282-1918 from the Austro-Hungarian Empire which collapsed following Germany’s defeat in World War 1. The politics of families suggests that, in a boy’s life, it is general the father who establishes healthy boundaries that restrict his use of power. Such a loss of relationship with the father can result in men who are tyrannical and cruel. It is important for boys to grow up having good relationships with both parents, but particularly their father. It is the father who passes on the essence of authentic masculinity. To make matters worse, both experienced the death of their father at a young age.

To compensate for the loss of their paternal relationship, both Napoleon was very close to his mother and Hitler adored his. However, this extremely close maternal relationship could become one that was dysfunctional. Boys who grow up with excessively fawning, adoring and emotionally dependent mothers can develop a monarchical complex whereby they come to think that the world will adore them similarly.

Many male tyrants down the ages have hated or been alienated from their father, and related dysfunctionally with their mother: Joseph Stalin, Robert Mugabe, Slobodan Milosevic, and many more. Regarding the four evil kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream from the book of Daniel, every one of them was inherited by a son who killed his father.

However, this pattern extends beyond the bounds of the family. In the wider sense of the whole of society, it is interesting to note that a militant upswing in the contemporary feminist movement seemed to be present when both were growing up. The time when Napoleon’s mother was young, the 1750s, was the era of the first significant women’s movement in Europe. The effects of this were still present in society when Napoleon was growing up. The 1890s, the time when Hitler was young, saw the rise of violent suffragette women’s movements where people were bombed and burned. When a boy is already isolated from his father and over-identified with his mother, a militant feminist movement can exacerbate the extent to which he loses touch with his own authentic masculinity. Under today’s influence of Extremist Feminism and the men who enable and empower it, these current times have seen record numbers of boys who have been deliberately alienated from their father figure by hostile mothers.

Compare this to Christ. He had a good relationship with his earthly father and an extraordinary supernatural relationship with his heavenly one who was his guiding force and his strength in everything he did.

71. BOTH SHOWED ‘NO REGARD FOR THE LOVE OF WOMEN’

Interestingly, when it comes to these two men and the women they spent time with, there is yet another similarity. Earlier, I used Daniel 11:36-12:7 to compare the King of the North to the Antichrist in order to further explore the Antichrist. However, I left out Daniel 11:37. This is because that verse has confused theologians for centuries, so it requires its own explanation. It turns out that it is very instructive regarding these two.

Daniel 11:37 reads, ‘He will show no regard…for the one desired by women …’ Some have interpreted ‘the one desired by women’ as the man Tammuz, the one for whom women mourned (Ezekiel 8:14). However, this has never been a convincing interpretation. Interestingly, scholars also note that the words ‘no regard for the one desired by women’ could also be translated as ‘no regard for the love of women’, referring to one who has little respect for healthy, loving male-female relationships.

It is of note that both Napoleon and Hitler seemed to have been incapable of establishing an enduring and deep love for a woman; both starting their significant relationship in that respect with some affection and sex, then becoming much more interested in affairs of state, as well as making sure that they were being seen not to favour one woman over the nation, but to be ‘married’ to their country.

Hitler’s ‘relationship’ with Eva Braun was largely a show. In the Fuehrer Bunker, Hitler and Braun slept in separate bedrooms. The Fuehrer needed to be seen with an Aryan wife, and he paid Eva back for her services in this regard by marrying her just before he died. However, in practice, they were sexually active only up to 1936. After that, he had almost no time for her, according to the account of his valet, Heinz Linge[27]. Rather, Hitler was married to Germany, and the Germans loved him for it. In fact, Hitler was so unsuited to maintaining an intimate relationship with one woman that every woman with whom he was ever romantically involved either attempted or committed suicide.[28] Interestingly, the files of the Viennese police on Hitler, as regards his life in Vienna before 1914, list him as a homosexual[29]. If it is remembered that he tended to persecute those who resembled him (e.g. Jews, religious people and homosexuals), there may be some substance to this description.

Napoleon, as the first in a series of ascending Antichrists, began by having a type of love that represented a social climber’s yearning for the perks of a well-connected woman, Josephine. It was also a love that was beguiled by Josephine’s wantonness, exoticism and emotional unattainability. However, women were not his first priority, so this love didn’t last. He had a low sex drive, with Josephine remarking that his manhood was never a factor in their marriage.[30] Even when he took the mistresses that he was given on his battle tours he only did so because it was expected of a man in his position. In time, therefore, this love was usurped by his naked and ruthless ambition. Because Josephine held a position that was at the centre of Parisian social power and connectedness, he had also courted her because of what she could do for his political aspirations, even insisting that she remain his elegant and stylistic Empress after they separated.

Thus, in 1804, he announced that his mistress was power. His excitement centred on the possibility of conquest[31], and he grew to look down on her because of: her habit of sleeping with her dog that bit his toes; the fact that she was older than him; her badly decaying teeth; his brother Lucien Bonaparte’s reference to her as ‘that old hag’; his mother’s dislike for her; and her inability to give him an heir[32]. He later confessed that he had loved her, but not respected her. In other words, that she had not served his purposes. Eventually, he divorced her to seek a woman who could give him an heir for the sake of France, declaring that it was a womb that he was marrying.[33]

Perhaps the reason for all of this was that the Antichrist must be a man who is intimately connected to Satan and, therefore, not to the world. Hence, he will give himself to the program of the devil in activities such as lies, hatred and murder. He has no genuine passion for sensual and worldly pursuits for their own sake, such as gluttony, drug-altered states of consciousness and sex, because that would connect him to the world and not to Satan.

72. BOTH ROSE AND FELL THE SAME WAY

Both Napoleon and Hitler were first favoured, then opposed and judged by God. Bonaparte eventually ran out of good fortune and was overpowered in his efforts to conquer Eurasia. Hitler seemed to be unlucky when he failed in his endeavours in World War 2. His ‘misfortunes’ included (amongst others): (1) the unlikely event of the A-bomb being invented for the allies by the very same Jewish scientists who had earlier been deported from Germany, but who could not have been identified at the time as being the people who could have won the war for him; (2) the unlikely event of his ally, Japan, striking at the entire US aircraft carrier fleet in Pearl Harbour in an attempt to cripple their navy, only to find that these carriers were almost all on a very rare training drill outside the harbour, and that Japan had dragged the USA into the war; and (3) the unlikely event of the Germans having their unbreakable communication codes broken when the allies invented the modern computer via the insights of Alan Turing, who is still one of the greatest computer geniuses the world has ever seen.

At this point, it is interesting to note that, according to Daniel 7:25, the nature of the rise and fall of the Antichrist forms a pattern. In this verse, the duration of how long God’s people must endure end times persecution is a symbolic time of 1,260 days. This is written as 42 months, and is alternatively expressed as ‘time, times and half a time’. This duration appears to be one year, plus two years, plus half a year, or three and a half years in total. Another way that the Bible expresses this duration is ‘42 months’. However, remember that this is a symbolic, and not a literal, time duration. This duration, in the various forms in which it is expressed in the Bible, is: (1) the time during which the temple was desolated under Antiochus Epiphanes (168-105 B.C.), and (2) the time during which Christians and Jews must endure the Antichrist, according to Daniel 7:25 (and Revelation 11:2) - ‘The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time’.

Whereas this time duration is probably literally accurate for these events, this strange expression is intended to have a symbolic meaning over and above its literal one. What is that meaning? It is explained in Daniel 8:23-24:

‘In the latter part of their (Antiochus Epiphanes’) reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a stern-faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise. He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy the mighty men and the holy people. He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed (defeated), but not by human power.’

Because it has already been demonstrated that Antiochus Epiphanes is an Antichrist-type, this passage can be seen as a good description of the arc of the persecution conducted by the Antichrist. Amongst other things, it describes a tyrant who fiercely opposes the saints for a period (a time), then his power is consolidated and intensified (for times) but who will suddenly be broken (a half a time) by God. This was the experience of both Napoleon and Hitler. Napoleon’s charmed run turned against him when he was captured for the first time and, even when he succeeded in regaining the reigns of the army, it continued to fail him as he lost his final battles. His worm had turned. Hitler’s worm turned in 1941, after which the Second World War was a gradual decline into defeat for the Nazis. In each case, God first established an earthly power, then extended his success and good fortune, then withdrew it.

The beast’s eventual fate will be to be banished to hell for eternity by the Most High, and the saints will possess the kingdom. The fact that God is in control throughout the period of the major Antichrists is established at the start of the passage in Daniel 7:2, where the four sea beasts rise from the sea because it is being churned up by ‘the four winds of heaven’ – God.

It will be the same for the FINAL ANTICHRIST at the end of this world; the forces of evil will have been successful for a long time and Christians will have reached their absolute limit of endurance when the fortunes of the FINAL ANTICHRIST will suddenly collapse so completely that many will come to believe that only God could have orchestrated this. This is the meaning of the symbolic ‘time, times and half a time’ duration of persecution under a major Antichrist. Remember that numbers in prophetic literature are usually symbolic because they must apply across many historical periods, as many prophecies experience more than one fulfilment. Therefore, they should not always be taken literally.

73-85) THE SIMILARITIES IN THEIR IMITATION OF JESUS CHRIST

THE ANTICHRISTS IMITATE THE CHRIST

The fourth category of similarity between Napoleon and Hitler is their imitation of Jesus Christ. Indeed, 2 Thessalonians 2:3 calls the Man of Lawlessness a son, just as the Bible calls Jesus a son, but not a son of salvation – rather, a ‘son of destruction’. The Antichrist parodies Jesus as a son, but his legacy will be the opposite to that of Jesus.

What does this look like?

The 1951 words of the Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen are instructive here:

‘The Antichrist will not be so-called; otherwise he would have no followers … he will come disguised as the great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as a means to lead us to God, but as an end in themselves … He will tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ … He will have one great secret which he will tell no one; he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch … It will have all the notes and characteristics of the church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ’.[34]

I will cite more examples below of what it meant, in practice, for these two tyrants Napoleon and Hitler to imitate Christ.

How did these two Antichrists achieve this parody of Christ? They did it by being filled with the spirit of Satan.

The most substantial powers of both Napoleon and Hitler can be seen to have been spiritual. This is because each rose so quickly out of nowhere to procure a position of such great power, using a fanatical following of masses of people that was clearly prepared by centuries of history to adore them. By March 1940, Hitler had nearly taken the entire world in just seven months of war. He had senior politicians in both England and the USA requesting surrender terms from him. Napoleon also rose with astonishing speed. How could it have come about that these two men had that much ‘good fortune’ in gaining that much power over that many people and assets? Surely such a rise would require at least a hundred years of exact historical preparation. This preparation would take many generations, as it would entail the manipulation of the ordinary folk of their nations to create their adoring public of many millions of fanatical followers who were happy to die for them, not to mention the time it would take to engineer their extraordinary political and military ‘good fortune’ at almost a worldwide level. Only a spiritual principality could ever accomplish something that involved almost the whole world’s people and was so precisely co-ordinated over such a long period of time. How did they parody Jesus? The answer must be spiritual power.

What does this evil spirituality look like on the outside? It looks like a charming Trojan horse through which Satan can express himself with minimal obstructive opposition.

What about the inside? Like any Trojan horse, the inside is quite different to the outside. The essence of each person whom God allows to be a major Antichrist is a tragic figure of no fixed spirituality. He is the possessor of a chameleon spirituality to which he is relatively unconnected, and of which he is mainly unconscious. He can be accurately described as spiritually lost. After all, it is not those with a purpose who are the greatest danger to humanity. It is those without one. It is not those who initially say they will take over the world, but those who have nothing to say about the world who are its greatest threats. This is because an idleness of spiritual orientation (having no conscious spiritual belief) allows Satan great access to the heart, mind, and soul. This empty spirituality affords its owner a chameleon facility that enables such a person to mimic his contemporary national zeitgeist so convincingly that he will seem to be the very personification of his nation’s life and aspirations, whereas he is actually doing the will of Satan.

In Hitler’s case, he left school and travelled to Vienna to become an artist; however he never succeeded in that endeavour, but rather wound up slumming in a welfare hostel for older men as an unemployed vagrant. It was not until the First World War tore him from his sluggard existence that he was forced to become a soldier to survive and, having had the values of violence and aggression imposed upon him by the army, he continued in that vein. His hatred of the Jews was the fashion of the day, and he submitted to having that dominate his thinking, even being mentored to that end by Dietrich Eckart (see later). He allowed himself to be spiritually acted upon, but he never chose a personal spirituality, preferring instead to allow the national zeitgeist and ethos of the times to shape him. According to Professor of Modern European History Neil Gregor, Hitler didn’t so much control his population as articulate that which the crowd already believed.[35] Carl Jung, the eminent psychiatrist, described Hitler as not so much ruling Germany but being Germany. This was because he made audible all the inaudible murmurings of the German soul[36]. This gave him the appearance of having dedicated and sacrificed himself to the welfare, guidance and protection of Germany as her proactive national father, but he really only ever responded to Germany’s subtly changing zeitgeist. Hence, his decision-making style as the dictator of Germany was to surf the waves of public opinion, but not to stand for any moral principles. He was spiritually lost.

In 1932, journalist Dorothy Thompson, the writer of the book ‘I saw Hitler’, interviewed Hitler and described him as formless and faceless, and the exact prototype of the Little Man.[37] One of Hitler’s biographers, Ian Kershaw, described Hitler as a ‘non-person’, and ‘a mediocre man whose personal characteristics could not explain his popular appeal’.[38]

Napoleon did a similar thing to Hitler by allowing himself to be swept up and possessed by the enormously emotional atmosphere created by the French Revolutionaries, the Third Estate (commoners), in their struggle for victory, until he was filled with this spirit. He then proceeded to enlarge France with the foreign conquests that its ever more arrogant populace demanded. He became an instrument of France, and the will of the French people. However, he had no independent ideology of conviction inside himself. Rather, he was an opportunist who exploited the French Revolution to propel himself into supreme power.[39] Napoleon was described as having a thousand personalities or no personality.

This tendency to be led by the people and the zeitgeist of their times, and thus lack strong principals, makes these two expansionists pseudo-leaders. Interestingly, during the First World War, Hitler was not promoted above the rank of corporal because his superiors considered him to be deficient in leadership qualities.[40]

This idle, lost and chameleon spirituality is not to be confused with having a weak spirituality. Rather, these tyrants were servants of a powerful spiritual force that resided outside of themselves - Satan.

I now express this in verse.

The mega-tyrant is a mere arrowhead of a vicious age:

Unfeeling hardness being his ‘virtue’,

Having no direction of his own,

And being driven by that outer force that propels him.

This quality of spiritual emptiness in these two men allowed them to become instruments of Satan. And, as such, Satan shaped the life courses of both Hitler and Napoleon as a parody of the characteristics of Jesus Christ.

WHY DID THEY IMITATE CHRIST?

The first reason why Antichrists imitate Christ is because this is what the Bible says that they will do.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:4, it is stated of the Antichrist that, ‘He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God’. This refers to the fact that the Antichrist will assume the rights of God, not that he will literally reside in the physical temple. In 2 Thessalonians 2:9, it says that, ‘The coming of the lawless one [the Antichrist] will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders’. This verse indicates that the Antichrist will parody Jesus in his person and his actions, as Satan tries to contend his own fake ‘christ’ against God’s genuine article.

However, it may be asked: ‘To what end would Satan parody Christ?’

The reason he does this is because there are only two positions, or opposite poles, of absolute power in the world, the true one and the false, or illusory, one: (1) the Christ, and (2) the person who appropriates the power of Satan to project himself to people as a Christ-like figure. The Antichrist seeks to appropriate to himself absolute power at pole 2 by projecting himself as a Christ-like figure by parodying Christ in every way he can. He doesn’t necessarily do this deliberately, but Satan does drive him to do it. This power allows the Antichrist to induce his followers to follow him instead of God by placing them under the illusion of feeling strong, significant, justified and secure.

Both Napoleon’s and Hitler’s power was an imitation of Christ’s extreme spiritual power, but it was an evil spiritual power.

Let me demonstrate this below providing 13 reasons for this assertion. I will start with Hitler, as this is seen more obviously in him.

HITLER AS A SATANIC PARODY OF JESUS

In the Bible, it says that the Antichrist will parody the Christ. For example, in Revelation 17:8, the beast is described in the following way: ‘he once was, now is not, and yet will come’. This is an imitation of the Bible’s description of Christ from verses such as Revelation 1:4 (‘Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come…’) and Revelation 1:8 (“I am the Alpha and Omega’, says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’). It means that the two beasts who were persecuting the church at the time of John’s vision once lived, then did not, but will manifest later on as the FINAL ANTICHRIST.

Sometimes a parody can result in an outcome that is opposite to the situation that is being parodied. For example, the mass use of the gas chamber, which was employed by both of these tyrants, can be viewed as a parody of the cross, but with opposite results. Both kill the innocent victim agonisingly, whether that victim is Jesus or those who were gassed. Both distribute their effects via a mass-distribution which is egalitarian in that it doesn’t discriminate. However, the cross distributes life to every kind of person, whereas gas chambers distribute death to every kind of person.

One way to see how the Antichrist will parody the Christ is to examine what this looked like when it actually happened in the antichrist-like tyrants who have already lived, Napoleon and Hitler. Hitler, in particular, parodied Christ to a greater extent, as he was further along the ascending series of more and more destructive antichrist-like tyrants that will lead to the final and ultimate Antichrist. Therefore, I will concentrate more on Hitler as a satanic parody of Jesus.

The life of Adolf Hitler was, in many respects, a satanic parody of Jesus. I will now note at least twelve ways in which this occurred.

First, Hitler had an indeterminate paternal line. His father, Alois Hitler, was born in 1837. Alois was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schickelgruber and her unknown mate, who may have been someone from the same neighbourhood or a poor millworker named Johann Georg Hiedler. Johann Hiedler’s brother, Alois’ uncle, eventually persuaded Alois to take and continue their family name, Hiedler. However, when it came time to write the name in the record book it was miss-spelled as ‘Hitler’.[41] (Interestingly, Napoleon Bonaparte’s name was also changed - from the Corsican Napoleone di Buonaparte.) In fact, Hitler’s mother always referred to his father as ‘uncle’.[42] This can be seen to be a parody of the superficial ambiguity of Jesus’ paternal line, whereby the person who stands in as Jesus’ father (Joseph) actually isn’t his father, because Jesus’ mother (Mary) was impregnated by the Holy Spirit.

Second, Hitler came from outside of the country he ruled. Hitler was from Austria. This was similar to Napoleon who was from Corsica. Christ came from outside Israel – he was incarnated by the Holy Spirit and was thus did not originate on earth but was sent from outside of it - heaven. The Bible puts it this way: ‘For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son…’ (John 3:16).

Third, Hitler was passionate about God and God’s followers. This was a quality that he had in common with Jesus. However, unlike Jesus who loved both, Hitler hated both.

He had a fanatical and obsessive determination to kill the Jews, God’s people. Hitler's hatred of the Jews was a type of which no normal person can even conceive, because it went beyond mere hatred as we understand it. His loathing was truly satanic. He believed that the elimination of the Jews, and with them their culture and religion, would leave a vacuum for the ascendance of the demonic powers controlling the Third Reich. This hatred was so intense, that Hitler and his cadre were willing to sacrifice the entire German nation in order to accomplish their ‘Final Solution’.

Furthermore, as soon as he was finished totally annihilating the Jews, Hitler planned to turn on Christians whom he considered to be ‘weak, beggarly and Pauline Jewish!’ Therefore, he stated his objective as ‘tearing up Christianity root and branch’. Other quotes by Hitler about Christianity include: ‘Christianity is the worst thing that ever happened to mankind’, and ‘Bolshevism is the illegitimate child of Christianity. Both are an outgrowth of the Jew’.[43] He agreed with Friedrich Nietzsche, who was repulsed by the practice of Roman Catholic Christianity, ‘after he witnessed his only friend grovelling pitifully down the path of renunciation, decaying and despairing, decadent, helpless and broken, before the Christian Cross’.[44] Interestingly, due to the powerful position of Christianity in society, Hitler tended to be secretive about his intention to destroy it, and planned to delay this mission until after he had conquered the world, and placed it in a stranglehold.

Fourth, Hitler sought to bring about the fulfilment of an ancient national promise and national vision in his own lifetime. This can be seen to be a characteristic of Jesus who ruled over the eternal kingdom in the line of King David that was promised to both David and Israel in 2 Samuel 7:16 – Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.

It was also Hitler’s mission was to build an indestructible ‘kingdom’, which he claimed was destined both by God and history. This was the ancient German vision of the Reich that he sought to fulfil in his own lifetime. Hitler envisioned that, once he had 'cleansed' the earth of sinners and sin, he would institute a Reich (a kingdom) that would last for 1,000 years. He called this kingdom his '1,000 Year Reich'. This period of 1,000 years was what Hitler mistakenly believed would be the length of Jesus' Millennial reign (in Revelation 20), which he tried to counterfeit and usurp. Hitler’s interpretation of the millennium, however, turned out to be a delusion. As I have previously explained, in Revelation, the term ‘1,000 years’ is a symbol of God’s perfect and complete amount of time, and not a literal 1,000 year period.

Fifth, Hitler claimed to have an undeniable sacrificial love for his people. For Germany, he sacrificed many things that ordinary citizens could have: personal safety, a wife, spare time and the right to be weak. He even laid claim to being the truest German who ever lived. This was a parody of Jesus as the truest Jew and the one who was a sacrifice for his people. Unfortunately, in Hitler’s case, this love of Germany was based on an egotistical love of the power of himself.

Sixth, Hitler left an undying legacy. He tried to leave no trace of his death, ordering that his body be completely burned and his bones scattered. Thus, there was little physical evidence with which to prove that Hitler had actually died at the time when the Russians finally reached Hitler’s underground hideaway. Also, he survived over 40 assassination attempts when politically active. These two considerations fuelled a belief among some, and one that is so persistent that it endures to modern times, that Hitler still lives, even though all other evidence insists that he died in 1945. This can be seen to be a parody of Jesus’ resurrection which was described by Peter in Acts 2:24 thus, ‘it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him’. This has resulted in the continuation of groups that idolise and follow Hitler even to this day. With rising anti-Semitism blighting the human race, don’t be surprised if, one day, a strong apologetic for Hitler convinces many in the world.

Seventh, like for Christ, the power behind Hitler’s oration had more of a spiritual origin than a human one. Contemporary observer Carl Zuckmayer reported that Hitler ‘knew how to rouse and carry away those [beer hall] crowds not through arguments which during a rabble rousing speech can never be checked, but through the fanaticism of his performance, the shouting and screaming … above all, however, through the drumming force of repetition in a particular, infectious rhythm’.[45] Max Amann described what made Hitler’s oratory so charismatic: ‘… his eccentric style, his almost pitiable quality, his obvious lack of training, and at the same time his intensity and ecstatic quality’.[46] In fact, the celebrated psychiatrist, Carl Jung, sees the term ‘antichrist’ as pointing to a numinous (godlike) factor which, when clothed in the right symbols, seizes hold of the unaware individual in a startling way, which, in extreme cases, can create a condition almost akin to possession in that person.[47] This antichrist spirit is characterised by activities such as: stirring up crowds, encouraging mass-psychology and influencing followers to commit atrocities.[48] These are not the stylistic qualities of an academic orator arguing with superior logic, they are much more like a tribal witchdoctor drum-beating his subjects into a satanic frenzy by utilizing evil spiritual powers of mesmerisation.

Eighth, like Christ, Hitler studied the Bible in depth and used its concepts and symbolism. He even attended theological college. Hitler believed himself to be a spiritually powerful man. Therefore, he repeatedly used Messianic slogans for his incessant propaganda. He regularly claimed that his programs reflected the ‘Will of God’. For instance, in 1923, he said ‘I must enter Berlin like Christ in the Temple of Jerusalem and wipe out the moneylenders (the Jews)’.[49] However, to him, this ‘God’ was ‘God in nature, God in our own people, in our destiny, in our blood’. Hitler understood that his most potent power was spiritual power; therefore, it is said of his rallies and ceremonies, ‘astonishing quasi-religious rituals ... were enacted every week in Nazi Germany. Hitler, the Nazi Party and the Reich took the place of Christ and the saints in acts of worship ... And the energies they raised, too, were of the order of religious experiences’. Hitler's leadership cadre led the multitudes in singing prayers and chanting oaths of loyalty: ‘So in this solemn hour we pray for blessing on the Oath we take. We thank thee, Fuhrer, that we now have seen thee. Do thou behold us as thine own creation, may our hearts ever beat with thy heart's pulses, our lives find inspiration in thy love ... God bless the Fuhrer in this hour ...’[50]

Ninth, Hitler was intimately involved in the spiritual realm. Generally, for those not familiar with prophecy, Antichrists seem to rise out of nowhere. They rise from humble origins, just like Jesus (Isaiah 53:2). Therefore, their power, often seen from birth, tends to be not social or material but spiritual. This is another way by which they parody Jesus. However, Hitler was not involved in a loving spirituality, but the occult. This could be considered to be a counterfeit of Christ’s intimate involvement with the Spirit of God. This occult power was politically effective in Germany at the time because, as German philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno said, ‘The Nazi power of occultism was rooted, like Fascism, in its appeal to a semi-erudite people driven by the narcissistic wish to prove themselves superior to plain people’.[51]

There is a great deal of writing on the subject of Nazi occultism, but most of it lacks sufficient primary source evidence, and is therefore unreliable. However, the reputable Eric Kurlander, Professor of History at Stetson University, has researched and written the book, ‘Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of The Third Reich’, which proves an undeniable and strong link between Hitler and the occult, as follows.

Kurlander notes that Hitler’s personal library at Berchtesgaden included virtually no books on political theory or philosophy, but numerous books on the occult.[52] In fact, he had dozens of occult books, most with margin annotations, confirming at least an intellectual engagement with Weimar-era occultism. He made extensive notes on ‘German mythology and magic symbols’ in a reference book called ‘Magic: Theory, History and Practice’ by Ernst Schertel, a 170 page soft cover which had been thoroughly read, and whose margin had been repeatedly scored by Hitler, including 36 annotations. Other passages in this book that he marked included: ‘False images are necessary for the recognition of truth’; ‘Satan is the beginning, Seraph is the end’; and ‘The whole materialism and rationalism of our time strikes in the face every deeper sense of reality and facts’.[53]

He is known to have based his political ideology on a delusion called World Ice Theory, which holds that the cosmos is really made of ice, in contrast to the ‘Jewish’ theory of relativity, and that Aryans were created from divine sperm from space giving them racial superiority (a parody of Jesus’ immaculate conception). His minions, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goerring and Heinrich Hess, all based much of their military and tireless para-military work on occult notions such as astrology, relic searching, devil worship, witchcraft, the fabled undersea realm of Atlantis, Nostradamus and Radiesthesia (the notion that objects can be detected using pendulums and rods, and which was used by the Nazis in actual sea battles in the Second World War). These actions had Hitler’s blessing at the start of the war.[54]

A picture of Hitler at least having been influenced by occultism, if not having willingly surrendered to it, further emerges when one adds to the above the following facts. He was known to have been mentored by a member of the occultist Thule society named Dietrich Eckart. Eckart exchanged ideas with Hitler and helped him to establish the eventual theories and beliefs of the Nazi Party.[55] Hitler later dedicated the second volume of Mein Kampf to this man and named a large number of German structures and civic features after him. The latter published a poem which spoke of the German expectation of a saviour/messiah to resurrect Germans from the shame of World War 1 in terms of, ‘The great one, the nameless one whom all can sense but no one saw’, and he regarded Hitler as the ‘German messiah’ who would redeem Germany after its defeat in World War One.[56]

This Thule Society of Dietrich Eckart created the discussion circle that spawned the German Worker’s Party, which in turn became the Nazi party. It then bankrolled the party, and shared with it the following members: Alfred Rosenberg, Heinrich Hess and Hans Frank.[57] The Nazi party also had many beliefs in common with the Thule Society such as Anti-Semitism, the Volkisch movement (a belief in populist, racist nationalism), Ariosophy (a belief in a lost Aryan civilisation), and occultism.[58] This secretive group of occultists, the Thule Society, used the Swastika emblem and believed in the coming of a German messiah to redeem the nation. Karl H. Wiegand, a former Hitler associate, recalled for an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1933, ‘When I first knew Adolf Hitler in Munich, he was in touch with a circle that firmly believed in the portents of the stars. There was much whispering about the coming of another Charlemagne and a new Reich! He was not averse to making use of the forecasts to advance popular faith in himself and his then young movement!’ Indeed, in its early days, the Nazi Party mainly promoted a positive image of itself to Germans through a newspaper called the Volkischer Beobachter – the People’s Observer. This very newspaper was absolutely crucial to the survival and success of the party, and had formerly been the newspaper of none other than the Thule society, with its ongoing editor being none other than … you guessed it, Dietrich Eckart.

The entire Nazi movement is rife with connections to spirituality and the occult. Nazism was like a godless religion which had Hitler as its messiah. Hitler once stated, ‘I must enter Berlin like Christ in the temple of the Jews and scourge out the money lenders’. Hitler portrayed himself as a sleepwalker having been guided by the hands of destiny. He commissioned Leni Riefenstahl to make the film of the 1934 Party Purge in Neuremberg, ‘Triumph of the Will’, wherein Hitler emerges in a plane, as if from the heavens, to unite the faithful masses with their ‘saviour’ in a quasi-religious experience. His book, Mein Kampf, became like a Nazi Bible. It was the holy book of National Socialism that every German was required to own. It sold over 4 million copies in its first four years. His faithful propagandist Joseph Goebbels exclaimed when he first saw him, ‘Who is this man? Half commoner, half God! Truly Christ, or only John the Baptist?’ The same man, as Dominic Selwood once said, ‘elevated Hitler into a godlike figure, a divine presence, and imbued him with a spirituality that he hoped would inspire people on a level that transcended anything that politicians could offer’.[59] He manufactured an image of Hitler as an almost messianic, cult-like figure, their mystical redeeming saviour, and one to which he had an almost mystical devotion. Hitler’s other deputy, Heinrich Himmler, had a strong passion for the occult. He rejected Christianity and embraced new-age pagan mysticism, including astrology, many old legends and myths, and various ‘magical’ artefacts that he believed would create his own religion of Nazism. He created the Ahnenerbe, a Nazi political and pseudo-scientific think tank which spent millions of dollars sending people around the world to try to rationalise various his bizarre beliefs, such as the doctrine that Tibet was once a German colony and that the Buddha was once German. One of the ‘experts’ employed by this department was one Karl Maria Wiligut who said that he himself was descended from Aryan priest-kings and that the German race extended back to 230,000 years BC, when there were giants roaming the earth and there were three suns in the sky. He was later involuntarily committed to an insane asylum from 1924 to 1927.[60] Eventually Hitler put a stop to this sort of occult nonsense, but by then it had well and truly shaped the Nazi movement.

The renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung even pronounced Hitler to be possessed by Satan in the truest sense.

Christians know that it is only required that one dabble in the occult for one to become an instrument for Satan, who is an employer who does not tell his workers who they are working for. Hitler did much more than this.

Tenth, like Christ, Hitler had the quality of being able to hear a spiritual voice and heed its directions for his protection. This was observed is his use of intuition/extra-sensory perception. In his book ‘How To Be A Dictator, Frank Dikuter describes Hitler, after he had ascended into power, thus: ‘From the chancellery and the Berghof, the two power centres of the Third Reich, Hitler set out to pursue the vision he had expressed in Mein Kampf, although he did so more by following his intuition, seizing opportunities when they presented themselves, than by adhering to any definite programme’.[61] This voice of Hitler’s intuition was Satan’s voice. This ability to hear Satan gave Hitler the means to work in sync with Satan’s evil plans. This gave Hitler a shrewdness that was quite superhuman, and made him absolutely un-killable despite over 40 assassination attempts, many of which were near misses. These near misses included such strokes of ‘luck’ as: (1) an altitude bomb failing to explode in a plane in which Hitler was being transported, (2) an unexpected fog causing him to leave a speech early so that a pillar bomb that was situated right near where he would have been standing blew up too late to kill him, (3) a bag containing a bomb being moved at the last minute such that its impact was shielded from Hitler by a thick table division, yet still blew his clothes off him, (4) a well meaning assistant being stopped at the last second from pouring water onto the rising blood in Hitler’s ear which would have caused a deadly infection, and (5) many more examples which remain secret so that we can never know their details but we do know of them.[62] This un-killable quality was a parody of Jesus’ resurrection.

Hitler had a lot of ‘luck’ for one person.

Moreover, he clearly needed it. Hitler was so aware that many would try to kill him that he created an elaborate security protocol which literally encased him. In 1920, the Brown Shirts were formed to protect him. In 1925, he then increased this protection by hand-picking the elite of this force to comprise the SS who were to serve him only, and were directly modelled on the security force of the Caesars called the Praetorian Guard; Hitler saw himself as a modern version of a Caesar. However, even this level of security was not sufficient for him. In 1933, he picked the most elite 120 men from the SS to form the LLSAH, a tight and close personal guard that accompanied him everywhere and tested all his venues for safety in advance of his arrival.[63] And, even all of that was not enough to stop the many desperate assassination attempts he faced. Yet he was not assassinated.

Most ascribed it to luck.

However, Hitler himself did not call it luck. He rightly saw himself as being spiritually protected and, for the time being, invulnerable. He was of the opinion that Providence was protecting him for the great mission for which he had been chosen, to unite Europe around a pure Germanic race. The idea of providence was in all of his early speeches from 1935-1936. An example of a quote from this period is: ‘I go with the certainty of a sleepwalker on the path set for me by providence’.[64] Hitler made statements such as ‘Great men master luck’, and ‘I am an instrument of providence’. [65] In 1945, after over 40 assassination attempts against him had failed, he said ‘I interpret this as providence wishing me to continue my life’s mission as it has been up until now’.[66] Moreover, when Germany finally faced defeat he described it as ‘a decree of providence for the Germans to die, as they were unfit for the task assigned to them’.

Eleventh, like Christ, he consciously sought after spiritual power. Most days, he remained in his bedroom until midday listening to his ‘inner convictions’ and it was from this listening that nearly all of his inspirations emerged. These inspirations later came to form the policies of Germany and its empire, and affected the whole world. But, this habit was meditation upon Satan, and that can be seen from the evil use that he made of these inner convictions in his life.

Influential psychiatrist Carl Jung described him as a truly mystic medicine man, the likes of whom has not been seen in the world since Muhammad, a medicine man and a spiritual vessel[67]. Jung also described his appearance as ‘having the faraway look of a seer’.[68]

This evil spiritual power which propels an Antichrist into power is neglected as an Antichrist factor by many who analyse Antichrists, or ‘expansionist dictators’ as they call them. Many intellectuals believe that it is social intelligence and political cunning that makes an expansionist dictator. In that vein, the famous German Christian activist Dietrich Bonheoffer discounted the possibility of Hitler being the Antichrist because he was too stupid. However, Bonheoffer was assuming that intelligence makes the ultimate villain. He was wrong, and likewise neither has humanity learned the true lesson of Adolph Hitler. That lesson is this: the ultimate villain is the one with a strong spiritual connection to Satan. Evil spirituality beats evil human intelligence because it affords the user direct access to a diabolical power of intelligence that is far greater than human intelligence. This is the essence of a major Antichrist. Indeed, even after the terrible scourge of Hitler, humanity analysed him almost solely in terms of his political shrewdness, whereas the key to his extraordinarily great political power lay in his evil spirituality. This continuing misunderstanding is a serious mistake, because it means that humanity has still failed to properly learn the lessons of that horrific time.

Why do people get this so wrong? The reason is Satan, who deceives people into believing that there is no spiritual world – that even human thought and decisions are materialistic and not spiritual. In Revelation 20:7-9, it says that Satan will be released from prison to: (1) deceive, (2) gather the masses for battle against God’s people, and (3) surround God’s people. This deception has already begun, because most people believe that there is no such thing as an Antichrist. Also, the gathering referred to in that biblical passage is progressively increasing with each new major Antichrist, such that God’s people will one day be surrounded. To some, this will seem to happen with unbelievable suddenness. But we know that it won’t be sudden at all.

Even Christians, who should know better, make this very mistake today when they analyse Hitler. Often, these Christians disbelieve what the Bible says about things like miracles and the operation of spiritual gifts today. They try to turn every single thing, even their own Christian life, into a purely materialistic phenomenon.

Twelfth, as with Christ, his success was manifested by a spiritual source. To see this, one need only look at the speed at which the Nazis almost conquered the entire world. As has been mentioned, in only seven months, from September 1939 to March 1940, they had Britain seeking to talk surrender terms, Senator Joseph Kennedy from the USA seeking to talk compromise terms, and the rest of the world more or less either in or close to subjection. This cannot be achieved using the clever political or military strategy of a mere human being. It can only be achieved via a much greater power from a much greater being – the spiritual power that God allows Satan to use. Later, I explain how Hitler’s ultimate defeat was as fast and as inevitable as his rise had been – a sign that it was masterminded by God.

Correspondingly, it was spiritual power that secured both the lightening victories of Napoleon and the defeats of both of these tyrants, and thus dictated the directions of the two greatest wars for their respective eras: the Napoleonic Wars and World War Two.

Thirteenth, Hitler parodied one of Christ’s missions. One of Christ’s missions is to cleanse humanity. Hitler found an incredibly evil way to do this as he eliminated people from all different sorts of groups that he disapproved of. Christ’s motive is good: to create a loving and functional society, heaven. Hitler’s was to try to create an undefeatable national war machine: Germany.

NAPOLEON AS A SATANIC PARODY OF JESUS

I will now look at Napoleon’s similarity to Jesus using most of the same categories that I used for Hitler. Because I will later demonstrate that there will be four Antichrists who will become more destructive with each successive one, let me suggest here that Napoleon is a lesser Antichrist than Hitler and so manifested less Christlike imitations. However, he still manages to fill most of Hitler’s categories with some degree of an imitation of Christ.

First, his paternal line. In the late 1790’s, Napoleon actually questioned his own paternity. He believed that his true father may have been the governor, Comte de Marboeuf. This man was a gallant and talented soldier whose admiration for Napoleon’s attractive mother had been well known.

Second, his exotic origin. Napoleon was born in Ajaccio in Corsica, not France.

Third, Napoleon was passionate about God and God’s followers. This took the form of despising them. Though anti-Semitism was typical of Napoleon’s time, nonetheless he still conducted a persecution of the Jews that went well beyond what most of the leaders of his time were prepared to embark upon. As I will explain later, despite Napoleon’s public approval of the Jews and even occasional beneficence towards them, privately he described them as ‘the most despicable of men’ and asserted that ‘a very great number of Jewish activities are harmful to our civilisation’. He then employed armies of youths to ‘de-Jew’ the Jews by banning their rituals. He also abolished their lending practices, and dispersed their housing throughout the population in order to convert, intermarry and culturally assimilate them.[69]

Regarding Christians, Napoleon came to power after the Christians of France were severely persecuted in the Great Terror. Whereas it is true that Napoleon discontinued these practices with the 1801 Concordat, which reconciled the revolutionaries and the Catholic Church, he also refused to restore justice or rights to Christians. In fact, he continued to persecute the church. He: (1) refused to return stolen church property, (2) selected the bishops, (3) supervised the church finances, and (4) retained and used the power to redistribute church parishes and bishoprics at his pleasure. All of this saw bishops become much less powerful than they had been, and saw them lose their political voice. Additionally, the priests who had surrendered to the state controlled church model and co-operated with its dictates were mostly disallowed employment by the churches themselves after 1801. All of these reforms were simply logical extensions of the materialist philosophers of the Enlightenment, led by Voltaire.[70] Additionally, Napoleon popularised the new Enlightenment philosophies, which were profoundly anti-Christian, and which eventually resulted in multitudes of people being charmed and tricked into an anti-God lifestyle, and thus not giving their life to Christ. And this will continue into the future. Also, Napoleon is the man who created the State Church that almost every religious persecuting head of state since has since used, and created the institutionalisation of modern atheism, at a state and then a pan-state level, as the major guider of public policy that nearly every state in the West uses today.

Due to the power of religion at the time, however, note the secrecy and subterfuge that Napoleon used with these measures. His public face regarding the Jews was to express public approval of them and to claim to be protecting them. His public stance on Christianity was to allow churches to operate without persecution.

Fourth, his attempt to bring about the fulfilment of an ancient national promise or national vision in his own time. Napoleon styled his rule on the Old Regime of the Roman Empire that the French had lived under and admired from 51BC to the late 400s AD. He even went to the lengths of posing for an emperor portrait in a Roman laurel wreath and a sceptre with a Roman Aquila on its peak. He wrote a lengthy commentary on Julius Caesar’s wars in which he compared himself to Caesar many times, and also felt complimented when others made that comparison.[71] In doing these things, he was implying that the French Empire that he created would have the power and resilience of the Roman Empire. Duke Charles Maurice de Thalleyrand-Perigord once told Napoleon that his dream of a worldwide monarchy was not feasible,.’[72]

Fifth, his undying legacy. As I explain later, Napoleon tried to ensure that he would be an ‘undying Antichrist’ by writing a lengthy memoir that so convinced the world of his beneficial influences that many of his ideas and attitudes from the Enlightenment continue today. Napoleon worked hard on writing his memoir such that it survived through history, and claimed that, ‘There is no immortality but the memory that is left in the minds of men’. Its publication later served to greatly increase his popularity worldwide in absentia, such that a significant percentage of Napoleonic scholars today believe that Napoleon’s overall legacy is one of benefit to humanity.[73]

Sixth, his spiritually charged communication. What Hitler accomplished by his live orations, Napoleon accomplished by letter writing, using the satanically charged, and ego-inflating French Enlightenment victim mentality fervour of his day. He wrote sometimes as many as one hundred letters per day.[74]

Seventh, his use of symbolism. Whereas Hitler used the symbolism of the Bible to promote the Third Reich as a system that was righteous, unifying and all-powerful, Napoleon concentrated more on symbolism that was reminiscent of Roman Emperors, going so far as to actually be crowned the Emperor of France in a ceremony that resembled a Caesarean one, and calling his own son ‘the King of Rome’.

Eighth, his involvement in the spiritual realm. Napoleon was heavily involved in the occult and dabbled in superstition in the form of talismans, omens, phantoms, numbers and dates, lucky stars, and superstitions surrounding his wives.[75]

Ninth, his spiritual awareness. Napoleon’s ‘intuition’ was often used to win battles, and he had an uncanny knack of surviving assassination attempts. He was a man of powerful spirituality, but a satanic one. He would often say that he was aware of his ‘lucky star’ as he proceeded into a battle that he would later win. In 1796, after a successful battle against the Austrians convinced him that he was a man of victory, he stated the following.

‘From that moment I foresaw what might be. Already I felt the earth flee from beneath me as if I were being carried into the sky’.

He continued to feel protected by his ‘lucky star’ until his doom at Waterloo. As he approached the disastrous battle of Waterloo he could feel his star falling. He ‘felt fortune was abandoning him and he no longer had the feeling that he was sure to succeed’.[76]

Tenth, the manifest help he received from spiritual sources. Napoleon’s rise was extremely fast, and his success in his early battles was such that the French Empire grew with astonishing rapidity. As in the case of Hitler, it is hard to attribute this to anything other than a measure of spiritual assistance.

In addition, the much respected psychiatrist Jung described him in the following spiritual terms: ‘His significance is wholly collective and not individual. He represents the resurgence from the depths of the French unconscious of the savage, irrational forces that the Revolution had tried to suppress through the cult of reason’.[77] These savage and irrational forces are Satanism.

Eleventh, Napoleon parodied one of Christ’s missions. One of Christ’s missions is to liberate mankind. He said as much in his very first sermon that is recorded in the Bible. Napoleon, however, used an egotistical and entitled perception of human rights to compile a new Law Code that, while it did improve the general condition of the poor, could never create true spiritual liberty, as Christ can.

86. BOTH DERIVED MUCH OF THEIR POWER FROM A LARGE SOCIAL MOVEMENT THAT PRECEDED THEM.

Napoleon sewed into society and history the values and new rights of the Enlightenment as a social movement. Hitler took the dehumanisingly efficient mechanistic emphasis of the Industrial Revolution to produce a strong and efficient society that brutally eliminated all those who were considered either weak or wastefully inferior.

87. BOTH ‘SENT THEIR SPIRIT’ TO THEIR FOLLOWERS

Another way that both imitated Christ was to ensure that their evil influence endured.

In John 16:7, Jesus was about to go to the cross when he said to his disciples, ‘If I go away, I will send the Spirit to you’. He was reassuring them that they would not be without him, even when he went to where they could not go, God’s right hand side. Rather, he would make sure that a form of himself remained with them. Thus, even today, Jesus continues to influence his followers, even though he cannot be with them physically. Furthermore, this was only possible because Jesus had resurrected from the grave to defeat death so that he could send the Spirit of Life. In a twisted way, a similar thing was also done by Napoleon and Hitler. It is another of the many ways by which Satan attempts to parody Christ through them. However, with men like this, this is done to disseminate the spirit of death. Satan is too proud to apologise or repent. Hence, each tyrant tried to pre-cultivate a positive and strong after-death image in order to continue his evil.

How did this phenomenon manifest with Napoleon and Hitler?

Napoleon accomplished this using deception. Below, I will explain how Napoleon was one of the most effective liars the world has ever known. In one sense, his whole mission was a lie. He was a genius at appearing to act for the benefit of society whilst actually hurting it. However, unlike most lies which are found out, the majority of Napoleon’s lies are still in effect today because so many people still believe them.

The main thing Napoleon did to ensure the continued success of this deception was to write his autobiographical memoir. Even today, the distribution of this document continues to fool learned historians. When released, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies, was treasured by the poor, and was the first introduction to history for generations of French children. In 1833, Napoleon’s statue was re-erected on top of the column in the Place Vendome in Paris. In 1840, the British Government dug up his body so that it could be buried beside the Seine River, as he had wished. His remains then dwelt in a sumptuous tomb under a beautifully lit and magnificent dome which was twenty years in the making and was dedicated to ‘The greatest soldier who ever lived’. And, his ethos spread beyond that to what Lamartine called ‘this Napoleonic religion, this cult of force which is being imposed and infused into the spirit of the nation instead of the true religion of liberty.’ Beyond France, Napoleon was eulogised by many influential people, such as: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, G K Chesterton, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Mussolini, Albert Speer, Barry O’Meara, Walter Scott, Samuel Smiles, Heinrich Heine and Hilaire Belloc.[78] In this way, Napoleon continued to influence his followers, though he could not physically be with them any longer.

Adolf Hitler accomplished this task very differently. Instead of aiming at a post-death image of beneficence, he aimed for one of strength. And, he did this by dramatically casting doubt on the fact that he even died at all. Hitler ordered that, after his suicide, his body was to be burnt and the ashes scattered and bones disposed of, so that no trace of him could be found. This was duly carried out, and thus Hitler seemed to simply disappear, but not to die. All sorts of legends emerged: he had hidden in the tunnel system under Berlin, he had fled to South America, and he was the embodiment of the Phoenix myth so that he would rise from the grave and continue his activities after he died. As a result of all of this, Hitler has had a large and devoted following ever since his death, many of whom harbour a secret devotion to him as the kind of strong leader who is needed by the world today. However, even more troubling is the fact that his brand of far-right wing nationalist fascism has, at times of political unrest, shown itself to hide just below the surface of many otherwise peaceful nations. It is like he has never really gone away.

88. BOTH WERE ‘UNKILLABLE’

A really interesting similarity between these two men is that they seemed to be unkillable, despite many assassination attempts (see earlier in this book). It is interesting because that is exactly what the Bible says that the Antichrist will be.

Revelation 13 and 17 tell us about a general aspect of the Antichrist – he cannot be killed by a hostile human party. As well as having an influential legacy, and thus seeming never to completely die after they physically perish, Antichrists are also very hard to kill when they are alive. The following biblical chapters repeatedly emphasise the following things. First, the Antichrist will recover from a seemingly ‘fatal wound’ (Revelation 13:3). Second, he will be ‘wounded by the sword’, a symbol of God’s judgement against him that manifests as physical attacks upon him (Revelation 13:14). History testifies to the fact that this usually takes the form of assassination attempts, of which Napoleon was subject to more than half a dozen[79] and Hitler was subject to over 40[80]. Finally third, people will be ‘astonished’ because of his healing from this wound (Revelation 17:8). Extraordinarily, the text alludes to these things FIVE TIMES in the space of just four chapters and five verses: Revelation: 13:3, 13:12, 13:14, and 17:8 (which says it twice). Why so many times? Revelation 13:4 is perhaps the clearest on this aspect of the Antichrist: ‘The world is astonished and followed him saying, “Who is like him? Who can make war against him?’ This tells us why this healing is mentioned so many times and what its significance is. After his recovery, many will reason ‘If this can’t kill him what can?’ and decide that he is un-killable, and so they will fear and respect him. Indeed, the Bible seems to say that the Antichrist cannot be killed by people no matter how many try, and that this makes the Antichrist a very formidable character indeed.

It is interesting that this counterfeit power over death that is displayed in Antichrists was offered to Jesus in one of his three temptations in the desert. Because Jesus didn’t succumb to this temptation, or any of the three temptations, the Antichrists could also be considered to display the life that Jesus Christ could have led if he was disobedient to God, but didn’t.

These temptations offered Jesus three things which the devil also offers to the Antichrist. I will quote these offers in a different order from which they appear in the Bible, but in the order in which Antichrists receive them, or think they receive them, as they are Satan’s counterfeit offers, and thus lies. The first offer that Jesus received was the offer of material wealth and the expansion of his power using material wealth: Matthew 4:3 - ‘”If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread”’. The second one was the political power of status and recognition: Matthew 4:8 - ‘the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said “if you will bow down and worship me.”’ The third offer the greatest offer of them all, power over death: Matthew 4:5-6 - ‘Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down.”’ He then promised that Jesus wouldn’t die.

Regarding offer number one, wealth, both Napoleon and Hitler began their missions by increasing the wealth of their countries and embarking on great building programs to expand the power of both their countries and themselves. Regarding offer number two, political power and recognition, they then amassed enormous political power by becoming figures of admiration and adoration to their people. And, as for offer number three, power over death, they finally displayed a type of power over death. However, all of these powers were used for evil, and thus were counterfeit powers. Also, Satan eventually reneged on all of these offers, making them counterfeit offers.

1. THEY WERE BOTH MEGA-CONQUERORS

Both Napoleon and Hitler conquered not only startling amounts of land but, even more significantly, came to control amazing amounts of both wealth and talented people. I call such a conquest a mega-conquest, and these two men are the only mega-conquerors in history to attain one, since the Caesars. Mega-conquests require massive spiritual input by Satan, and thus imply the presence of Antichrists who can be used to focus this evil spiritual power in the times after Satan’s release from prison. So, what are the details of these mega-conquests?

The Roman Empire arrived at its zenith in both 117 AD when it reached its largest geographical size under Emperor Trajan, and about 300 AD when it reached its largest population under Emperor Diocletian. In these times, at their height, the Caesars had more power than anyone who had ever lived. However, since then, Napoleon and Hitler have been the only people to attain this power, and both exceeded it. Both had one quarter of the world’s population under their authority, ruling over 70 million people, including nearly all of Europe[81].

In fact, by conquering some nations and allying with others, Napoleon, and then Hitler, amassed and controlled the greatest concentration of liquid wealth, valuable assets, intellectual property and power, as well as the greatest number of trained and capable people, of anyone in the history of the world. These huge acquisitions, by both the Caesars and these two modern tyrants, are indeed mega-conquests. Here are some of their particulars:

a) By 117 AD, the Roman Empire consisted of 5 million square kilometres[82], and in 25 BC it contained a conquered population of 56 million people.[83]

b) By 1812, Napoleon had conquered the following ten countries (listed according to their modern names): Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland, Malta, Slovenia and Egypt.[84] Additionally, he had allied with these four countries: Denmark, Norway, Prussia (Czechoslovakia) and Austria.[85] Further, it should be mentioned that he partially conquered Russia, making it all the way to Moscow for awhile.[86] This gave the Napoleonic Empire a total land area of 2.1 million square km, and a total population of 44 million people.[87]

c) By 1940, Hitler had conquered 109 million people for a total land area of 823,505 square km.[88]

These figures may seem similar in size to another very large empire, the Mongol Empire of 1270-1309: it covered 4 million square kilometres and contained a conquered population of 110 million people.[89] However, it must be remembered that Napoleon’s and Hitler’s conquered lands were mainly in Western Europe, which contained the greatest concentration of liquid wealth, valuable assets, intellectual property and power, as well as trained and capable people, of any comparable area in the world, even more than the United States. The Mongol Empire only contained a small fraction of this wealth and power, being mainly desert.

The importance of possessing this quantity of power is very significant because a comprehensive level of both power and dominion over that many people can only be achieved with a massive degree of spiritual input by Satan. And this can only happen if it is allowed by God. It is significant because it indicates massive satanic involvement. Satan possessed this extraordinary degree of power at the time of the height of the Caesars, then Satan was chained up and largely disempowered by God for many years. Then, the mega-Conquests of Napoleon and Hitler displayed the evidence that this power had been reissued to Satan – for use in his campaign of four Antichrists.

2. BOTH CORRESPOND TO THE BEASTS OF DANIEL

As I will show later on in this book, both Napoleon and Hitler correspond in many ways to the beasts of Daniel which, in turn, correspond to the ancient empires of Daniel which, in turn correspond back to Napoleon and Hitler, making even more similarities between Napoleon and Hitler. All of this will make the total number of similarities between these two men even more numerous.

So, there it is. I have provided 7 + 52 + 9 + 4 + 13 + 5 = 90 similarities between Napoleon and Hitler. This number of similarities suggests that they may be of the one general type of person – and that this type could be Antichrists. At any rate, I would assert that they are comparable. However, there exists a body of scholarship that disagrees with this assertion. And, I will look at this next chapter.

COINCIDENCE?

To summarise what I have covered so far, the Antichrist will be a fundamentally more evil tyrant than anyone who has come since the Caesars, Napoleon ticks this box (see later). He will be released at some distant time after the Caesars, Napoleon ticks this box. He will be fundamentally more powerful than anyone since the Caesars, Napoleon ticks this box.

Moreover, if we know (1) that Napoleon procured the first mega-conquest since the Caesars, and we also know (2) that he was a fundamentally more evil tyrant than anyone who has come since the Caesars (see later), and we also know (3) that God promised in his word to release Satan at some distant time after the Caesars, and we also know (4) that the release of the Antichrist will correspond with this release of Satan, and we also know (5) that the Antichrist will be a fundamentally more evil tyrant than anyone who has been seen since the Caesars, and we also know that (6) the Antichrist will be fundamentally more powerful than anyone since height of the Caesars, then I ask this: Would it not have to be a monumentally unlikely coincidence for Napoleon not to be a product of this release of Satan, and not to be the Antichrist (or one part thereof)?

It seems to line up.

THE WIDER IMPLICATIONS

The history of Napoleon and Hitler shows patterns of spiritual lostness and possession by Satan, followed by patterns of imitation of Christ and unkillability by people, until they crafted their evil post-death legacy such that it endured. So far, I have argued this pattern using both history and the Bible. Thus, at this point, I am willing to take these patterns and cautiously infer them upon the Antichrists who will follow Napoleon and Hitler, as a theory. Later on I will argue that there will be four Antichrists, so that two more should follow this pair. Thus, I also theorise that these generalities are tentative generalities that will apply to all major Antichrists. However, these two theories need to be tested throughout the rest of this journey of investigation into Antichrists. Will they be upheld, or will they be disproven?

ENCOURAGEMENT

THE POWER OF PRAYER

Maybe your extremist Left Wing Woke children have turned against you. Maybe you’ve been cancelled by Woke activists. Maybe you’ve had your business ruined by them, or even been imprisoned.

Chin up. They haven’t got you. They haven’t done a thing.

The greatest power of Christians isn’t what we do; isn’t what we say – it’s what we pray in the name of Christ.

And they can’t stop you from praying. You can imprison a Christian, beat a Christian, burn a Christian, and he will pray while you do it.

And the force of prayer, the weight of prayer, exerted upon a nation, changes souls and changes the direction of that nation – in God’s way, in God’s good time.

It brings the kingdom to those who will come.

And when that happens, we win and Satan loses.

Do we look like people who will accept defeat? Did Christ accept defeat on the cross when a mere few hours of endurance upon it got him onto the throne of heaven on the right hand side God for all eternity? I cannot fit that into my definition of defeat.

We will not be defeated. We are Christians. We have the prophesied victory. We are already the winners. It’s not ‘if’, but ‘when’ and ‘how’? And we love to sit back and watch God paint those two masterpieces.

I say to those extremist Left Wing Woke activists: “Watch out for me. I am dangerous to you. I will change your country - and there isn’t a thing, there is nothing, there is absolutely not one single thing you can do about it.

I am a Christian, and I pray”.

(6) MORE ABOUT NAPOLEON AND HITLER

There has been much debate among academics as to whether Napoleon and Hitler are indeed genuinely comparable.

THE ARGUMENT THAT NAPOLEON AND HITLER ARE NOT COMPARABLE

Many commentators think they are not comparable. Thierry Lentz wrote an article called ‘Napoleon and Hitler, the improbable comparison’[90] wherein he denied the comparability of these two. Steven Englund contended that Hannah Arendt was right in explicitly repudiating the notion that Napoleon was comparable to Hitler.[91] In 1940, Winston Churchill even went as far as to say ‘I certainly deprecate any comparison between Herr Hitler and Napoleon: I do not wish to insult the dead’.[92] To represent the other side of the argument, Professor Pieter Geyl of the University of Utrecht stated that the resemblances between these two are, ‘too striking’ to avoid a comparison’.[93] Also, Desmond Seward claimed a link between the two when closely compared, stating that each man was an opportunist on a colossal scale united by the demonic process of corruption by power.[94]

The two main points of difference that have been widely regarded to separate these two men is the deadliness and the legacy of each. It is hard to match the deadliness of Hitler’s Holocaust as an act of mass-murder, and Napoleon didn’t. However, Napoleon’s genocidal killing sprees were more shocking than most people realise today. Also, whereas Hitler’s legacy is utterly repulsive, it is believed, on the contrary, that there are many beneficial aspects to Napoleon’s legacy. Lentz points out that his Law Code and his expansion of the Enlightenment was a good thing,[95] and most believe they were good because they widened human rights and access to opportunity, as well as equalising societies. I will explain below how Napoleon‘s legacy is actually much more destructive than many people recognise.

It must be borne in mind that I do not argue that Napoleon was equally as evil as Hitler, just that he was in Hitler’s league as an evil, God-hating man. It is interesting that the book of Revelation describes an ascending cyclical history which would imply that successive Antichrists should generally get more destructive. According to this pattern, it should be noted that it would be logical to expect Hitler to be worse than Napoleon.

And he was. But, Napoleon was also pretty darned bad.

Historian Pieter Geyl compared him to Hitler[96]. Military historian Max Hastings described Napoleon as ‘a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler’[97]. Napoleon scholar Paul Johnson made scathing comments about Napoleon’s legacy. ‘Thanks to the verse of Heine, the most popular of all German lyric poets, the myth of Napoleon, the strong ruler, ‘the man on horseback’, had already found a home in Germany, where the all-powerful state conceived by his old admirer Hegel became the taproot for both Marxist and Nazi totalitarianism. Mussolini, a mountback dictator like Napoleon III, had a Napoleonic streak down to his cult of ancient Rome and his endless colonnades. Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and ‘apprenti sorcier’, was a Bonapartist too, and his relationship with his partner had strange parallels with Vivant Denon’s, to the emperor. No dictator of the tragic twentieth century - from Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong to lesser tyrants like Kim Il Sung, Castro, Peron, Mengistu, Saddam Hussein, Ceausescu, and Gadhafi - was without distinctive echoes of the Napoleonic prototype. He failed to destroy legitimist Europe but rather provoked the Congress of Vienna to refound a legitimism that lasted until the First World War, which itself was total warfare of the type Bonaparte’s methods made possible. From that, a new brand of ideological dictator took Bonaparte’s methods as a model in Russia, Italy, Germany and many other countries. Therefore, the totalitarian state of the twentieth century was the ultimate progeny of the Napoleonic reality and myth. Thus, the evils of Bonapartism - the deification of force and war, the all-powerful centralised state, the use of cultural propaganda to apotheosize the autocrat, and the marshalling of entire peoples in pursuit of ideological power - came to hateful maturity in the twentieth century, the Age of Infamy.’ ‘A new concept of total warfare had been born and along with it grew other institutions: the secret police, large-scale professional espionage, government propaganda machines, the faking of supposedly democratic movements, elections and plebiscites, and large-scale military conscription’.[98] All of these institutions have been used by various regimes for the devil’s purpose of killing the people of God. Thus, in some ways, Napoleon has established the entire platform upon which all of the major Antichrists of the last days will stand.

And, this list of new institutions is, I believe, the primary purpose that Satan had for Napoleon. He was the foundational Antichrist who established many of the practices which later Antichrists would and will use. In addition to these examples, I will also show that he also established the modern mega-conquest, the mass-extermination of the gas chamber, the undying nature of Antichrists, their character template, the Christ parody, and the difficulty of killing them. And, the list goes on. This is another piece of evidence for the argument that Satan was released at the time of Napoleon, because here was a completely new and more potent form of evil suddenly bursting forth to be born in the world. It was radically different from anything that preceded it. Indeed, my previous treatment of Revelation 12 and 13, where Satan called up the beast of the sea, a national leader of unprecedented evil power, and the beast of the earth, a supportive cohort of unprecedented evil organisation, definitely conjures Napoleon and his nation to mind.

And, in another way of looking at it, all of the first three Antichrists are foundational Antichrists for the fourth and FINAL ANTICHRIST, as they will prepare the methods and precedents that will be used by him. Thus, in working up to the FINAL ANTICHRIST, Satan will build on his previous work in a cumulative manner.

In explaining the deadliness of Napoleon and the evil of his legacy, I will provide another four arguments.

(1) Napoleon’s evil is often difficult to see

Napoleon was one of the most prolific and effective liars the world has ever known, such that his public words were very often the opposite of his private words in his letters and diaries. In fact, in order to concretely ascertain what Napoleon really thought about an issue, one almost always has to ferret around in his private writings. In his research, ‘Napoleon’s Bulletins of the Grande Armee’, J. David Markham describes him as a master of spin. In fact, he even promoted subordinates based on how well they could lie.[99] Thus, when he finished his career as a national leader he lied again by writing a singularly false memoir which pitched history decidedly in his favour.

Napoleon’s particular brand of evil is more difficult to see than Hitler’s. Whereas Napoleon will be classed in this document as a Left Wing Antichrist (see later) because he used a particularly evil brand of Left Wing political strategies to ascend to power, Hitler will be classed as a Right Wing one. I will detail later how Left and Right Wing Antichrists are quite different from each other and achieve evil in different ways. Suffice it to say here that, generally speaking, the evil of a Right Wing Antichrist is more obvious, and the evil of a Left Wing one is more subtle and thus durable because it requires spiritual discernment in order to be identified. Therefore, I would argue that some of the evil committed by Napoleon is only really discernible by spirit-filled Christians. This evil takes the form of supplanting God’s wisdom with man’s wisdom in a number of ways, and its influence has lasted until today because secular society cannot discern the evil involved. Examples of this include: the rights movement, the humanistic movement and the state church. Left Wing Antichrists also engage their enemies in periods of war that are longer than for Right Wing ones, and so their brutality is more spread out over time, and thus appears subtler.

If you ask most people today, they would say that Napoleon was a far better person than Hitler, because Hitler killed more people, especially if one takes into account the Jewish Holocaust of World War Two. And, Napoleon was, in fact, a slightly better human being than Hitler. But, he was not far better. He was worse than most realise. This is due to both the subtlety of his evil (as I mention above and below), which was far more subtle than Hitler’s, and the effectiveness of his biography in manufacturing a positive image of him.

(2) Napoleon’s human rights movement, whilst effective, was also very destructive

There is evidence suggesting that Napoleon’s reform program, which largely manifested the philosophy of the Enlightenment into law, was not the liberating and civilising success that many historians say it was, although it produced some benefits such as helping to create a meritocracy in the workplace, install democracy throughout Europe, and reform corrupt law court practices. Therefore, it is not as if these reforms came to nothing, they did a lot of good. However, Satan was allowed full entry in to what was essentially an anti-God process – usurping God’s laws with man’s laws for the functioning of a society. When Satan enters a process he mixes a great deal of harm into it, and this has rendered these reforms every bit as destructive in the long term as they ever will be constructive. I see letting Satan in to the process as being a bit like asking the Mafia to do your house repairs for free. They may repair the house well. However, they may also enlist your dad to work for them, and declare you to be beholden to their wishes in the future. But, when they are repairing your house, they seem to be nice people. So, Napoleon’s evil was charming and subtle.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that a similar thing happened with Hitler. His legacy was by no means all bad. The Nazis advanced humanity in the areas of inventions, manufacturing, and economic growth through national co-operation and productivity. They were an impressive industrial powerhouse that was intended for the building of a strong and pure society that eliminated weakness and waste. And, just as the French reforms of liberty came from the so-called ‘liberty’ movement, the Enlightenment, so did Hitler’s impressive industrialisation of an entire society come from a social movement that preceded it. It was a movement of strength by the eliminating weakness and waste, the Industrial Revolution of 1760-1850. This very Revolution produced the European arms build-up that threatened Germany, which then precipitated World War 1, which started the period of German aggression that culminated in Hitler. And, like the Enlightenment, it was also a period of declining godliness. In the new mechanised reality, there was a widespread rise of human ego, and a loss of meaning and hope, leading to God being put aside by more and more people in favour of a largely man-made universe. The ultimate result was Hitler - the king of mechanised death.

Below I sequence an argument asserting that the rights movement inspired by the Enlightenment was, spiritually speaking, a satanic power grab, much of which I will elaborate upon later in this book:

1) First, in response to Napoleon’s reforms, British thinker Edmund Burke established that ‘rights’, handed out in their abstract form, are little more than the attempted overpowering of God in society by man (see below);

2) Thus, these ‘rights’ targeted ways by which man tried to usurp God’s righteousness and wisdom, and this will always prove to be a destructive tour de force;

3) Thus, the ‘rights’ inspired by the Enlightenment did not ultimately represent freedom of thought but prevalence of satanic force;

4) Therefore, in the long run, the ‘rights’ inspired by the Enlightenment will enable much of the destruction to be wrought by future Antichrists who will consummate its ultimate evil as the Enlightenment movement finally flowers into the poisonous Belladonna that Satan always planned it to be.

Let me consider number one and number two regarding Napoleon’s notion of abstract human rights. This matter was considered by British thinker Edmund Burke. At a time when the British Parliament was overwhelmingly in favour of Napoleon’s reform movement, Burke argued that it would lead to war and chaos. As his predictions were progressively fulfilled, Parliament gradually swung Burke’s way, and he was eventually able to persuade it to completely reverse its position on Napoleon, and to fight against him.

According to Edmund Burke, the problem with Napoleon’s social reforms is that genuine rights do not exist in the abstract, but in context – in the context of God, history and society. In that context, rights exist at the cost of reciprocal obligation. And, it is only in the interchange of mutual obligations that rights can deliver real benefits to people.[100] He commented that, ‘Whatever each man can separately do without trespassing on others, he has a right to do for himself’. He argued that people have rights but also duties; and these duties are not voluntary. People cannot overthrow a morality derived from God.[101] This is because, if they did, the notion of abstract human rights would endow its beneficiaries with pure unfettered choice – choice beyond reasonableness, choice beyond any sense of obligation to God, and choice beyond any accepted standard of human decency.[102]

Politically speaking, an abstract human right, being a theoretical construct, has a much more seductive appeal than a right based on mutual obligations, as it requires no humility, sense of duty or reciprocal sacrifice. It is pure, unfettered entitlement. And, it is a subtle evil that is difficult to identify as evil, because it sounds like it upholds human freedom and wellbeing. It is no surprise then to find that this notion has a destructive history. Beyond Napoleon, it has shaped extremist left wing political thought to the point where it is now damaging Western society in a maelstrom of victim-rage and violent reformist aggression.

Additionally, these rights represented ways by which man tried to usurp God’s righteousness and wisdom. Let’s take the problem of man’s righteousness first. Burke’s opposition to the French Revolution was that it sought to transform the world based upon a utopian assumption that society could be designed and rebuilt from scratch, requiring only well-meaning individuals and reason. The problem was that they forgot about the intrinsically flawed and treacherous quality of human nature. This kind of progressive radicalism is always a temperamental conceit and a narcissism of the intellect.[103]

Now I wish to look at the issue of man’s wisdom. Burke argues that societies and their institutions are complex; far beyond the understanding of even the most intelligent individuals. Therefore, the only sure way to build good institutions is over time, by using the wisdom of generations – and this is inspired by God.[104] In his famous writing ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’, he argued that ‘The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest complexity; and therefore no simple disposition of power can be suitable to man’s nature or the quality of his affairs’. He regarded it as a conceit to try to define, in statutory enactment, the whole of natural law. He argued that vainglorious man, as a guide equipped with a map compiled from his own abstractions, would lead society to destruction. And, he implored his readers to remember that God is the guide, not the follower.[105] In Burke’s opinion, society and human nature should be handled like a living organism that is limitlessly complex. He disagreed with Thomas Hobbes who argued that politics is reducible to a deductive system akin to mathematics. And he concluded that the rights asserted by both the French Revolution and Napoleon, which were founded on such abstract notions as liberty and the rights of man, could easily be abused to justify tyranny.[106]

God apportions different rights to different people in different situations in life. When he does this he nuances them, positions them at the right moment in time, and allows them to exist for the right amount of time. In doing this, God is acting with a mind that is far superior to ours. The best that human beings can do is to take a guess as to what rights to give to whom, slap them on using a one size fits all method, and watch poor consequences flow. We cannot succeed when we play God. We must base our legal systems on his instructions, and try to obey him in our lives’ affairs after that. It is ultimately faith in God that ensures true human rights.

However, with religious faith on a sharp decline, the abstract package of rights promised by Napoleon’s rule, with its unbounded promises of liberty and power, were actually a seductive form of redemption politics. This is when the aspirational hope and security of religious faith, absent from society but still much needed, is transplanted into politics – an area where it doesn’t belong. And, this is always catastrophic. Rather than producing a future paradise of eternal prosperity, it killed tens of millions of innocent people.[107]

In the end, Napoleon’s effects as a leader weren’t as much to protect people with rights, as to plunder them with brutality.

(3) Napoleon’s brutality

Napoleon is the man who oversaw the invention of the prototype of the gas chamber that Hitler used, created the State Church that almost every head of state religious persecutor since him has used, and created the institutionalisation of modern atheism at a state and then a pan-state level as the major guider of public policy that most states in the world use today. Additionally, his expansionist crusades killed a very large number of people from both his army and the enemy’s and, in true Antichrist style, many, more people than he needed to kill. Charles Esdaile estimates that Napoleon’s total casualties in soldiers and civilians were 5-7 million between 1803 and 1815.[108] However, even more troubling than the number of Napoleon’s casualties was the manner in which many died. It seems that every place at which Napoleon’s armies fought witnessed horrific, large-scale barbarity. I will now detail this from the historical record.

Warning: the following paragraphs will contain explicit accounts of violence.

According to Claude Ribbe’s book, ‘Napoleon’s Crimes: A Blueprint for Hitler’, in Haiti, Napoleon encountered a large black population of coffee and sugar producing slaves that he deemed to be his. If the slaves were fractious, they were roasted over slow fires, or filled with gunpowder and blown to pieces. In 1802, a vast programme of ethnic cleansing was put in place. Napoleon commanded the killing of as many blacks in Haiti as possible, to be replaced by new, more docile slaves from Africa. The French troops were under orders to kill all blacks over the age of 12. However, younger children were also killed; stabbed to death, or put in sandbags and dropped into the sea. According to contemporary accounts, the French used dogs to rip black prisoners to pieces before a crowd at an amphitheatre. On Napoleon's orders, sulphur was extracted from Haitian volcanoes and burned to produce poisonous sulphur dioxide, which was then used to gas black Haitians in the holds of ships - more than 100,000 of them, according to the records. The use of these primitive gas chambers was confirmed by contemporaries. Antoine Metral, who in 1825 published his history of the French expedition to Haiti, writes of piles of dead bodies everywhere, stacked in charnel-houses. Metral reported that they varied the methods of execution: at times, pulling heads off; sometimes a ball and chain was put at the feet to allow drowning; sometimes they were gassed in the ships by sulphur. When the cover of night was used to hide these outrages, those walking along the river could hear the noisy monotone of dead bodies being dropped into the sea. A contemporary historian, who sailed with the deadly expedition, wrote: 'We invented a type of ship where victims of both sexes were piled up, one against the other, suffocated by sulphur.' These were prison ships with gas chambers called etouffiers, or 'chokers', which asphyxiated the blacks, causing them terrible suffering. Even at the time, there were French naval officers who were appalled at this savagery, claiming they would rather have braved a court martial than to have forgotten the laws of humanity. But from Emperor Napoleon’s point of view, gassing was a way of cutting costs. Ships continued to transport prisoners out to sea to drown them, but the problem was that corpses kept being washed up on beaches or became tangled in ships' hulls. In Ribbe's words, Napoleon, then First Consul, was the man who, for the first time in history, 'asked himself rationally the question how to eliminate, in as short a time as possible, and with a minimum of cost and personnel, a maximum number of people described as scientifically inferior'.

Despite all of this, the Haitians were able to show courage and fought to the death for independence, which they finally declared in 1804.

In Guadeloupe, another black slave island, Napoleon acted to put down a slave revolt. He proclaimed that being hung was not enough for the crimes they have committed, and that it was necessary to cut them down alive and let them expire on the wheel. Therefore, prisoners were bound to a cart wheel before having their arms and legs smashed with cudgels. Later he announced that the jails were already full, and that it was necessary to empty them as quickly as possible. In this he was successful, hanging, garrotting and burning the rebels, and breaking their limbs on the wheel. His senior officer, Lacrosse, developed possibly the most fiendish instrument of slow execution ever created. The prisoner was thrust into a tiny cage and had a razor-sharp blade suspended between his legs. In front of him was a bottle of water and bread, neither of which he could reach. He was stood up in stirrups, which kept him just above the blade, but if he fell asleep or his legs tired, he was sliced by the blade. According to Ribbe, because it was neither fast nor economical, it is hard to deny that it wasn’t pure sadism. After four months in Guadeloupe, the French lost patience with the islanders, and the ferocity of their repression reached new heights. Blacks with short hair were shot out of hand, since the expeditionary force considered short hair to be a sign of rebellion. Orders were given to administer the type of execution that should set a terrifying example. The soldiers were encouraged to cut open insurgents, to strangle and to burn them. French officers spoke proudly of creating torture islands. Napoleon’s aim was to leave no children over the age of 12.

Napoleon also used his own army like cannon fodder. His retreat from Moscow in 1812 squandered the lives and courage of 450,000 soldiers of the Grande Armee; many of them were found frozen to death while embracing each other to conserve a last flicker of warmth, in what was one of the bitterest winters in living memory.

In Syria, in the war between France and the Ottoman Empire (most of which is now located in modern-day Turkey), Napoleon led the siege of the ancient walled city of Jaffa, whose harbour he needed as a vital shelter for his fleet. The city fell on the fourth day, whereupon Napoleon's troops ran amok through the town, slaughtering Christians, Jews and Muslims indiscriminately. To escape the slaughter, part of the garrison locked themselves in a large stronghold tower. Napoleon sent his officers, who negotiated their surrender and marched them back to the French camp. Rations were short, so Napoleon now decided that he had been too magnanimous. For three days he restrained the 4,000 mostly Turkish prisoners with their arms tied behind their backs; then, the massacre began. Somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 men were slaughtered there and then, either by shooting them or by running them through with bayonets. Shortly afterwards a plague broke out, decimating the troops on both sides. Napoleon led his general staff on a tour of the plague-infested hospitals. He suggested to the doctors that seriously ill French troops who could not be evacuated should be given a fatal dose of the opiate laudanum. The doctors forced him to back down.

Acre was a city constructed on a peninsula and therefore impregnable, given that the British controlled the seas there at the time. There, Napoleon launched seven major assaults; each one failed. Marching back to Cairo, Napoleon left behind 2,200 of his troops who were dead and 2,300 who were more seriously ill or wounded. As far as Napoleon was concerned, these wounded soldiers were already dead men. When he left them behind, he knew that the Turks would cut off their heads as soon as his army vacated the area. They did their best to follow his retreat, crying out not to be abandoned. They straggled along, their throats parched in the debilitating heat, which reduced their cries to a croak. Injured officers were thrown from their stretchers and left to die in the sand dunes. Soldiers were abandoned in the cornfields, which were still smouldering in the devastation of the crops and villages ordered by Napoleon. In all, some 5,000 Frenchmen lost their lives.[109]

He called the more than 20,000 French who died at the battle of Eylau ‘small change’.[110] He bragged that ‘A man like me cares little about losing the lives of a million men’. He conscripted fifteen year olds into his army in 1815. And, he promised to ‘bury the world beneath my ruin’, as he began to decline in military success.[111]

These are just a few examples of Napoleon’s brutality. In them, a certain commonality with the attitudes of Hitler can be observed.

(4) Religion and the State Church

Possibly the most destructive of Napoleon’s reforms, over the long term, were his religious ones. Consider Napoleon’s creation of the state church. This ‘church’ was mandated by Napoleon to contain the zeal and effect of Christians in his empire without having to kill them all. For atheists today, it still seems eminently reasonable for national governments to require Christians to make sure that their spiritual activities are consistent with the aims of their state, and to give them a compromised watered down church as the only one within which they can worship God. Such churches often feature as their authority holy trinities which are headed by the national leader of that country, and delete, from the altered Bibles which the state distributes, any notion of the real power of God. Also, this mechanism has since featured in nearly every state that has persecuted Christians, and has been an effective measure to that end. It continues to this day, and will cause countless incidents of persecution to occur in the future. Therefore, its destructiveness in the past and into the future is so great as to be virtually incalculable.

Additionally, the fact that Napoleon popularised the new Enlightenment philosophies, which are profoundly anti-Christian, has eventually resulted in multitudes of people being charmed and tricked into an anti-God lifestyle and not giving their life to Christ. And, this will continue into the future. How can one calculate the cost of this deception?

COINCIDENCE?

Thus, I hope I have demonstrated that Napoleon cannot be considered to be incomparable with Hitler on the basis that he was too righteous a man. In fact, I believe that I have demonstrated an astounding amount of similarity between these two men as potential Antichrists, such that the low likelihood of this being mere coincidence is prohibitive. I will present more similarities in the rest of this book.

AFTERWORD: OTHER PREDICTIONS OF NAPOLEON AS ANTICHRIST

As I close this chapter, it is pertinent to note just how much contemporary thought and sentiment existed to support the notion that Napoleon was the Antichrist. Napoleon was predicted as being the Antichrist by others. The implied start date here is the date of Napoleon’s ascension to power in 1799. However, sometimes this start date was cited as another date that is very similar to that in its historical significance, 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution. For example, in the year 1414, senior Catholic Cardinal Pierre D’Ailly (1356-1420) predicted the arrival of the Antichrist in 1789 using the work of a 9^th century Arab prophet named Albumasar. He wrote to the Pope of his discovery. Of course, these kinds of predictions have no real authority compared to biblical prophecy, but it is of interest that they were made by so many people.

Even at the time of Napoleon’s military activity, it was believed by many around the world that he closely corresponded to the spiritual Antichrist figure of the biblical book of Revelation. In the USA, many pastors wrote pamphlets on the possibility of Napoleon being the Antichrist, and some of these are listed as follows:

1) Anonymous Author (1809), ‘The Identity of Napoleon and the Antichrist’. This pamphlet claimed: that Napoleon was the beast rising out of the sea (Revelation 13:1); that he was arrogant and boastful exalting himself over God; that he gained power over [virtually] all tongues (Revelation 13:7); that the mark of the beast on the forehead or right hand (Revelation 13:16) was considered to be the chockades [cocardes], the distinguishing marks on the French military hats that indicated status; that the mark which allowed trading (Revelation 13:17) was the French tricolour, without which it was very difficult to trade, by order of Napoleon; and that, by translating Napoleon’s name into different languages, it could be rendered Le Roi Impie Napoleon or L’Emporeur Napoloene, the letters of which add up to 666 (Revelation 13:18) using numerological addition.

2) The Reverand Will C Davis (1811), ‘The Millennium, or a Short sketch on the Rise and Fall of the Antichrist’. Davis asserted: that Napoleon rose rapidly; that he killed many; that he spread libertarian ideas under the guise of doing good, but which were actually anti-Christian, destructive and evil; that he usurped Catholic Rome and despised the Pope; that he rose from the Mediterranean (Revelation 13:1); that he rose from the abyss, which is the domain of the beast (Revelation 9:11); and that his name could be rendered Ne Appolyon (Born to Destroy) (Revelation 9:11).

3) Elijah Parish (1811). ‘A Sermon Preached at Byfield on the Annual Fast’.

4) Ethan Smith (1814), ‘A Dissertation on the Prophecies Relevant to the Antichrist and the Last Times’.

5) There were also some commentators in England who wrote similar tracts. Hester Piozzi (1809), ‘Thralliana’. Arguments for Napoleon being the Antichrist included: that he deposed the Pope; that he conquered Rome; and that his name, when translated into its native Corsican language, is N’Apollione, meaning ‘The Destroyer’.

Whereas some of these imputations may arise out of exegetical errors, one can establish both a broad stream of thought and plenty of contemporary belief that Napoleon was considered to be the Antichrist.

MY JOURNEY

In the next part of my journey of enquiry, I find a sixth affirmation which points to Napoleon and Hitler being similar. I have already examined the beasts of Daniel and I have noticed many commonalities between them and the empires of not only Napoleon and Hitler, but China and a much more sinister and God-opposing FINAL ANTICHRIST. Could these beasts of four ancient empires shed significant light on the modern Antichrists? I will study them in more detail in the next chapter of this book which looks at the beasts of Daniel.

ENCOURAGEMENT

GOD’S KINGDOM WILL WIN

At the time of the very end, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will use military expansionism to become the first and only Antichrist to totally conquer the world ... for a very short time. Then, Jesus will come and turn all of this around to miraculously win God’s victory from a position of ‘hopelessness’, so that pagans will know that he is God. What a clown the Antichrist will be!

This power of God’s is the essence of the Second Coming.

After that, God’s vengeance against those who have trespassed upon his people will be almighty and awesome. We have a God who will not see his own beloved ones bullied and oppressed by any Antichrist, but will rise up, as our enemies become his enemies, and defend his family to the hilt by striking with righteous rage those who have threatened his own. His is the love of a father, and we are his beloved. He will surround us with steel. He will be our fortress, our rock and our deliverer (Psalms 18:2, 2 Samuel 22:2-3): ‘He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants’ (Revelation 19:3).

This rock-like aspect of God makes him the strongest thing in the whole universe. And we, as Christians, have access to that strength inside of us.

It takes the form of God having an enormous degree of fixity with which to stand and be faithful to his own values. Thus, Christians of all ages have been persecuted, yet the church has prospered via the immovable power of God, and the persecuting forces have lost the spiritual battle. Indeed, perform a forensic analysis on any former Christian who has fallen away from the faith and you will find that, at some point as a Christian, they made an unworthy demand upon God and became frustrated because they just could not force God to accede.

This great power of steadfastness can also seen in Jesus who stood firm and would not be tempted by either the devil in the desert or the Israelites, who insisted that he become their king. Indeed, in the armour of God passage, Ephesians 6:10-20, where Christians are instructed how to remain strong under temptation, the word ‘stand’ is used 5 times in just 3 verses (verses. 11-14). This idea of standing is an instruction to remain fixed under the pressure to change. Jesus did this at his trial.

This enormous power of fixity reminds me of a tree called a Gidgee Tree. Its wood is so hard that if you strike it with an axe you have to avoid the axe head as it comes bouncing back at you, and if you attempt to cut it with a chainsaw the saw teeth break – all leaving the wood unmarked. It is very hard to change this tree in any way. However, it you can set it on fire, it will provide warmth for the longest of nights – even a 12 hour one.

All of this reminds me of the scratch tests that are used to determine the relative hardness of different rocks. If a soft rock scratches against a hard rock to try to scratch some of it away, the softer rock itself is scratched. This occurs because the harder rock has a greater power of integration binding it together. This is why God and his Kingdom are so strong. The internal power of integration that holds God together is pure love. As love is actually the power of integration itself, nothing could be a stronger binder, and so it can never be pulled away from itself, its values or its mission.

So stand, because the power in you to stand is the strongest power to stand in the whole universe, and nothing can break it down. How good is that?!

IMAGE 4 – ADOLF HITLER

(7) DANIEL’S FOUR BEASTS

MY THEORY

As I have already mentioned, in 1 John 2:18 John says that ‘there will be many antichrists’, but he also refers to one special one. This Antichrist (capital ‘A’) will be the worst one and will appear in the last days: ‘Dear children … you have heard that The Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come’. Hence, there had been many antichrists, but the major Antichrist had not yet come. The early church expected that a powerful figure, the major Antichrist, would appear in the last days after many other antichrists had already come.

My hypothesis is that the Bible supports a theory of four modern Antichrist-like figures, three of whom will pre-figure the final Antichrist, men who could be called Antichrist types. The Old Testament contains many pre-figurations of Jesus, or Jesus types. People such as Noah, Moses, Joseph, David and Melchizedek were Jesus types because in some way each of them foreshadowed Jesus in one or more of their character traits and actions. You can check out how this works with each of them if you like. My hypothesis will be similar to this. It argues that there will be three Antichrist-like men who will prefigure the FINAL ANTICHRIST. Thus, there will be a total of four modern Antichrist-like figures. I will call these four Antichrist figures ‘major Antichrists’ to distinguish them from the ‘many Antichrists’ that John refers to above. For the purpose of clarity, I will use a capital ‘A’ (Antichrist) to denote these four major Antichrists, and sometimes I will use an abbreviation to number them such as AC1, AC2, AC3 and AC4. I will also refer to AC4 by other terms such as the Man of Lawlessness (MOL) or the FINAL ANTICHRIST. For the last of these terms, I capitalise the whole name to denote that this last Antichrist will have much more power than any other. Whereas the similarities between the Antichrist types and the FINAL ANTICHRIST could be compared to Jesus and his Jesus types, there will also be important differences. I hypothesise that the four Antichrist figures will be much more similar in their characters than the Jesus types, and that there will be a clear build-up along the series, as each successive one manifests as more destructive than its predecessor, as both the major Antichrists and the world become more evil as history unfolds.

In the last chapter, I detailed how two extremely God-opposing men, Napoleon and Hitler, both displayed a great number of similarities, as two potential Antichrists, according to what the Bible says that an Antichrist will be. Now, I wish to look at a different part of the Bible – Daniel’s four beasts. I turn here because, at first glance, one of these beasts seems to have a great deal in common with Napoleon, and another beast with Hitler. Thus, these beasts may go some way towards testing my theory of four major Antichrists.

As I make these arguments, I will hypothetically refer to both Napoleon and Hitler as possibly being two of the proposed four Antichrists. I will test this idea at length in subsequent chapters, so I would ask the reader to please postpone the formation of any judgements on this issue until having read them.

DANIEL’S FOUR BEASTS

Daniel 7:4-8 is a passage that describes the rise and fall of various empires, both before and after the time of Christ. These empires were, in chronological order, Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. However, as prophecy often yields more than one application across the span of history, this passage is also instructive about the last days. We know this because it corresponds with the following Revelation 13 beast from the last days. Revelation 13:1-2 tells us of a sea beast (the Antichrist) featuring four characteristics which are, in order: (1) it has ten horns, (2) it resembles a leopard, (3) it has feet like a bear, and (4) it has a mouth like a lion. Collectively, this beast closely resembles the four beasts of the above Bible passage, in the book of Daniel, which are, in order, a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a monster of some kind. Please note that in the above Revelation passage, Revelation 13:1-2, these beasts are revealed in the opposite order of Daniel because John is looking backwards from the final point of history at which he sits. Therefore, Daniel’s order is the correct one.

Also, Daniel describes the time of the final judgement (Daniel 7:10 ’…The court was seated, and the books were opened’) immediately after he talks about these beasts. This also has the effect of placing the beasts just before the time of final judgement, so that this prophecy will have a double fulfilment – one in the ancient empires of antiquity and a second in the last days.

This prophecy tells us of: (1) a lion with the two wings of an eagle which were torn off, whereupon it was stood up on its two legs and was given the heart of a man; (2) a bear that has raised itself up on one of its sides (as in a bear that rises on one leg before putting the other foot to the ground)[112] and with three ribs in its mouth, which was told to get up and eat its fill of flesh; (3) a leopard with four wings and four heads which had been given authority to rule; and (4) a beast with ten horns, iron teeth and brazen claws which crushed (stamped underfoot) and devoured its victims, and then trampled underfoot whatever was left.

As we examine these beasts, note how well the first and second one seem to correspond with Napoleon and Hitler. Note also that, if these first two beasts are Napoleon and Hitler, it is possible that the four beasts do indeed describe four successive end time Antichrists. And not only might they describe these Antichrists; they might describe them in their correct order. Finally, there is one more thing to note. The third beast bears a significant resemblance to today’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

(1) THE LION AND THE MAN

Daniel 7:4 – The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a man, and the heart of a man was given to it.

Interestingly, Napoleon was initially a tyrannical emperor but later had his power stripped back to that of a mere man. He was lion-like in his dignity and pride, which went as far as crowning himself Emperor, which Hitler never did, and his enormous sense of self assurance and authority that lead him to do what no other man had ever done before – claim leadership and ownership over the whole of Europe.

He was then stood up on his two legs and given the heart of a man, when he was caught by his military opponents and forced to spend the last six years of his life in captivity and imprisonment, with his power torn away from him like a pair of torn off wings, such that he had no more power than an ordinary man.

(2) THE BEAR

Daniel 7:5 – And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’

The bear is described as being less noble than the lion, and is characterised by being severe in its treatment of enemies, and ferocious in warfare[113]. The three ribs in the mouth of the bear were described by Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Chandler as nations because they were not properly parts of its body, but were ground and oppressed by it[114].

Interestingly, Hitler first annexed all or part of three lands (Austria, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania)[115] before rising like a ferocious bear and inciting the Second World War, whereby he wreaked terrible carnage, especially against God’s people, the Jews. The number three here could be a symbolic number meaning a small amount, but it is interesting nonetheless that there were exactly three conquests before he rose up and started World War 2.

Jerome, a reputed theologian, examined a related passage, Hosea 13:8, which describes a fierce bear who was robbed of her cubs. He remarked, ‘It is said by those who have studied the nature of wild beasts that none among them is as ferocious as the bear when deprived of its young or when hungry’[116]. Hitler could be said to have been bear-like by being particularly fierce and brutal. After various countries had ravaged and torn Germany in the First World War, he protected the weakened members of his ‘family’ (his nation) by brutally avenging those countries.

Daniel’s bear is described as having raised itself up on one of its sides, as if rising from the ground. The Codex Chisianus states that it ‘stood on one side’[117], and Maurer interprets this as being ‘on one of its forefeet it was recumbent, and stood on the other’[118]. This bear pose was present in a figure exhibited on one of the stones found in Babylon, and Georg Lengerke describes it as ‘lies kneeling on the right forefoot and is in the act of rising on the left foot’[119]. This is interpreted as a bear rising from rest for the purpose of active conquest[120]. Again, this could refer to Hitler when Germany annexed three countries then rose in rage to wage war upon its conquerors who felled it in World War 1.

(3) THE LEOPARD

Daniel 7:6 – After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads and it was given authority to rule.

For the first two beasts to represent the first two Antichrists, the third beast must represent the third one. Therefore, this is a very important passage to examine.

Note that, from the first two beasts, the first fulfilment of each best is the empire of a country, but the second fulfilment seems to be a person. Therefore, with the leopard, I will look to see whether this could represent a third Antichrist, AC3, in its second fulfilment.

What sort of a beast is Daniel describing here?

a) First, the general secrecy of the leopard implies a swiftness of ambush, according to Pliny[121]. In the Bible, the leopard is associated with cunning (Jeremiah 5:6; Hosea 13:7) and a conqueror’s sudden swoop, with its habit of lying in wait by a well or a village (Daniel 7:6; Habakkuk 1:8).

b) Second, the spots of a leopard imply a great diversity of allies, according to the Benson Bible Commentary by Reverend Joseph Benson, citing both Samuel Bochart and Hugo Grotius[122].

c) Third, the fact that the leopard has four heads, his own plus three others, implies three allies. The number three is one of the numbers symbolising completeness in the Bible, so this means that he has a great number of allies. These allies refer to subordinate, not equal, allies.

d) Fourth, the fact that this leopard was given authority to rule means that he will have a relatively large empire compared to that of Napoleon and Hitler.

Let’s take these four one by one.

(1) A swiftness of ambush. The leopard hunts by ambush, slowly and patiently, appearing to be harmless but actually leading its prey into a trapped position. The four bird wings indicate that it has a lightning-fast strike. This approach of seeming to be harmless, even gentle, gives the leopard a relatively humanitarian image compared to more overtly aggressive beasts. Therefore, in symbolic literature, the leopard is recognised as being a creature of more nobility than the bear, but less than the lion.

Interestingly, China’s worldwide debt-trap diplomacy policy comes to mind here, but they use many other methods to gain economic superiority. China is manoeuvring itself into a position of military dominance over its geographical neighbours from which it could strike with merciless ferocity once those neighbours are trapped.

Ambush requires secrecy. In fact, for years, the CCP’s 1990’s world domination policy of Deng Xiaoping was called, ‘Hide and Bide’, and was centred on the idea of clandestine actions, whereby China did not show its true hand to the rest of the world: ‘Observe calmly, secure our position…hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership’[123]. Indeed, China’s 1990’s reforms of opening up to the world and becoming more capitalist tricked the world into thinking that they were moving towards democracy and away from communism, whereas they had exactly the opposite in mind.

Some of this secrecy can be seen today, and it takes various forms. In his essay ‘What is to be done?’ Andrew Hastie comments that Australia, a potential CCP target of occupation, is unfamiliar with the strategic culture of our CCP opponents, which emphasises secret strategies. He lists some of these. China has subtly armed itself via: diplomacy, the media, investment flows and infrastructure development. In Australia, the CCP has attempted to buy the influence of parliamentarians. It has also used an aggressive method of subversive warfare in the areas of: intellectual property theft (particularly in universities), forced technology transfer, cyber attacks and espionage. [124] By the looks of it, the CCP does not allow other nations to foresee the extremely grave future it plans for them until such time as the there is no escape from it; that is, once the trap has sprung, the noose is around the neck, and the leopard has pounced.

China is seducing many nations of the world into cooperating with its policies, firstly economic, then cultural. They seem reasonable and even benevolent right up to the last minute before their attack, when they suddenly pounce, ambush-style, and subject nations to economic control and tyranny via debt trap diplomacy. This is similar to a leopard’s ambush. Today, they are lulling the world’s people into a false sense of security with a fraudulent and superficial inclusiveness policy.

(2) A diversity of empire. In order to gain a truly diverse empire, the Antichrist of the leopard would be a successful attracter of diverse peoples. Interestingly, China is fast assembling the most diverse allied force ever possessed by a world super-power. This includes countries from Asia, Africa, South America, Europe and many island groups. Many of these countries are poor by western standards. Already from 1990-2015, the proportion of the world’s people who are living in extreme poverty has fallen from 36% to 10%.[125] Most of these fast rising nations are developing hand in hand with Chinese capital, making them beholden to China through debt-trap diplomacy. Some of the world’s most poverty stricken nations are extremely populous, for example, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Alliances with countries such as these are making China extremely strong. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there were roughly 50 rich and developed nations and 150 poorer and less developed countries. However, this century, China is heading towards offering as many as 100 of those 150 nations a leg-up in attaining development and prosperity.

(3) A great number of allies. To have such a large amount of diversity in his allies implies that the leopard will have a great number of allies. In fact, Daniel says that, with his three extra heads, he will have a complete number of allies. Interestingly, as I discuss again later, when a cohort of 22 Western allies wrote a signed letter protesting against China’s concentration camps in Xinjiang, China was able to return a signed note of opposition to this from its allies numbering not 22 but 37, and this was not including 2 more that were unable to sign at the time, Iran and Turkey. This group of allies steadily grows in number.

(4) A relatively large empire. The original fulfilment of Daniel’s leopard was Alexander the Great’s Greek Empire. This empire was large, compared to what had come before it, and it ruled for quite a while. Interestingly, China’s reach of power in 2020 extends through every continent of the world, and it is quickly expanding. At this rate, it could, in time, encompass a quarter of the world’s nations. Also, this leopard has four bird wings, whereas the lion had only two, and those were only eagle’s wings. The mention of four bird wings here implies that the leopard’s speed of conquest will be faster than that of the eagle, Napoleon because, though an ambush starts very slowly, its conquest consists of a lightning fast strike. What can be also induced is that a leopard with four wings indicates a conquest that will extend to the four corners of the earth, whereas that of Napoleon was limited.

Therefore, right now, having observed many similarities between Daniel’s leopard and the CCP, I am wondering whether AC3 will be a future ruler of both the CCP and China. However, I am still unsure. Now, I will look at Daniel’s final beast.

(4) THE FINAL BEAST

Daniel 7:7-9 – After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast – terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth: it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.

While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully. As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair on his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze.”

In Daniel 7:7-9, the final beast is described as having ten horns (being completely powerful) and being different from the former beasts (being more evil than any of them). He will be the horn with human eyes and a mouth (a powerful person), who will rise from nothing out of a beast of 10 horns by uprooting three of those horns (displacing his political opponents) to gain absolute leadership. He will boast loudly, kill many people, and incite God’s final judgement (the fire).

TWO BEASTS?

If this beast describes the FINAL ANTICHRIST, it is curious that this FINAL ANTICHRIST will rise out of the beast, because usually, in the Bible, the Antichrist is the beast. So, what do we have here? There will be an evil beast, and there will also be a horn that rises. This horn is also later described as the beast in Daniel 7:21-22.

Here is that passage.

‘As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgement in favour of the saints and the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.’

This description of the little horn continues in Daniel 7:25-27.

Here is that passage.

‘He will speak against the most High, and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, and times and time and a half. But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.’

Note that I deal with the phrase ‘for a time, and times and time and a half’ in another part of this document, and that this refers to the arc of power of an Antichrist as rising then suddenly ending. Note also that to ‘change the set times’ means to rule over history with absolute might and power as God rightfully does in Daniel 2:21. Thus, to state that an Antichrist tries to do that refers to the arrogance of such an Antichrist in trying to parody God.

Therefore, regarding all of the above, I ask this question:

How can both the ten-horned thing and the little horn be the beast?

Add to this the dilemma that, in the fulfilment of this prophecy in the ancient world, this Beast must be the Roman state, from everything else I have shown, and not a person. This is stated in Daniel 7:17 – ‘The four great beasts are four kingdoms that will rise from the earth’.

(Although some have taken the words ‘This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man’ to mean that it was a man, Bible commentator Albert Barnes notes that the more correct interpretation is that this denotes intelligence, shrewdness and sagacity[126] – and these qualities can be possessed by a state. Also, horns have already denoted kingdoms for Daniels ‘ten horns’ and therefore should denote a kingdom here.)

But, in that case, what does the text appear to say here? It appears to say that the Roman Empire has ten kings. Then, an upstart person, not nation uproots 3 of them to become the Roman Empire! This seems to be crazy.

Over time, two main explanations have been offered to try to resolve the obvious inconsistencies in the above paragraphs.

The first explanation is that the ten horns were the ten successor kingdoms to the Roman Empire in Western Europe: the Heruli, Suevi, Bergundians, Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons. Three of these kingdoms, the: Heruli (493 AD), Vandals (534 AD) and Ostrogoths (553 AD), were in fact uprooted at around the same time. These were the three uprooted horns. The little horn which came up among them and predominated was the continuation of the spirit of Roman domination down the ages.

However, there is much that is wrong with this theory. First, Daniel’s prophecy describes the little horn as a beast. A beast can only be either a kingdom or a ruler, not a spirit. Second, Daniel describes the ten horned thing as a beast. A beast must be either a person or a single kingdom – not ten separate kingdoms. Third, the little horn is described in Daniel 7:21 as being more imposing than the other ten (the Roman Empire), and in Daniel 7:25 it is the one who will oppress the saints and try to change the set times and laws (history itself). If there was indeed a spirit of Roman domination that succeeded the ten kingdoms, it has hardly done this with any real consistency, nor more menacingly than Nero or Domitian did in the second millennium since Christ.

The second explanation is the Papacy Theory. It is similar in nature to the first theory, until it gets to the point where the little horn rises from the ten kingdoms. Contrary to the first theory, it regards this horn as the Papacy, not the spirit of Roman domination. In defence of this contention, it cites that the Papacy fought and killed many Christians, perverted Christian doctrine for its own ends, and claimed to be God on earth – some fairly kosher Antichrist practises.

However, there is also much that is wrong with this theory. First, as I have demonstrated, the Antichrist will not be a member of an organised religious order, because in this context he would be required to be too restricted and too conscious to be able to be Satan’s fully compliant servant. Second, the Papacy has an insufficiently evil record to be an Antichrist. For a start, the Papacy oversaw the creation of the Nicene Creed. Second, it has also been without most of its political power since Napoleon. Third, the Papacy has evangelised many Christians, and the Antichrist would never do this.

What, then, is the correct explanation?

First, it is important to know that the numbers ‘ten’ and ‘three’ are most likely symbolic, as prophecy writing is generally a symbolic form of literature. The number ‘ten’, for the amount of horns the beast has, symbolises that this ancient kingdom had a very great amount of power. In prophecy, the number ‘three’ can symbolise an indefinite small number. Therefore, there could have been some small number of political powers that were uprooted by the little horn as it rose to power to become a tyrant state, not necessarily three.

From everything that I have already covered, this method of coming to power by uprooting an existent bonafide authority would appear to be the typical way that Antichrists come to power, as we have seen with both Napoleon and Hitler. Thus, it would be unsurprising to see an Antichrist state do the same thing.

However, how can the Roman Empire overthrow itself to become the beast that is the Roman Empire?

It didn’t.

The Roman state was a beast before it became the Roman Empire. It was a beast back when it was the Roman Republic, which was succeeded by the Roman Empire.

THE BEAST BEFORE THE EMPIRE

Remember that Daniel’s description of the fourth beast is one with ten horns, and that ten horns can indicate the possession of a very great amount of power. This beast was a state called the Roman Republic. Like the Roman Empire that came after it, it was also very beastly in its actions. Therefore, the Roman Empire was somewhat unique among the four ancient kingdoms in Daniel’s dream, in that it had already engaged in a great amount of beastly, aggressive and expansionist behaviour before its autocratic rulers (the Emperors) took over and it became an empire. Indeed, before the Roman Empire’s first Emperor, Julius Caesar, rose in 49 BC, the Roman Republic had conquered Italy, Greece, Spain, the North African coast, much of the Middle East, modern day France and even remote Britain.

This compares interestingly to the Greek Empire. From the beginning of the Lelantine war in 710 BC, when Athens emerged from its dark ages to 445 BC, the year when it signed the 30 year peace accord with Sparta, Athens was primarily a defensive state, resisting Persia, Carthage and many other enemies. From 445 BC to 359 BC, it progressively developed its naval power and became more of an aggressive force. However, by 359 BC, it had only conquered the lands that immediately surrounded it.[127] Then, its autocratic rulers, the Macedonians, the Greek’s approximate equivalent to the Roman Emperors, took over Greece. At this time, Phillip the Second of Macedon rose to power. Unlike many of the relatively democratic city-states of pre-imperial Greece, Macedon’s Greece was a monarchy. This made Phillip the dictator of Greece. Twenty-three years later, his son Alexander the Great ascended to the throne. It was only under the Macedonians that the Greeks became expansionists, expanding their empire to 5.2 million square kilometres in area. This size is larger than the Roman Empire ever became at 5 million square kilometres. However, it was second to the Roman Empire in power, because it controlled less in the way of assets and skilled people.

Therefore, the Roman state was a beast before it acquired an empire in a way that the Greek state was not. That is one way by which we can know that this beast indicates Rome in its first fulfilment.

Neither did Daniel’s other two empires compile a beastly record before they were ruled by autocracies. This is the case because the Medo-Persian Empire (ruled by an autocrat with the title ‘King of Kings’ which is roughly equivalent to an emperor) and the Babylonian Empire (ruled by a king) both began as autocracies right from the outset. Therefore, in comparison with the other empires of Daniel’s dream, it can be seen that only Rome was a beast of a nation even before it became a dictatorship.

INNER CONFLICT

Besides being an expansionist conqueror, the Republic of Rome was also beastly in another way. It contained a great amount of inner conflict in the form of political violence. Political violence is typical in states that are about to sire Antichrists, and so it shouldn’t be a surprise to see it in a state that is about to become an Antichrist-like state. Just before Napoleon’s ascent to power the political violence in France took the form of the Revolutionary Wars and the Reign of Terror. Pre-Hitler, in Germany’s Post World War One Weimar period of 1918-1922, that country witnessed 354 political assassinations.[128]

This inner conflict should be present for all of the four modern day Antichrists. Because later fulfilments of Antichrists are people and not empires, their struggle for power will occur against domestic political opponents rather than other countries. Also, end times Antichrists do not come to power by defeating the nation of the former Antichrist, as new empires do by defeating the former empirical power, but by defeating the new world order which has emanated from the conquest of the last Antichrist before them.

For both Napoleon and Hitler, this is the typical pattern for an Antichrist as seen in both:

1) Stage 1 – National turmoil (see below);

2) Stage 2 – Various leaders jockey for power and the national leader changes more than once until a barbarian of a man who is backed by aggressive elements in society, the Antichrist, seizes power (often illegitimately);

3) Stage 3 – The Antichrist experiences a period of international power;

4) Stage 4 – God conquers the Antichrist.

In modern day China, I believe that a similar feud will occur between Chinese domestic opponents. This can be seen in the prophecy of Daniel 8. In it, we see a goat which represents the ancient empire of Greece. We can tell that by what it does. As I have already mentioned, this empire is the first fulfilment of Daniel’s vision of the leopard, therefore it relates to the leopard, which appears to be China. In history, the Greeks destroyed the empire of Medo-Persia. Similarly, in Daniel 8 this goat will destroy a ram, which is the ancient empire of Medo-Persia (Daniel 8:20). Next in Daniel 8, a powerful king of the Greeks will build a large Greek Empire. From history we know that this was Alexander the Great. After that, he will suddenly die of illness at the height of his power, aged 32. Then, his empire will break into four kingdoms occupying lands to the north, south, east and west. This also happened. I contend that in the second fulfilment of this prophecy, as it relates to modern day China, the goat will be a CCP leader who will rise and lead China to world domination very quickly just before the leopard (AC3) takes over. However, at the height of power, he will cease to lead them. After that will follow what has become a familiar pattern for Antichrists. A period of intense national political turmoil will ensue. Eventually, one much more evil will take his place. This man will be AC3, Daniel’s leopard in its second fulfilment.

In the Roman Republic, this turmoil took the form of an unrelenting series of civil wars, slave revolts and dissensions in the military between 133 BC and 127 BC, forming what has variably become known as ‘The Roman Revolution’, or ‘The Fall of The Roman Republic’. In essence, power was being devolved from a decentralised authority to a centralised authority, and this happened in four key steps:

1) Between 133 and 121 BC, two brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, seized power by exploiting the Plebeian Tribuneship, the protector of the lower classes from the upper classes, to force the Senate and the magistrates to focus on the Gracchi’s political agenda (which was focussed on restoring order to the military by putting poor landless citizens back on the land, and granting Italian allies Roman citizen status);

2) Military powers and allegiances were transferred from the laws of the state to the persons of their commanding officers;

3) The triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompeius Magnus and Licinius Crassus combined their influence to seize power in Rome;

4) In 46 BC, Julius Caesar, having defeated all of his enemies, was granted a ten year dictatorship which he turned into a Roman form of the Hellenistic Divine Kings when he declared himself ‘Dictator In Perpetuo’. At this point, the precedent of rule by one man had been established in Rome[129]

Thus, with the help of additional reforms from Julius Caesar’s successor, Augusts Caesar, the Republic of Rome became a dictatorship. However, as I have demonstrated, it had already embraced a beastly form of turmoil and conquest before it did this.

THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

With all of the above in view, Daniel’s fourth beast finally makes sense. The question I asked earlier was: How can both the ten-horned thing and the little horn be the beast? And the problem I posited earlier was: The Roman Empire has ten kings, and an upstart person not nation uproots three of them to become the Roman Empire! This seems to be crazy.

The solution? Both the ten-horned thing and the little horn are the beast because Rome was a beast when it was a powerful (ten horned) republic. The little horn was the Roman Empire which, via the ambitious triumvirate listed above, uprooted some of the power of the republic (the three horns) and went on to transform the beast of Rome into an empire. Note that the uprooter of the three horns is not a person but the new empire itself. Therefore, all of Daniel’s beasts are nations in their first fulfilment and people in their second fulfilment.

The Roman Empire was also different to the others – (‘It was different from all the former beasts…’ – Daniel 7:7) in two main ways. First, this empire hijacked an already existing state that was noted for its expansionism, and became even more powerful than an ordinary conqueror, because it had conquered a state that was at the height of its power. Second, the Roman Empire was particularly vicious and deadly in its persecution of God’s people.

As I have already posited, if a group of Antichrist states or individuals occurs in a set of four, and this set ascends in power, the fourth one should be the most destructive.

No wonder Daniel said, in Daniel 7:28, ‘I, Daniel, was deeply troubled by my many thoughts, and my face turned pale…’.

If this is how this fourth beast prophecy manifested as a nation in its first fulfilment, following the same pattern, how would it manifest as a person in its second fulfilment? If this fourth beast refers to AC4, in its modern fulfilment, what kind of a person will this fourth beast be?

THE RISE OF THE FINAL ANTICHRIST

In order to answer this question, let us look more closely at the Roman Republic, in order to observe more detail in this prophetic template. The interesting thing about the Roman Republic’s transition to autocratic rule is that it did not start out that way. The Roman Republic began when the Romans expelled the Etruscan King, who ruled them as a dictator. In his place, they then created a state that could not be dominated by a single ruler. They formed it as an oligarchy. This involved a small number of families (gentes) effectively running the country by monopolising the main magistrates. But, this was not dictatorial power. The Republic was ruled by a quasi-constitution designed to protect it against authoritarian rule; eligible males could vote in a state where there were multiple power instruments, including centuries, tribes, curie and a senate. Its power structure was designed to represent the wishes of the citizens.

Therefore, the Republic of Rome did not start out as a beast, but became one sometime before it turned into the Roman Empire. Why is this important? It is important because this beast of Daniel’s prophecy has two fulfilments; one as Ancient Rome and the other as the FINAL ANTICHRIST. And, its characteristics as Ancient Rome tell us a lot about how it will manifest as AC4.

The FINAL ANTICHRIST will come to power by hijacking an institution that was created to be, and purports to be, relatively equal with decentralised power, but has become unequal, tyrannical and very powerful. It will be some critical part of the globalised world. Hence, I call him ‘The Globalist’, because he will exploit globalisation. And he will do it the way that the triumvirate did. That is the kind of Antichrist he will be.

And that is exactly what we should expect the FINAL ANTICHRIST to be. Earlier I said this of Hitler: ‘… his decision-making style as the dictator of Germany was to surf the waves of public opinion, but not to stand for any moral principles’. And that is precisely what all Antichrists do – they surf. They ride along the currents of public passion. They hijack the power of others. What better way is there to amass massive social power than to wait until the power of the people builds to a crescendo, then appropriate it to oneself? That is a much more effective method of amassing power than trying to compile one’s own power from scratch. And, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will be the most talented power amasser alive in the world when he lives, so he will appropriate to himself the most powerful institution in the world. All that this method requires is that one be prepared to mould one’s own values to that of the mob. And that is no problem for an Antichrist.

Finally, if AC4 will come to power by hijacking an institution, what will this institution be?

Can you guess?

It is the future Internet of Things (IoT).

I will fill in the missing details about this later.

A SUMMARY OF DANIEL’S FOUR BEASTS

To summarise Daniel’s four beasts, I have constructed a table – Table 6 (see below).

Table 6 - Daniel’s Beasts Prophecy

	FIRST FULFILMENT	SECOND FULFILMENT
WHAT/WHO?	DYNASTIES: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome	INDIVIDUALS: Napoleon, Hitler, AC3, THE FINAL ANTICHRIST
EACH DYNASTY/INDIVIDUAL COMES AFTER	· The fall of a nation or nations is produced by a political push from a person or small group of persons. · This nation falls to a dynasty of successive rulers. · This whole transition involves more steps as we proceed down the sequence of four dynasties.	· The split of a nation is produced by a political push by a section of that nation. · The old order is destroyed, with the promise of greater equality. · Authority eventually passes to a single expansionist dictator (not a dynasty). · This whole transition involves more steps as we proceed down the sequence of four nations.
THE FIRST BEAST – THE LION	BABYLON – Assyrian-ruled Babylon falls to Nabopolassar and his sons.	NAPOLEON – The Kingdom of France falls to the French Directory. The French Directory falls to Napoleon.
THE SECOND BEAST – THE BEAR	MEDO-PERSIA – Median-ruled Persia falls to Cyrus the Great and his sons.	HITLER – Imperial Germany falls to the Weimar Republic. This Republic falls to Hitler.
THE THIRD BEAST – THE LEOPARD	GREECE – The relatively democratic Classical Greece falls to the Macedons (Phillip and then his son Alexander the Great). Persia also falls to Alexander the Great.	AC3 – Imperial China falls to the Koumintang. The Koumintang falls to the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party falls to the General Secretary of the CCP when Xi Jinping converts the leadership style of China from democratic centralism to a dictatorship. The General Secretary will fall to AC3.
THE FOURTH BEAST – THE GLOBALIST	ROME – The relatively democratic Republic of Rome falls to the Emperors (Julius Caesar, then on to Nero, who is mentioned in the biblical book of Revelation, and so on). Ptolemaic Egypt falls to Julius Caesar, ending the Greek Empire.	THE FINAL ANTICHRIST – in a series of yet to be seen steps, the ‘nation’ of the connected globalised world will fall to AC4.

EXPLAINING ASPECTS OF THE TABLE

In the table, each time Daniel nominates a beast, that beast indicates not one but two situations, although quite differently from the first fulfilment to the second fulfilment. The cyclic pattern of history that can be seen in this table aids with interpretation regarding both AC3 and AC4. Regarding AC3, he will come from the second fulfilment of the third beast, and it appears that this will centre upon China.

Regarding the table entry for modern China, let me provide some more details to flesh out the transition that is being described here. In, 2012 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was ruling China. At that time, China was largely administered by a collective leadership, the National People’s Congress, which acts like a parliament. The mode of China’s governance was democratic centralism. This means that the representatives in the congress would all vote on legislation. Once a law was passed, however, all were expected to support it, whether they had voted for it or not. In this congress, different views could be expressed, because China’s General Secretary, General Secretary Hu Jintao, needed to please various factions in the CCP to keep his hold on power. However in 2012, with the accession of China’s current General Secretary, Xi Jinping, things began to change. Xi mounted an anti-corruption purge that disciplined more than one million party members. At the same time, he used this purge to sideline his political opponents. This gave him such unanimous support in China’s nearly-3,000 member National People’s Congress that, when he asked for his two-term limit as leader to be abolished so that he could be leader for life, he won the vote with 2,964 votes for his proposal to only two votes against it, and one abstaining. There was not even a debate about this issue. He also gained authorisation for a law that would impose an ideology called ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ upon the people of China. The National People’s Congress had been turned into a rubber stamping institution for Xi. He had become the dictator of China. His picture on billboards all over China portrayed what was by now a political cult of personality. AC3 will usurp and expand even the powers that Xi has. As a Left Wing Antichrist, it is no coincidence that he will be the son of the CCP’s revolution, just as Napoleon was the son of the French revolution.

Interestingly, some nations that have supported China over the last decade have also started to change their leadership term to one that is unlimited: Turkey and Russia, with planned Russian amendments that would make Vladimir Putin their leader until 2036.

With that explanation, I hope the table entry for China is clear.

Regarding the FINAL ANTICHRIST, it appears that he will gain power over the globalised world after a complex series of power struggles and transitions. It is not completely clear exactly what the particular split in this one-world ‘nation’ will be. However, later on I will write about what I think it will be. Whatever it is, though, it will involve a promise to the people of greater equality, which will actually end up resulting in greater despotism.

THE HARDENING OF THE JEWS, THEN THE CHRISTIANS

In Romans 11, Paul plots the oscillating sequence of God’s salvation plan involving: (1) Jewish apostasy opening the way for, (2) gentile salvation which leads to, (3) Jewish salvation at the age when the full number of Christians has come in. This Jewish salvation will come about because the Jews of Israel will envy the Christians. This, in turn will come about because they will see the victorious Second Coming of Jesus. And, this Parousia will come about because of Christian apostasy, which will precipitate the dominance of the Antichrist and the final wars that will necessitate Jesus’ return. So, both the Christians and the Jews will fall into apostasy.

How will they fall into apostasy? They will be hardened. How will they be hardened? They will be hardened by the beasts of Daniel. The following table demonstrates the entire fascinating pattern in God’s plan.

Table 7 – The Journey of the Jews and the Christians

JEWS	CHRISTIANS
In 597 BC, the Jews are conquered by the Babylonians (the lion) and taken captive to Babylon in their thousands.	In 1799, Napoleon ascends to power. He is the Antichrist who corresponds to the Empire of Babylon (the lion).
Divested of their nationhood, the Jews concentrate on the Law and works rather than the mission of their nation and become hardened, producing apostasy.	Deceived by the Antichrists, many Christians concentrate on a works doctine at the expense of the mission of the Kingdom of God and become hardened, producing apostasy.
This apostasy ascends over the years until the time of Christ.	This apostasy ascends over the years until the time of the Parousia.
This apostasy builds through the empires of Babylon (the lion), Medo-Persia (the bear), Greece (the leopard), and Rome (the globalist).	This apostasy builds through the empires of Napoleon (the lion), Hitler (the bear), AC3 (the leopard) and AC4 (the globalist).
This period includes a tyrant who ‘sets up an abomination that causes desolation on a wing of the Temple’ (Daniel 9:27).	This period includes a tyrant who ‘sets himself up in God’s Temple, proclaiming himself to be God’ (2 Thessalonians 2:5).
Christ is born and calls out the powerful Pharisees sect for being overly legalistic and leading the people into a severe apostasy. Christ is rejected and crucified by the Jews.	Christ returns, denounces those Christians who have backslidden, and judges them. He also wins the final war and brings in the last of the faithful Christian remnant.
As a result of what the Jews have done, the Christians become thankful, repent, and are saved.	As a result of what the Christians have done, the Jews become envious, repent, and are saved.

Note that, in both the case of the Jews and the Christians, a favoured people fall into apostasy. However, note that this does not mean that all will fall. It is merely the people as a whole who fall. There will still be a remnant of those people who stand firm for God until the end. Why do the people as a whole fall? This is because, over time, a people tend to polarise more and more towards the extremes of good and evil. For example, in the last days of war and tribulation, some will be very evil, but some will shine with righteousness that is undiminished in those hard times. As Jesus clearly said that many more will be evil than righteous in Matthew 7:13-14, the evil people come to far outnumber the good people, and hence the people as a whole become evil.

COINCIDENCE?

In conclusion I must say that the degree of confluence that would seem to exist between the four beasts, the four ancient empires, the two Antichrists that I believe have already lived, and the actions of modern day China is rather persuasive. Once again, I say, as I said at the end of the last section, that if all of this is merely a coincidence, it is an unlikely one.

MY JOURNEY

I am still on my journey, a journey that is becoming more thrilling by the minute. I am questioning why there should be four Antichrists, and wanting to be sure that there weren’t less, or even more that I am missing. I decide to examine the number four in the Bible. This number points to judgement events, a critical strategy that God uses in his gathering together the people of the Kingdom of God.

ENCOURAGEMENT

GOD PREDESTINES ANTICHRISTS – THEY ARE UNDER HIS CONTROL

A major Antichrist’s spirituality is essentially available for the taking. Thus, Satan will be able to possess it – but only as much as God allows him to.

This is the good news. God is completely in control here, as he always is.

For example, in the book of Job, Satan implored God to ‘…strike everything he [Job] has, and he will surely curse you to your face’ (Job 1:11). God replied, ‘Very well then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger’ (Job 1:12). God actually circumscribes the power and freedom of action that is available to Satan, such that at the very moment when Satan thinks that he is controlling a situation, God is actually using Satan’s very actions to enact his own plans for his people, and those he wishes to save.

Therefore, although Satan may appear to completely possess and control the next Antichrist, in fact, Satan will only be allowed by God to have a certain portion of this man, and to do certain things with him. In Daniel 8:9-14 and 11:36, the Bible shows that it is divine authority that ultimately controls the actions of an Antichrist. Daniel 11:36 – ‘The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time is of wrath completed, for what has been determined must take place.’ God will formulate Satan’s use of this man in exact correlation with his own plans to shepherd his own people, and to evangelise humanity in order to save as many as possible before the final day. So, be evangelising, to bring people into God’s kingdom.

Further, in describing those who will serve the beast, Revelation 17:17 says that ‘God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule until God’s words are fulfilled’. Also, in describing the great judgement, Jeremiah 51:7 says that ‘Babylon was a gold cup in the Lord’s hand’.

In other words, the Antichrist will be doing God’s will.

The joke is on him. That is why I call him a clown.

Note that, even though God circumscribes the actions of Antichrists, as well as everybody else, with his mighty power, people still have free will at the very same time.

How does God achieve this? He does this by arranging the circumstances in which people will find themselves, and then using his Middle Knowledge to know in advance how any person will respond to any set of circumstances. Middle knowledge is the knowledge of what any person would do in any set of circumstances in which that person might find him or herself. An example of this is seen in Luke 16:31 where Jesus explained that the brothers of the rich man in hell would not be convinced of God’s goodness by someone rising from the dead if they had not listened to Moses or the Prophets. Thus, Jesus knew how these men would act in any given set of circumstances. In the Gospels, there are many examples of Jesus displaying this knowledge. In this way, God can be assured of the commission of a particular action from any person who, all the while, has the freedom to decide whether they will or won’t obey God.

Because God is in control, we are safe in his good plan. This means that we can pray that his plan will manifest on earth and in our lives, and know for sure that this will happen, via John 14:14 – ‘You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it’. Because of this certainty, we can thank God, even as we ask him for things in prayer, because it says in Philippians 4:6 – ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God’.

IMAGE 5 – JULIUS CAESAR

(8) EXACTLY HOW MANY MAJOR ANTICHRISTS WILL THERE BE?

FOUR MAJOR ANTICHRISTS?

As has already been mentioned, it is stated in John 2:18 that there will be many antichrists, but also one major, final one – the Antichrist (I use a capital ‘A’). From everything that I have mentioned so far, it appears that God will roll out this major FINAL ANTICHRIST as a series of four major Antichrists of ascending evil. It appears that this ascending evil will be like the ancient kingdoms in the statues of Daniel’s dream in Daniel 2 who were made of successively stronger metals: gold, silver, bronze and iron. It also seems that the first three of these Antichrists will be a preparatory build-up for the final and most destructive Antichrist who will be far worse than they were. Furthermore, this Antichrist series has already been initiated in the form of a new type of more evil and powerful tyrant who emerged in 1799 just after Satan had been let out of prison by God. These Antichrists have been, and will be, more destructive than anyone who has lived for over one and a half millennia. However, they will not be as evil as the FINAL ANTICHRIST, who is the Antichrist that the Bible refers to when it talks about the Antichrist as a single person at the end of the age, sometimes referred to as the Man of Lawlessness.

God seems to be confirming this series of four ascending Antichrists to me using the scriptures, with modern history enlightening their interpretation. Two of these Antichrists have already lived and died; Napoleon (born in 1769) and Hitler (born in 1889). If the time difference of 129 years between the major life events of Napoleon and Hitler are anything to go by, the next Antichrist will come this century. The last one will be the final and the most godless Antichrist: he is referred to as the Man of Lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2. He will be the worst Antichrist, and his aim will be to make all people bow down and worship him.

In his particularly well researched book on the Antichrist, ‘The Man of Sin’, Kim Riddlebarger agrees that there will be more than one Antichrist, asserting that that there will be a repeated manifestation of the beast throughout the course of history, taking the form of the state-sponsored persecution of Christ’s church, which will finally culminate in the end-times Antichrist.[130]

What, then, is the biblical support for the notion that there will be exactly four major Antichrists?

(1) DANIEL’S FOUR ANCIENT EMPIRES ARE FOUR BEASTS OF THE SEA

In Revelation 13:1-2, 4, the end-times beast of the sea is described in the following terms, ‘He had ten horns and seven heads with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. Men worshipped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshipped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?”’. Thus the Beast of the Sea, though he is referred to in the singular, is said to have four characteristics: that of a false god, that of a leopard, that of a bear, and that of a lion. This suggests that, although the FINAL ANTICHRIST will be one single plan and purpose of God’s, it will have four parts. Note that these parts are expressed in their reverse order by John because he is looking back at them from the time of the end of this world. In Daniel 7, these four characteristic beasts (in their chronological order) describe the four ancient empires that I have examined. However, these four beasts also describe the end-times four-part beast of the sea, because the beast of the sea is the second instance of their double fulfilment.

(2) TWO OF THESE BEASTS HAVE ALREADY LIVED AND BEEN CONFIRMED

As it happened, these ancient empires actually manifested as recorded history. When I examined these ancient empires of Daniel 7, I showed how their characteristics correspond to the characteristics of the end-times beast of the sea Antichrist. Also, I have shown that these very same characteristics have also begun to manifest as the first two of four modern day empires.

In Revelation 13, the Beast of the Sea is referred to in the singular. However, it is said to have four characteristics: that of a false god, that of a leopard, that of a bear, and that of a lion. Revelation 13:1, 2 says that ‘He had ten horns and seven heads with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion’. In the beasts of Daniel 7, these four characteristics (in the reverse order) are four empires. Thus, the Beast of the Sea in Revelation 13 refers to not one but four separate empires, as in Daniel 7. This will require four charismatic leaders. Thus, the end times Antichrist will manifest as four Antichrists. However, the Man of Lawlessness is one man, and he will be the final and most evil of the Antichrists.

Before and during the lives of each of these four major Antichrists, there have been and will be many diabolical minor antichrists that operate. However, these major ones are fundamentally different, and can be distinguished from the minor ones by the facts that the major ones will all: (1) rise from a position of relative obscurity, (2) imitate the Christ, (3) have relatively similar personalities and characters, notwithstanding the different times in which they live, (4) control very large amounts of territory and people, and (5) use gas chambers or their upgraded equivalents for the purpose of mass-murder. There will also be many other similarities that I have already detailed.

(3) THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NUMBER FOUR?

Besides the four beasts, is there anything else in the Bible that substantiates the claim that there will be four major Antichrists?

The answer to this question can be found by examining the idea of judgement in the Bible. The Antichrist is allowed by God to have a very large amount of power and dominion over people in order to execute God’s judgement events on the secular world, which will simultaneously bring many to repentance and glory, as they also damn those who refuse to bend their knee to God despite having been clearly shown his might and power. This judgement aspect of Antichrists is indicated by the use of the number four in the parts of apocalyptic literature that refer to judgement. In the Bible, the number four is the number that points specifically to God’s complete and perfect judgement. Let me give five examples.

First, Daniel 7:4-6 talks about four sea beasts of judgement which are churned up by the four winds of heaven. These are also referred to in Revelation 13:1-2 as the four characteristics of the sea beast. Revelation 6 talks about the four horses of God’s judgement: the white horse of conquest, the red horse of war, the black horse of famine and the pale horse of death. These are summoned by one of the four living creatures who are the throne room attendants, mentioned in Revelation 4:6, and who are echoed in Ezekiel 1 and 10. This reference to four horses is echoed in Zechariah 6:2-6, a passage about the judgement event of God conquering the nations that oppress Israel. This passage features red, black, white and dappled horses. This is also an echo of Zechariah 1:7-17, which also features four horses of God’s judgement.

Second, Revelation 7 talks about four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding back the four winds of God’s judgement. This passage echoes Jeremiah 49:36 – I will bring against Elam the four winds from the four quarters of the heavens; I will scatter them to the four winds, and there will not be a nation where Elam’s exiles do not go.

Third, even in the gospel, in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23), we see a story that is apocalyptic because it uses symbolism to describe the final states of people, according to how they respond to Jesus. Furthermore, it list four final states: (1) the one who never believes, (2) the one who believes but falls away, (3) the one who believes but is spiritually unproductive, and (4) the one who believes and is spiritually productive.

Fourth, in the book of Ezekiel, a book about God’s judgement, the number four appears symbolically over 40 times. It is explicitly mentioned in passages such as Ezekiel 1:4-21 (echoed in Revelation 4:6), which describes the four creatures with multiple eyes that indicate God’s all-knowing nature; and is implied in passages such as Ezekiel 22:18 where Israel, as dross, is described in fourfold terms as: copper, tin, iron and lead, echoing Daniel’s vision of the four kingdoms in Daniel 2, another prophecy and narrative about God’s judgement.

Finally, Revelation 4 describes the scene in the throne room of God in heaven. What we have here is a picture of the different creatures of heaven, their hierarchical position indicated by their physical closeness to God, and their adoration of the triune God. Therefore, in the centre, there is a throne with God sitting on it, and next to him, Jesus who is standing (Revelation 5: 6). Before the throne are seven lamps which are the Holy Spirit. Surrounding them are twenty-four elders, who are the people of God because they alone refer to God as ‘you’. They are surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand angels. Between the Holy Spirit and the twenty four archangels are four living creatures covered with eyes on their front and their back, which means that nothing escapes their attention. These creatures surround the throne of God very closely because they are its guards. They are described as supporting the throne of God in numerous Old Testament verses, and two of these cherubim are depicted on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18-22). In a symbol of strength, they are described as resembling four strong animals: lion, ox, man and eagle. These descriptions are drawn from Ezekiel’s vision of the cherubim in Ezekiel 1:5-21, albeit somewhat modified. In Ezekiel 10:2, these same cherubim enable a judgement of God upon Jerusalem by providing the hot coals that are to be scattered over that city. One of their chief activities, therefore, is judgement.

I can cite many more examples. These include: the four points of the cross, the four horns of the altar, the four colours of cloth used throughout the Tabernacle, and the four corners of the earth to which Satan was released. Also, the Ancient Hebrew Language symbol for the number four is Dalet. The written version of Dalet is the figure of a door. As such, it represents the choice to open ourselves to the hope of our dreams (God), or to remain closed off and alienated. This door figure contains a corner point which represents the concept of Bitul, self-nullification, which leads to humility. Thus, this is the doorway used to enter to God’s house, and this entrance is attained by an action called Develut, the act of cleaving or clinging to God.[131] This choice is the individual personal decision to which all judgement events appeal, and is thus the essence of a judgement event.

(4) GOD’S PROPHECIES OFTEN ROLL OUT IN STAGES OVER TIME

As I have already mentioned, it is important to understand that one of the mistakes that can be made in the interpretation of biblical prophecy is to think that each of the prophecies of God’s future actions will manifest as one discrete event, whereas in fact many prophecies manifest as a process of events that roll out over many years. Let me list five examples of this.

One example is the chaining of Satan that is mentioned in Revelation 20. As is also explained elsewhere in this document, this event did not transpire instantly at Jesus’ death or his resurrection, as is often argued. It took nearly three centuries, until Constantine’s conversion in 313 AD, for God to fully chain Satan.

Hence, if one transfers this principle to the major Antichrists, although there will be one very evil man at the end of the age, it is altogether possible that this event will be the final result of a slow build-up of hundreds of years that could represent the time during which God could roll out a number of progressively more destructive major Antichrists as a process of history. After all, as I have shown above, many other prophecies have been and will be rolled out as processes of history.

So, to sum up, there will most likely be four major Antichrists for the following four reasons: (1) God’s prophecies often roll out in stages and this one will roll out in four; (2) the ancient empires of Daniel 7 correspond remarkably well with the four characteristics of the Beast of the Sea, showing that Revelation 13 and Daniel 7 correlate with each other to confirm an Antichrist of four characteristics; (3) these four characteristics have already begun to manifest in two of the four modern Antichrists, showing that the Beast of the Sea refers to not one but four empires, as in Daniel 7; and (4) the advent of Antichrists is one of God’s chief judgement events, and the number four is the biblical number of judgement.

I have mentioned that there will be four Antichrists because they have been described in the Bible in terms of four beasts, and because four is the number for judgement in the Bible’s apocalyptic literature. Now, I want to posit a third, reason for why there might be exactly four Antichrists – that the number four also represents that which is mundane and worldly, and nothing is more mundane and worldly than the Antichrist.

THE FOUR ANTICHRIST TYPES

In the table below, I list and describe the four Antichrist types.

Table 8 - The Four Antichrist Types

Antichrist	Most prevalent feature that Satan uses for evil	Personality as a leader	Mission as Antichrist	False talents that are used for evil	Examples of these talents in action	False satanic role
1 -NAPOLEON	Strategising	Melancholic	To establish a society of French-style equality and liberty.	Analytical and details orientated.	Military strategy. Political strategy.	The False Liberator
2 - HITLER	Speaking	Sanguine	To revive the history of German Reichs in honour of past ideals.	Great orator, social charm.	Public speaking. Promoting himself as the archetypal countryman.	The False Cleanser
3 – AC3	Pseudo- Empathising*	Phlegmatic	To revive the China of the height of the Ming Dynasty that was the central power of the world.	Pseudo-empathy*, uses fake compassion to make exploitative one-sided ‘welfare’ deals.	Exploitative alliances and false welfare used to create dependence and subservience.	The False Equaliser
4 – AC4	Hyper-Expanding	Choleric	To establish his own worldwide humanist kingdom.	Excessively self-assured to the point of having a God complex.	Creating a cult of himself. Infiltrating the whole world with it.	The False Judge

*To have pseudo-empathy is to engender and pander to a victim mentality in both others and oneself.

In the table above, I assert that the Antichrists embody four evil features of Satan. Later, in the section ‘The Two Sides of Satan’, I will mention that evil one appears to contain two opposite poles. As the devil, he is the liar; as Satan, he is the adversary. Each of these poles contains two characteristics, making four different characteristics in all. On his devilish pole are cleverness and charm. And, on his satanic pole are fierceness and strategic organisation. Left Wing Antichrists seem to correspond with the characteristics of Satan that are clever and charming. Right Wing Antichrists seem to correspond with those satanic characteristics that are fierce and strategically organised. From this table it can be seen that Satan will animate the four Antichrists with characteristics that represent the four features of his composition. He will also animate them with the four personalities that correspond to each of these characteristics. These are the four common personalities of people that Satan also has.

Also, Satan will plan for them four missions, and equip them with four talents with which to carry out these missions. Finally, he will empower them to fulfil four false roles, which will not succeed and never could, because they were always deceptions. These will be grouped into two sets of two each. The first set is the Left Wing set. It emphasises, as its selling point, an improvement in the humanity and civility of societies, so that they might become kinder and gentler places in which to live. This entails both liberation (an upgrade of human rights) and equalisation. This equalisation takes the form of a completion of the first mission, Napoleon’s mission as the so-called ‘liberator’, both within and amongst human societies all over the world, by installing and increasing so-called ‘equality’ everywhere to create ‘ideal societies’, in an effort imitate Christ’s heaven. The second set is the Right Wing set. This emphasises, as its selling point, an improvement in the strength and efficiency of societies by ridding them of all of the weak or inferior elements that may hinder this aim. This entails cleansing, a reducing of undesirable human elements, and judging. This judging involves a completion of the first mission, Hitler’s mission as the so-called ‘cleanser’, both within and amongst human societies all over the world. This will be done by instituting a brutal and final humanity-wide cleansing process that parodies Christ’s final judgement. Here, therefore, are two more parodies of the Christ that are instituted by Antichrists.

MORE ABOUT THE NUMBER FOUR

All throughout the above, the number four represents worldliness and mundanity. In the Bible, both the numbers three and four represent completion. However, specifically speaking, the number four represents the worldly and mundane things of the natural universe. As it happens, these things often occur naturally in sets of four. In Hebrew, the word for the number four is ‘arbah’ which means, amongst other things, that which is mundane. Examples of the number four symbolising the worldly and mundane things of the universe include: the four seasons; the four compass directions; the four corners that comprise a piece of land; the four corners of the earth; the four ancient empires; the four corner garment of Deuteronomy 22 representing this earthly life; on day four of the creation God created light, dark, the planets, the stars, and the soil that feeds us; and, from the Ten Commandments, commandment number four is about resting to honour the day when God created the natural world. (I said before that the number four means judgement. It also means that because these mundane things are, due to their worldly nature, unintegratable with each other and with God, and therefore must be judged righteous in order to unite with God.)

The significance of the number four can be seen when it is placed in contrast to the number three in the Bible. The number three also represents completion. However, it specifically denotes the godly and the integratable; in short, holiness and love. In Hebrew, the word for the number three is ‘shelosh’, which means, amongst other things, harmony and unity. Examples of the number three symbolising holiness and love include: the three-in-one Godhead; Satan’s attempt to parody this three-in-one as Satan, the antichrist and the false prophet; the three-in-one description of God as ‘I was, I am and I will be’; Jesus prayed three times before being arrested; Jesus died at three o’clock on day three of the month of Nisan in thirty-three AD; Jesus was resurrected on day three; the three gifts of the Magi; the three angels of Revelation 14; the three patriarchal fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the three inner-circle disciples Peter, James and John; the Jewish blessing of priests which occurs in three sections and involves the word ‘holy’ being repeated three times; the Holy of Holies, which takes up one third of the temple; the Holy Place, which takes up two thirds of the temple; the temple tapestries, which are three ells in length; the three vessels each for the altar of burnt offering, the altar of incense and the ark; and the candlestick with its two sets of three arms. And I am sure, if you look, that you can find many more examples for both the number three and four.

The Antichrist is particularly lacking in holiness and love, and is particularly unintegrated. He is the ultimate mundane worldly thing, devoid of anything that could be called godly. Hence, the Antichrist is likely to be four tyrants with four features, four personalities, four missions and four talents.

Regarding the personalities of the Antichrists, I have used, as a descriptive tool, the four temperament theory of personality types used or modified by Hippocrates, Empedocles, Aristotle, Keirsey, Jung, Myers-Briggs and many others. Each of the four major Antichrists will have a similar character (with minor variations mainly produced by their environment) which will become ever more diabolical along the sequence, as if Satan is continually working towards a climax of evil. However, they will, however, display significant differences in the ways that they go about accumulating and using power. These differences will accord with the different environments in which each operates, and will manifest as different personality types. Due to the fact that we already know that the personalities of Napoleon and Hitler covered two of the four personality types, I speculate that the final two Antichrists will have the final two personality types. From everything else that I have come to know about the four Antichrists, I speculate that these four personality types will manifest among the four major Antichrists as I have detailed in the table above.

MY JOURNEY

Looking at the four beasts prophecy of Daniel, and then the use of the number four as the Bible’s judgement number, it appears that, just as the four beasts prophecy was rolled out in stages over time, so too will the prophecy of John’s special Antichrist, the FINAL ANTICHRIST. The evidence suggests that this special Antichrist prophecy will be rolled out as four major Antichrists over a long time period, with a substantial amount of time between each. Their degree of evil and their level of power will ascend along the series until the final and most evil Antichrist is reached, who is generally called ‘The Antichrist’, but I also call THE FINAL ANTICHRIST, or AC4. Also, it seems that this sequence of Antichrists will echo the pattern of the four ancient empires to which Daniel’s four beasts prophecy refers.

In my studies of patterns in the world I have often found that worldly things occur in groups of four, and that this especially seems to hold for judgement events that are detailed in the Bible. Thus, as a judgement event, I feel that this FINAL ANTICHRIST of history should emerge as four people over a long duration, each separated by a significant time. These four Antichrists would begin with Napoleon and Hitler.

My hypothesis, or working theory, is that the Bible indicates that, for the purpose of provoking people to unite with himself, God will provide four Antichrists who are much more powerful than any other antichrists have been for over one and a half a millennia, and who will ascend in destructiveness along a sequence of four.

Now, I am interested to investigate this long duration of the Antichrist emergence, to try to get an idea as to the timing of the four Antichrists. I will do this in the next chapter.

ENCOURAGEMENT

HOLD ONTO THE FAITH

The Humanists who will superficially dominate the world will behave as if there is no such thing as a spiritual reality. They will claim to have finally empirically disproven and invalidated Christianity, using proof and reason. Humanism will appear to rule, and God’s decrees will be treated with contempt. But God will actually be more powerful and influential in the world than ever. However, it will take insight to see this.

There will come a time when all peoples will be against Christians, and nation after nation will also line up against the Jews. This is because Satan can deceive humanistic nations and peoples into doing his will. This should not be surprising. After all, Jesus said in Matthew 12:30 that ‘he who is not with me is against me’? (The corresponding verse in Mark 9:40, ‘For whoever is not against us is for us’ speaks from a political not a spiritual perspective). However, just when it seems that all people are against Christians, such that all their supporters have abandoned them and even many former Christians have turned because Christians seem to be powerless and wretched, the world will end, with Christ ruling in glory and power. At this time, Christians will be seen not as lowly powerless fools, but as the powerful, the mighty and the wise. They will also share in power at Christ's right hand, and they will co-judge (co-rule) the world with Him (1 Corinthians 6:2; Matthew 19:28; Daniel 7:18, and Luke 22:29-30).

When it seems that no one can be lead to Christ in the last days, keep evangelising because the final developments of Christ’s Second Coming will come about so shockingly that many who have seen your example will turn to God.

For those who become afraid at the thought of the end of this world and the wars which will precipitate this, remember that God has allowed Israel to survive many conflicts, such as the total annihilation of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the exile of the Jews in around 580 BC, and even the splitting of the Northern and Southern kingdoms in about 930 BC. Indeed, it is written that he has a plan to bring a faithful remnant of his chosen people back to himself (Romans 11:26 – ‘And so all [of the true] Israel will be saved…’). Also, because the Word says that ‘God desires that all people be saved’ (1 Timothy 2:4), so we know that the manner of the ending of this world will be both evangelistic for non-believers and spiritually protective and secure for believers.

When Israel is attacked more and more, and treated worse and worse in the final days, be encouraged that God is producing from it a repentant remnant to convert to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and be grafted back into His glorious Kingdom to live in the new earth.

Similarly, no matter how treacherous and how evil Humanists’ behaviour becomes in the last days, God can turn this around by offering them a chance to repent. Remember Saul of Tarsus.

If you personally suffer through these days remember Isaiah 38:17 (‘Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love, you have kept me from the pit of destruction…’), and that God is allowing you to experience this suffering for your own good.

In 1 Peter 1:7, Peter says that trials of suffering come to Christians ‘…so that your faith – of greater worth than gold and which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.’ What he is describing here is the work of a gold assayer. This person melts gold so that its impurities will float to the top, and then skims these off to purify the gold. It takes many rounds of melting and cooling before the gold becomes relatively pure. Each time a piece of gold (a Christian) is melted then skimmed it becomes more pure, until one day it shines brightly enough for the assayer (God) to look upon it and see his own face reflected back. Thus, suffering makes us more like Jesus, so that when we get to heaven we will, as Romans 8:29 puts it, ‘be conformed to the likeness of his Son so that he (Jesus) will be the firstborn among many brothers.’

Indeed, our suffering can gloriously act to further enlarge and strengthen the Kingdom of God (Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church – Colossians 1:24).

So pray, and know that Christian prayer is neither blockable, reversible, nor stoppable. It quite simply transcends any of the world’s limitations in terms of time, place or circumstance. It is the most powerful transformative force in the world. Our God is the king of kings. The Antichrist is just a clown.

IMAGE 6 – THE PROPHET DANIEL

(9) HEY PRESTO?

The pattern of four major Antichrists cited by this book constitutes a 4-part Antichrist for the purposes of biblical prophecy. Thus, for example, when Revelation 20 says that the Antichrist was released, it is this 4-part Antichrist to which it refers. The previous chapter of this book mentioned that there will be four major Antichrists rolled out over a significant period of time, with a substantial amount of time between each of the Antichrists, having begun with Napoleon and Hitler.

This roll out over time applies to both Satan’s imprisonment and release.

Regarding Satan’s release from prison to roll-out the Antichrists, the first of these Antichrists was Napoleon, who rose to power in 1799. However, this action of releasing Antichrists will not immediately yield maximum results, because Satan will not be fully empowered to surround the camp of God’s people (Revelation 20:9) until the time of the zenith of power of the FINAL ANTICHRIST. This is because it takes him time to gather the nations for battle (Revelation 20:7). This gathering is Satan’s counterfeit of Christ’s gathering of the nations in the gospel age, that is mentioned in Matthew 24:31 - ‘he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather the elect from the four winds’. Thus, just as it took God time to accomplish his gathering, so it will also take Satan time to do the same, although not as much time.

There are two different Greek words for ‘gather’ used in these last two passages, but that does not invalidate my point. The Greek word for ‘gather’ in the Revelation verse is the normal word for ‘gather’ that is used in the New Testament - ‘synagagein’. It means to ‘bring together’. However, the word for ‘gather’ in the Matthew verse, ‘episynaxousin’, is used in only in that verse, because it has a special meaning. It means to ‘bring together to others already assembled’. It is used here because the Christian community is being gathered by Jesus after the cross to join those who are already Christians – the disciples and others. However, it still means to gather. Therefore, the use of two different Greek words to denote the idea of ‘gather’ does not invalidate my point.

Regarding Satan’s imprisonment, this was executed by God at Jesus’ resurrection in order to stop Satan from deceiving the nations into persecuting the Christians. God had good reason to do this because, according to Revelation 20:7, once Satan was eventually released, he began to do precisely that. However, this action of God’s to imprison Satan did not immediately yield maximum results, because the evil that had already been sown in the world by Satan did not abate until nearly three centuries later in 313 AD, when Constantine was converted, Christian persecution declined sharply, and thus Satan’s power to gather pagans to persecute Christians became greatly reduced.

END TIMES PROPHECIES ROLL OUT OVER A SIGNIFICANT PERIOD OF TIME

Many theologians present these acts of God that pertain to the end time prophecies as if they will occur as quickly as “Hey Presto!” But, they often represent the execution of massive changes in the world. They can involve huge historical and political shifts that entail a change of viewpoint in many, many millions of people. Surely it takes a long time for such massive shifts to occur.

It is important to understand that one of the mistakes that is made in the interpretation of biblical prophecy is to think that every one of the prophecies of God’s future actions will manifest as one discrete event, whereas in fact many prophecies manifest as a process of events that roll out over many years. Let me list four examples of this.

First, in Genesis 3:15, God prophesied that the serpent’s (Satan’s) offspring will suffer the following fate at the hands Eve’s offspring: ‘…he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel’. This prophecy portends a long battle between Satan and man, in which Satan comes off worse. Satan’s final doom is to be destroyed at the judgement of God, and in Romans 16:20 Paul tells his readers that this will happen soon - ‘The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet’. The incident of the serpent striking the heel of Eve’s descendants represents the sufferings of Jesus, and then the people of God, that is associated with that long battle. God prepared the world for this event for many thousands of years before it happened. Therefore, it rolled out as a process of many events over a significant amount of time.

Second, in the book of Revelation, the period between the days of Christ’s apostles and the judgement of God is covered in Revelation 6 - 18. However, this will not occur in just a few generations, as scholars used to believe. Instead, it will roll out over thousands of years, and involve seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls that describe many ascending cycles of evil on earth over a period of at least two thousand years, as God prepares the world for his judgement.

Third, Isaiah prophesied Jesus’ atoning death on the cross in Isaiah 53. However, note that this prophecy extends further into time than merely to the end of the cross event itself. Isaiah 53:11 tells us that Christ’s faithfulness will ‘justify many’, extending right up to the judgement of God. Isaiah 53:10 extends this even further when he says that Christ will live forever (‘prolong his days’). Therefore, this event rolled out not merely over the next 700 years, but over a period of at least two and a half thousand years to the judgement itself, as God prepares the world for it with a process of events.

Fourth, the battle of Gog, referred to in Ezekiel 38-39, prophesies the great final battle referred to in Revelation 19-20 in which God’s people are besieged by all of the nations of the world that are gathered together. However, once again, God must prepare the world for this prophecy fulfilment. Thus, given that at least two and a half thousand years have elapsed since the writing of the book of Ezekiel, one can conclude that God will roll out this prophecy over at least that amount of time as a process of many events. I could give many more examples, but the point is clear.

What do these prophecies have in common? They all have to do with the end times and the final state of the world. Any prophecies that are concerned with the FINAL ANTICHRIST are similar, in that they are concerned with the end times and the final state of the world. Clearly, the imprisoning and releasing of the FINAL ANTICHRIST and the establishment and withdrawal of protection for God’s people on earth determines the nature of the end times. This category of prophecies concerned with the end times and the final state of the world includes any prophecies about the millennial events of the imprisoning of the Antichrist, the releasing of the Antichrist, and the direct counterparts of each of these two actions: God’s prevention of Satan deceiving the nations into persecuting Christians, and thus his physical protection of the bodies of Christians; and the withdrawal of this protection by God in the last days.

Thus, as end times prophecies, I contend that each of the millennial events above will not manifest as a discrete event, but that each will roll out as a process of events over a period of time. Just like the events of the four prophecies above, each of these prophesied events have either required or will require a time-consuming preparation of the world by God for their ultimate fulfilment.

Therefore, I contend as my first contention that Satan was imprisoned at the cross and was kept from ‘deceiving the nations anymore’ (Revelation 20:3), but that this process had to be rolled out, had to build through history, in order to reach its full manifestation. This took until 313 AD. Similarly, Satan was released just before Napoleon’s ascension to power in 1799, when he commenced to very effectively ‘go out and deceive’ (Revelation 20:7), but his power will not build to its completion until the time of the zenith of the power of the FINAL ANTICHRIST.

My second contention, which is like the first, is that the physical protection of the bodies of the saints that came from this reign was first afforded at the cross, but did not reach its ultimate level until 313 AD, and that this protection was, and still is being, progressively withdrawn from just before Napoleon’s ascension to power in 1799 and onwards, but will not reach its full withdrawal until the time of the zenith of power of the FINAL ANTICHRIST.

What about the protection of the souls of the saints? This spiritual protection does not appear on the diagram below because, as I have already said, the millennium refers primarily to the prevention of the gathering and deceiving of the world’s people by Satan, which has ensured the physical protection of the bodies of the saints. However, regarding the protection of the souls of the saints, I contend that this protection originated at the cross, and that thus it will never be withdrawn, even up to the end of this world and the judgement, because it is eternal.

EXACTLY WHEN WAS SATAN RELEASED FROM PRISON?

I have mentioned that Satan was released just before Napoleon’s ascension to power. However, in what exact year was Satan freed?

RELEASED TO DECEIVE THE NATIONS

Revelation 20 says that Satan will be freed from prison to deceive the nations. However, it is important to note that this deception is not the general deception of nations against God that Satan always does, but an additional specific one designed to promote in pagans a hatred of God’s people then gather them to persecute God’s people. This is what the deception of Revelation 20 means.

There had been a general deception causing people to doubt the existence of God that Satan had delivered to the world over the whole of the Church Age. Furthermore, this had picked up pace with the popular philosophical movement of Nominalism in the 1300s. Previously, every object in God’s creation had been viewed as being charged with God’s supernatural power and meaning – a spiritual quality. However, Nominalism separated the spiritual and the mundane, and regarded the spiritual part, the meaning part, as being merely nominal: existing in name only. By sidelining the spiritual, this movement was making preparations to one day sideline God himself from all reality.[132] Subsequently, movements such as the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment further deceived people into denying the existence of God. Whereas this general deception by Satan did prepare the nations for his release and the coming of the Antichrist, it was extremely slow, and it was also limited, in that it could not and did not deceive the nations of the world, that were mentioned in Revelation 20, into gathering to persecute the people of God.

This singular prohibition that God decreed on Satan is similar to Job 1, where God allowed Satan to persecute Job in any way he chose, just not to touch his physical person. Why was Satan prohibited from gathering the people in this way? This is because the whole Church Age is about protecting Christians so they can gather, because whoever gathers, wins. To gather doesn’t just mean to go to church, it symbolises the whole capacity and opportunity for Christians to work together as a team and support each other in myriad ways. And, if they can do that, they will progressively destroy paganism on earth in favour of Christian expansion. On the other hand, if Satan can gather his forces by co-ordinating secular powers to work together, he can destroy Christianity on earth in favour of paganism (upon which God would send his people to the protection of heaven). However, the forces of evil cannot completely do this because they can never sufficiently integrate into a strong whole, because integration requires love.

THE SPECIFIC DECEPTION

So, what will this second and more specific deception of Revelation 20 look like?

Such a deception must recruit huge numbers of people to gather and persecute God’s people – the nations of the world. In order to do that, it must have two qualities. It will be both more or less universal, and also fortified. In France between 1789 and 1794, such a deception occurred. It was decreed that Christianity was not just limited, but that it was completely intellectually invalid, so it was replaced by the Cult of Reason, the religion of the power of man, as the State Church. This attack against the Church, was almost universal in its appeal and participation. Later in this book, I will argue that the FINAL ANTICHRIST will major in this deception as he gathers the whole world against God’s people. Thus, whereas, previously, various peoples had been deceived into persecuting God’s people on a discriminatory basis in anti-Jewish Pogroms and anti-Jewish pogroms and even anti-Christian purges, these initiatives were merely small-scale raids by singular, isolated special interest groups compared to the universal whole-of-world plan that is ultimately in view here. Even the dechristianisation of Russian culture, which began in 1666 and was exacerbated under Tsar Peter the Great, could not be said to have achieved acceleration and traction with the whole population until the Romantic Era, after the year 1800.[133]

As well as being universal, this specific deception must be fortified. Because the effect of the above deception will be to completely discredit Christianity to the vast majority of any country’s population, Christianity must not be able to regain a fighting position in the marketplace of ideas, thus fortifying this deception. Humanism will popularly usurp Christianity because that is what Humanism does to opposition ideologies. Later in this book, I will demonstrate that China, at around the time of AC3, will do this to groups and cause that oppose its purposes and narratives.

The specific deception must also create in people a mindset that is similar to the mindset of the people of the land of Magog in Ezekiel 38. Those people had thoughts come into their mind that told them to devise an evil scheme to invade an innocent and unprotected people of God. This corresponds with the rebellion, the secret power of lawlessness, of 2 Thessalonians 2:7 and represents a time when many people lose their godly sense of conscience, humility and love and instead act in shameful, arrogant and merciless ways towards God’s people by openly expressing prejudice, hatred and ill-will towards them. As more and more people do this, they will be emboldened to collect and persecute God’s people. This universalism was also seen in both the Dechristianisation of France and the German anti-God fervour that killed the Jews and planned to kill all Christians.

Additionally, into these adoring masses will come a major Antichrist who will deceive them even further. In Matthew 24:24, Jesus states that ‘false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive’. As I have already shown, this is what major Antichrists do. They: imitate Christ; elude assassins; amass incredible power quickly, from nowhere, and from outside the political system; hold onto that power; cast their universally appealing spell as they take on the very aspirations and identity of their nation; build up their nation’s economy and self-confidence incredibly quickly; win military battles so quickly and decisively that the world cannot imagine defending itself against them; worm their way out of the noose of death so that it can never quite kill them; and then correctly attribute it all to supernatural assistance. These aren’t Jesus-type miracles, they are Antichrist-type miracles that seek power, vain glory and false worship.

THE YEAR OF SATAN’S RELEASE

Therefore, in view of the above, to convincingly argue for one discrete year when Satan was released from prison, I must identify one unique year that contains the following seven characteristics that no other year contians:

1. A Sharp Turn Reform - It must contain antichristian reforms of such a strong and striking nature that they represent a decisive break from the whole of the lengthy period during which Satan was imprisoned, manifesting as sharp-turn Antichristian reforms that have arrived largely out of the blue.

2. A Revival of Evil - It must contain antichristian characteristics that revive, in their character if not their every detail, the activity of Satan from before he was fully imprisoned in AD 313.

3. A Continued Evil - It must have begun a new trend that Satan has continued up until the present time.

4. A Continuing Evil - It must have begun a new trend that Satan looks like continuing beyond now.

5. Ganging up against Christians - It must contain the persecution executed by Satan that is listed in Revelation 20: he must have deceived the nations in order to gather them to persecute God’s people.

6. The Breaking up of Christian Communities - It must contain a persecution that practically manifested in breaking up Christian communities so that they cannot gather, thus disempowering them. This is the opposite of Satan’s gathering and the result of it; he gathers so that the Church cannot).

7. The Destruction of Christianity - It must contain a persecution that practically manifested in wiping out many Christians and the church itself.

The facts of the period starting in 1789 satisfy all of these criteria.

The period from 1789 saw five things happen that had not happened before, in the time of Satan’s imprisonment. I will now list those four things in order. I will also indicate, for each, how they satisfy the above criteria.

First, from 1789 to 1801 in Paris, there began a campaign called the Dechristianisation of France. This campaign of dechristianisation was fuelled by the convincing anti-Christian propaganda of the Enlightenment, the preparation for Satan’s release. During the 1793-1794 Reign Of Terror in Revolutionary France, this campaign became the single most violent anti-clerical campaign (1 - A sharp turn reform) since Satan’s full imprisonment in 313 AD (2 - A revival of evil). This campaign saw virtually all of France turn against Christians in open displays of hatred and arrogance as huge feverish mobs persecuted Christians wherever they stood (5 - Ganging up against Christians). It was a whole new level of all-in anti-Christian violence never seen before, and thus a decisive break from the lesser levels of Christian violence since Satan’s imprisonment (1 - A sharp turn reform). Since this campaign, this level of Christian persecution has consistently spread until today, and I touch on the details of that in the next section (3 - A continued evil). A goal of Satan’s for the Antichrist is that he might persecute the people of God. How interesting it is that, when Satan was first released from an incarceration that was designed to prevent him from destroying God’s church during the evangelisation era, the first thing he did was to temporarily wipe out the Catholic Church in one country – France (6 - The breaking up of Christian communities; 7 - The destruction of Christianity). To this day, the Christian church in France has never recovered from that campaign.

Second, in 1794, another decisive break that occurred was something that accompanied the Dechristianisation of France in 1789 – the Cult of Reason. This was a new atheistic state-sponsored replacement church for Christianity (7 - The destruction of Christianity), which was the world’s very first state sponsored atheistic religion (1 - A sharp turn reform).[134] It was a religion of mankind, a universal appeal to the fallen state of man, cast in the mould of the French Enlightenment philosophers, where the people were god, and where the abstract qualities of reason, liberty, nature and victory of the Revolution were celebrated. Having prevented Christians from gathering (6 - The breaking up of Christian communities), pagans were now gathering in a cult that directly opposed all of the precepts of Christianity. It was the church of Satan, and it completed the persecution of the Christians in France at that time. If you want a marker to indicate that Satan has arrived from prison to wage war against Christians, this is surely it! And, it has happened consistently since then. Today, many national governments either deliberately or inadvertently impose a set of values on their citizens that are decidedly atheistic, thus fortifying them (3 - A continued evil). This is consistent with Satan’s aims for the world because an atheistic state is one that follows and worships him, and he wants that (4 - A continuing evil).

Third, from 1799 to 1815, Napoleon authored a whole new type of statecraft (1 - A sharp turn reform), marked by secrecy and deception that irreversibly sewed the satanic values of the Enlightenment into his society, thus fortifying them. This would spread across to many other societies in the years to come (3 - A continued evil). Another one of Satan’s goals for the Antichrist is that he might deceive people en masse. This can be seen as a preparation for a larger version of this in the future when all the nations of the world will be full of satanic values and anti-Christian blood lust (4 - A continuing evil).

Fourth, from 1799 to the zenith of Napoleon’s power in 1812, he had gathered more power than any leaders since the Caesars (2 - A revival of evil), and he used it to make war against Christian nations, God’s people (7 - The destruction of Christianity). He amassed this power using the whole list of Antichrist-type miracles noted earlier in this book. Nothing had been seen like it since the Caesars before Satan was imprisoned (1 - A sharp turn; 2 - A revival of evil). However, soon Hitler was to follow with a similar strategy, and it will happen many more times in the future. As Satan’s aim with the Antichrist is to collect power to range it against the saints, this was a significant preparation for that end (The above two constitute: 4 - A continuing evil).

Fifth, although the French Revolution strove for liberal and leftist ends, some of its methods exhibited the first emergence of Fascism since the Roman Empire’s adoption of Christianity, back when Satan was imprisoned just after Constantine’s conversion in 313 AD (2 - A revival of evil). Its policies and reforms also exhibited Renaissance Humanism, also for the first time since the time when Satan was being imprisoned, during the emergence of Christianity in the first century (2 - A revival of evil), but now in a new deistic, and sometimes atheistic, form. The fascinating part about this is that both Fascism and Renaissance Humanism were ideologies of the Ancient Greek and Roman empires, the forerunners of the modern Antichrists. It seems that Satan’s specific methods for the destructive reign of Antichrists are these two modes of action. He used them writ large during the ancient empires. He was stopped from using them to any significant degree during his imprisonment. Then, as soon as he was released, he went back to his old stomping grounds, his trusted methods, and re-deployed them (1 - A sharp turn reform; 2 - A revival of evil); but this time for much larger and more effective ends.

Fascism is a political ideology of ultranationalist political authority, centralised state control of the entire population and state militarism. It manifested in the French Revolution (especially with the Jacobins), the Dechristianisation of France and the methods of Napoleon, in four main ways:

(A) The country rallied around a whole French national cause and not just a political party;

(B) A mass-ideology and a civil religion were manifested;

(D) Many of the actions of this time established achieve very quick and widespread change and the mass-mobilisation of soldiers (All of the above constitute: 5 - Ganging up against Christians).

Fascism first existed in Ancient Greece, especially Sparta, in the following forms: (1) a nationalistic emphasis on militarism and racial purity (which Hitler specifically said inspired him), (2) the notion of a total commitment by citizens to their nation, (3) the Platonic notion that the state should be ruled by an elite class who are specifically educated for that purpose and who are preserved and improved by a state-run eugenics and selective breeding program, and (4) the belief that the State’s authority should not be restricted by individual rights. The modern Italian Fascists identified with Ancient Roman Fascism, especially Julius Caesar and Augustus, who manifested the fascist elements above as they built and maintained the Roman Empire (2 - A revival of evil).

Deistic Renaissance Humanism manifested in the French Revolution and the methods of Napoleon through the pursuit of individual rights and social equality. Earlier, in the Greco-Roman era, Renaissance Humanists sought to create a citizenry that had both capability and access as civic agents, and were therefore endowed with individual rights, education and an accessible democracy. This tradition re-emerged in Italy in the 1200s, then spread across Western Europe in the 1300s through to the 1500s. However, this was Christian Renaissance Humanism. What emerged in 1789 was the practical application of a new atheistic Renaissance Humanism, combined with the Fascist elements listed above. Later on, during the twentieth century and before World War Two, Fascism re-emerged, first in Italy in 1922 with Benito Mussolini. Then, it spread to Germany, as well as other countries who would be her allies in World War 2, such as: Japan, Finland, Thailand and Romania. It also reared its head in the form of political movements in Portugal, Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece and Spain.

In the future, Atheistic Renaissance Humanism will continue to march through the world, becoming stronger and stronger as AC3 approaches. Also, Fascism will form the central strategy of AC4 – see Chapter 16 on AC4 (4 - A continuing evil).

THE DECHRISTIANISATION OF FRANCE

The most influential and characteristic sign of the release of Satan was the Dechristianisation of France. This deserves a closer look. Exactly what happened during this Dechristianisation of France? The new revolutionary authorities suppressed the church, abolished the Catholic Monarchy, nationalised church property, and killed an amazing number of priests (6 - The breaking up of Christian communities; 7 - The destruction of Christianity).

In 1789, tithes and various other privileges of the Clergy were abolished including the taxing power of the church, and also the properties and land of the Catholic Church were sold by the government at public auction. In 1790, the Church was formerly subordinated to the government by law. In 1793, a law was created such that any priest who did not swear an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, a document giving the government complete authority over the church, was liable to death on sight.[135] This reform permitted only state-controlled pseudo-churches with all of the most uniquely and powerfully Christian doctrines and practices removed – the prototype religious persecution method used by countless regimes since. All iconography, crosses, bells and other church objects were destroyed, most being burned by revolutionary armies. The number of bishoprics was reduced. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, as a result of the enforcement of this law, 27,000 Christians perished. In 1792, the government legalised divorce, contrary to church doctrine. The State also took the control of birth, death and marriage registers away from the church. Then, in 1792, the government dissolved into chaos, and angry mobs took to the streets. Thousands of priests and nuns were either massacred by these mobs, executed for treason, or imprisoned in horrific conditions in the port of Rochefort. In 1793, the word ‘Sunday’ was abolished. Also, the Pope-decreed Gregorian calendar was replaced by the French Republican Calendar such that the Sabbath, saints’ days and any reference to the church were abolished. Anti-clerical parades were held, and many churches were converted into ‘temples of reason’ where atheistic services were held for the new Cult of Reason. As has been mentioned, this Cult of Reason was the world’s first state-sponsored atheistic religion. After this, the persecution significantly toned down. However, even in 1799 priests were still being imprisoned or deported to penal colonies (This paragraph includes: 5 - Ganging up against Christians, 6 - The breaking up of Christian communities; 7 - The destruction of Christianity).

Over this whole period, under threat of either death, imprisonment or military conscription, about 20,000 priests were forced to abdicate, those who fled were hunted down, and 6,000 to 9,000 agreed or were forced to marry. By the end of the decade, 30,000 priests had been forced to leave France, and those who didn’t were executed.[136] Catholic priests were drowned, held in horrendous jail cells, or deported to penal colonies. All in all, around 30,000 died, manifestly wiping out the church in a decade.[137] Indeed, clergy numbers went from 60,000 in 1790 to 25,000 in 1815[138]. Some were even coerced to marry.[139] Many of these victims were later treated by the Church as Christian martyrs. In a region called Vendee, a mixture of volatile religious grievances became a rebellion that took over 100,000 lives (This paragraph includes: 5 - Ganging up against Christians, 6 - The breaking up of Christian communities; 7 - The destruction of Christianity).

As a campaign designed to dechristianise France it was successful, but long after its own time. It laid the foundation for all future secularist thought in France to reach the people. Catholicism was analysed and refuted. Most towns had no priest, and learned to live without one with respect to the countless communities services that the ordinary priest regularly rendered. By 1794, few of France’s 40,000 churches remained open; they had been closed, sold, destroyed or converted for other uses. Most of the priests never served in that capacity again, and many of the parishioners never came back to the Church. On the entrance to every cemetery was inscribed the words ‘Death is an eternal sleep’ in order to deny the afterlife and assault the religious convictions of an entire nation. Christianity was disconnected from the people, weakened in the lives of the people, and ultimately destroyed in the minds of the people. As historian Mona Ozouf said, ‘…the transfer of sacrality onto social and political values has been accomplished’.[140] The Church in France never recovered. Today, France is one of the most secular nations in the world (This paragraph includes: 3 - A continued evil).

Interestingly, within this campaign are the four elements of Satan’s whole post-imprisonment mission of Revelation 20: (A) the specific deception of the masses, (B) the gathering of people against God’s Church, (C) the disempowering of God’s people, and (D) the attack and destruction of them. Though Satan’s method in the last days will be secrecy, here his impatience gave the game away, revealing his entire strategy blueprint for the next few centuries and more. And the Church has not recognised this!

SATAN’S RELEASE IN 1789

Tallying up the seven characteristics required to convincingly argue for one discrete year when Satan was released from prison, I land on the following totals:

1. A Sharp Turn Reform – 7

2. A Revival of Evil – 7

3. A Continued Evil – 4

4. A Continuing Evil – 4

5. Ganging up against Christians – 4

6. The Breaking up of Christian Communities – 5

7. The Destruction of Christianity – 6.

As you can see, all of the criteria are adequately represented in this one unique year, and no other year. So, there it is. 1789 was the year in which Satan was released from prison. Therefore, today the millennium has already finished. The approximate period of the millennium lasted from the cross in 33AD until 1789. This adds up to a period of approximately 1,756 years.

Furthermore, the following progression can be seen. First, the Enlightenment prepared the minds of people for the release of Satan, whereby people started to feel that Humanism was possible on a mass-scale as it eventually reached such a level of widespread intellectual and social influence and acceptance in France that it became the universalised ethos of almost that entire people who became willing to commit to and rely upon it en masse. This showed that Humanism had gone from being a transformation of thought to a transformation of attitude on a societal level, and had in turn grown into the willingness to fight and die for the new Enlightenment principles. Second, in 1789, the Dechristianisation of France brought the full force of Satan to earth as he was released from his prison. And third, Napoleon rose to power in 1799, adopted the ideals of the Enlightenment, applied and fortified them to the fullest possible extent in his own society and time, and irreversibly sewed them into the structures of society, such that they were both practised and grew in strength from then on, so that they would spread around the globe.

Just listen to what so many writers have said regarding the crucial importance of 1789 as the pivotal date of the most decisive historical break in modern times that: birthed the new widespread notion of ‘The Revolutionist’ with his passionate ideologies that are held as zealously as a religion, created the rise of widespread nationalism, motivated whole generations to transform the world, and forever separated the populace into the political Left and Right.

Literary critic George Steiner said, ‘The French Revolution is the pivotal historical social date after that of the foundation of Christianity … Time itself was deemed to have begun a second time’.[141] Similarly, German poet Heinrich Heine commented, ‘Freedom is the new religion, the religion of our time … But, the French are the chosen people of the new religion. Paris is the New Jerusalem, the Rhine is the Jordan that separates the land of freedom from the land of the Philistines’.[142] Historian David Andress described the French Revolution as, ‘the fount and origin of our modern world’.[143] Whereas political commentator William F Buckley Jnr. condemned it as, ‘the central cause of the malformation of modern ideological thought’.[144] Political theorist Hannah Arendt opined that, ‘It was the French Revolution and not the American Revolution that set the world on fire’.[145] Hitler said, ‘This revolution of ours is the exact counterpart of the French Revolution’.[146] Similarly, Leon Trotsky noted, ‘I tell you, heads must roll, blood must flow. The strength of the French Revolution was in the machine [universal national cooperation] that made the enemies of the people shorter by a head. This is a fine device. We must have it in every city’.[147]

AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT THE END TIMES PROPHECIES ROLL OUT WILL LOOK LIKE

Here is an overview diagram that gives a general idea of what the binding and releasing of Satan should look like.

DIAGRAM – THE MILLENNIUM

CONSTANTINE 313 AD DECHRISTIANISATION OF FRANCE 1789

TIME

CROSS 33AD 2^ND COMING

This diagram depicts the imprisonment of Satan and the reign of the saints with God, which are concurrent events because they are related to one another. They start at the cross, and will end at the time of the zenith of the power of the FINAL ANTICHRIST, the time of the Second Coming of Jesus. Thus, both began at the cross, built to their fullest extent by the time of the conversion of Constantine in 313 AD, then began to seriously decline from about 1789, the year of the beginning of the Dechristianisation of France, and will be fully uninstalled at the time of the FINAL ANTICHRIST.

THE DETAILS OF WHAT THIS ROLL OUT WILL LOOK LIKE

Here is a table that sets out the details of what this will look like.

Table 9 – The millennium

EVENT	SEMINAL BEGINNING	FULL ROLLOUT
1 (A) - THE IMPRISONMENT OF SATAN	At the cross, God imprisoned Satan to prevent him from deceiving the nations into physically persecuting God’s people.	Due to the time that it took for the evil that Satan had previously sown in the world to abate, he did not lose his power to deceive large forces of personnel into persecuting God’s people until 313 AD.
1 (B) - THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PHYSICAL PROTECTION OF THE SAINTS	At the cross, God physically protected the saints, so that they were able to successfully evangelise in Jerusalem, then they were spread out by God to continue this via the Diaspora.	Due to the time that it took for the evil that Satan had sewn in the world to abate, the saints did not experience the physical protection to evangelise without severe limitations until 313 AD.
2 (A) - THE RELEASE OF SATAN	In 1789, God released and equipped Satan to begin to deceive the nations, and a new strand of thought took hold that is so potently capable of deceiving people into persecuting the people of God that it will continue to build upon its work until the end of this world.	By the time of the zenith of the power of the FINAL ANTICHRIST, Satan will have deceived the whole world, such that all of the powers and resources in the world will have surrounded God’s people (will be against Christians and Christianity).
2 (B) - THE ENDING OF THE PHYSICAL PROTECTION OF THE SAINTS	In 1789, God withdrew the physical protection enjoyed by his people, thus persecution against them was, and is, being steadily ramped up.	By the time of the zenith of the power of the FINAL ANTICHRIST, Satan will have fully persecuted the saints to the extent that God will allow him to.

Now, let’s have a look at how each of these events plays out in history.

Note also that each event has two components; one has to do with the imprisonment of Satan, and the other to do with the physical protection of the saints. This is so because the protection of the saints was a result of Satan’s imprisonment. So, therefore, these two are really dual components of the one act of God. Additionally, note that this is also true for the opposite of each of these actions of God, their undoing: the withdrawal of protection, and Satan’s release.

Note also that each of these events has a seminal beginning and a rollout. That is because when God institutes an action that will affect millions or billions of people, this action must first spread through the population until it reaches a critical mass of power in order to fully affect the multitudes to which it is directed. This is because there are so many hearts and minds that must be changed for a large-scale socio-political transformation to occur in the world. This can take many years. This is one reason why end times prophecies may roll out over many years. It is also related to the Hilltop Principle that I mentioned earlier in this book. This is the idea that when God wishes to change something he first wins the most difficult victory to secure the most powerful ground, for example the hilltop, then he slowly rolls out his victory from there. An example is when someone is converted and becomes a Christian. God first wins the centre of his heart; that is his will, his heart of hearts. After that decisive, or seminal, victory is achieved, the gradual rollout of sanctification begins.

This principle is the 11^th principle of God that I stated earlier: When God transforms something he first wins the seminal victory at the core, ridding it of sin, then progressively transforms it from the inside out – revolutionising it.

Now, I will look at the actions of God listed in the table.

THE IMPRISONMENT OF SATAN

At the cross, Satan was imprisoned to stop him from deceiving the nations into persecuting God’s people. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul refers to the fact that an angel of God initially held Satan back, and then this angel was taken out of the way so that Satan could be released. Likewise, Revelation 20 also describes an angel doing a similar thing.

We know, from Revelation 12:8-10, that Satan was first imprisoned at the cross, where he was hurled to the ground (imprisoned) at the same time as salvation came to the world. However, were the saints fully protected then? Satan was imprisoned to ‘keep him from deceiving the nations anymore’ (Revelation 20:3). When he was released, he went out and deceived the nations into persecuting God’s people. Therefore, Satan was imprisoned to stop him from deceiving the nations into persecuting God’s people. However, rather than the cross stopping the brutal persecution that occurred via the gathering of power under the Romans, this persecution actually increased. Therefore, we know that Satan’s persecution of God’s people, Satan’s millennial imprisonment, occurred at the cross but did not fully manifest as protection against persecution for the saints at that time, because Christians were still being persecuted en masse for quite a long time after the cross.

This is because it takes a very long time for spiritual power to work through the millions of people that are required to be changed in their hearts, and for it to change a society sufficiently, in order for history itself to change. This time period is the build-up time or lag time associated with mass change. Satan had previously sown deceit into many hearts, and this deceit resulted in the persecution of God’s people. The attitudes and programs, and the structures and systems, that Satan had already created and installed in society took time to dismantle and be discontinued once Satan was imprisoned, such that they remained until 313 AD.

Satan’s millennial imprisonment manifested as effective protection for Christians when the emperor in charge of the mega-conquest of the Roman Empire stopped wanting to persecute Christians – namely Constantine. This happened at approximately the time of Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in 313 AD.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PHYSICAL PROTECTION OF THE SAINTS

Physically protected by the cross, the saints were able to evangelise in Jerusalem, and then they were spread out by God to continue this evangelisation via the Diaspora. This seminal beginning of evangelism saw a progressive build-up in the number of Christians. The biblical book of Acts records that ‘the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved’ (Acts 2:47). However, there were severe limitations placed on this evangelism. Often, when they tried to evangelise, they were killed or imprisoned. After the conversion of Constantine in 313 AD, however, the power of the Roman Empire noticeably reduced, and its monstrously severe persecution of Christians stopped.

God had a part for Christians to play in this historical transformation. It says in Revelation 20:11 that Satan was imprisoned after the saints ‘overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death’. Note that this implies that Satan was progressively overcome over a period of time that started from the cross. So, the physical manifestations of the imprisonment of Satan took awhile to build as the kingdom of God was spread by courageous and sacrificial saints, and many of the legacies of the unredeemed world from before Christ were progressively erased and reversed. It can be argued that this challenge to Christians prepared the church for the blessing of protection, as God always prepares his people before he blesses them.

From the cross to the modern period, this physical protection has resulted in the gospel era that has seen Christianity proselytised in all countries of the world, such that the kingdom has multiplied on earth many times.

THE RELEASE OF SATAN

The Bible describes the event of Satan being imprisoned at the cross as, alternately, an angel locking him in the abyss, holding him back, or hurling him to the ground. The change when he is released is described in terms of the angel being taken out of the way. This represents Satan’s power first being withdrawn from the world, but now being allowed to re-enter it.

This re-emergence of Satan’s power had, as its purpose, the deceiving of the nations to persecute the people of God. This specific deception truly took hold in 1789 with the Dechristianisation of France, after the distribution of the 1762 book of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ‘The Social Contract’. During the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophers among the Jacobin Club. His work implanted a potent anti-God argument into the hearts of people that has been widely proselytised to this day. As a result, today, most westerners do not see any need for God.

Later, under Hitler, history witnessed a populace that was even more deceived and homicidal. Since then, the spirituality and the values of westerners across the world have continued to decline, as is evidenced by what we see today (see Chapter 14 – Today’s Particularly Bad Worldwide Mass Deception). This decline, and the whole of the period of the major Antichrists, will allow sufficient time for billions of people to be darkened by disbelief in the last days, and for society itself to be darkened. The darkening so far has been made possible by the generations of building disbelief in God on the part of their recent ancestors.

Also, the growth of Christianity has slowed considerably in the West (see Chapter 14). Whereas the spread of the gospel is still proceeding strongly in many third world countries, I suspect that this will also slow as the influence of Satan’s release progressively deceives more and more nations into rejecting Christianity. Indeed, the whole history of Christendom, that is Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, was essentially given its death knell by the Enlightenment. This is because the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, described by Canadian theology professor Douglass John Hall as ‘the first attempt to topple the Christian establishment’[148], saw modern governments refuse to uphold the teachings, customs, ethos and practice of Christianity, but rather replace Christian empires with secular, anti-clerical republics seeking to keep the church out of politics.

Satan rolled out this specific deception in order to give him the capacity to progressively gather the worldly power with which to attack God’s people. This is the action of gathering the nations for battle against God’s people that is mentioned in Revelation 20:7; and it took and will take hundreds of years. Once the Enlightenment’s anti-God philosophy had taken hold of the populace of France and Europe, the first major Antichrist, Napoleon, was leading this nation. Napoleon was the first leader in history since the height of the Caesars to have amassed their relative amount of economic and military power. This can be seen to been a gathering of people and power, such as is described in Revelation 20:8. The next Antichrist, Hitler, represented a worse Antichrist than Napoleon, and he gathered to himself even more power. Eventually, when this power is fully gathered, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will, for a short time, have possession of all of the resources in the whole world, and will use them to greatly persecute God’s people. This can be seen in Revelation 13:7: - ‘He was given power to make war against the saints and conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation’.

However, even today, many books are written by learned experts that say that ascribing evil to Napoleon is just silly. Hundreds of celebrated scholars have judged Napoleon to be a force for good. Today, the Right Wing movement of the West celebrates Napoleon and the Enlightenment as the inaugurators of the new freedom of speech and civil rights of the modern era – an example to be followed. However, think about it. What were you expecting when Satan was released from his prison to deceive the nations? Were you expecting a mighty army to suddenly besiege the world as they announce themselves dramatically and threateningly? Remember – it’s a deception! What we should expect Napoleon, and the Enlightenment he appropriated, to look like is – nothing to see here. It should be an invisible spiritual assault by Satan in plain sight and noticed by no one. It was a deception! In fact, it was the greatest deception that has ever been perpetrated on the world in all of human history. So, for hundreds and hundreds of years, even the Christian world should have no idea that the millennium has ended. And that is exactly what has happened! In fact, many Christians will never know until the final days of AC4, and it will have ended more than 400 years earlier! The Bible backs this up in the double-fulfilling prophecy of Matthew 24:24 – ‘For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible’. Those who do recognise that it is a deception must use exquisite spiritual discernment from the Holy Spirit, and this more or less proves that it must be a satanic deception! And, to make this unnoticed deception even more potent, the whole experience was dressed up by Satan to look like a good thing! In the Enlightenment/Napoleonic era, Satan said, “I will give you great and egalitarian social reforms, if you just give up on God for me.” I say to Satan, “That is a false economy. No deal.”

Tellingly, a complete denial of the reality of the Antichrist was rare before the Enlightenment but, during it, the term was progressively removed from Christian discussion over about two-hundred years in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.[149] This occurred because enlightened absolutist European rulers cleansed churches of ‘legendary’ or ‘folk’ tendencies.[150] Even now, many Christians do not believe in the Antichrist, demonic attack, the miracles of Jesus, spiritual gifts, signs and wonders, or even the power of prayer because they are not empirical realities. These are elements of Satan’s deception.

One final element of this specific deception is represented by just how few people today realise that Hitler’s main extermination was never to be the Jews, but the Christians – and in their hundreds of millions. By the end of World War 2, he had already commenced the building stage of his plan to create Nazi capital cities around the world from which these exterminations could be launched, by destroying and then starting to rebuild, in his own image, the Warsaw CBD. Had Hitler succeeded, this truly would have represented the scene painted in Revelation 20, whereby Satan is released from his prison to gather his forces, surround the people of God and attack them.

THE ENDING OF THE PHYSICAL PROTECTION OF THE SAINTS

With the re-issuance to Satan of the power to deceive the nations in 1789, came an increase in the persecution of God’s people. It will be a long ascendancy until the final persecutions of AC4, so the initial persecutions started small. However, there was something new that was signalled here, something that would mark out future persecutions from all of the persecutions that came before them – its extent (see above).

Hitler is also known to have planned a similar extermination for the Christians of the world to the one that he manifested for the Jews of Europe, should he have achieved his aspiration of conquering the world. Hitler’s massive gathering of powerful resources represented a credible and imminent threat to take the entire world by force using a large army of deluded and determined warriors. And, the campaigns of the next two Antichrists will be even more overwhelming and overpowering than his was. Thanks to the massive deception currently being foisted upon the world, Satan can now mentor and inspire Antichrists by which he can forcefully and successfully influence large populations to follow and worship him. The four major Antichrists will ascend in destructiveness over time as Satan is progressively released. Finally, AC4, the last and worst Antichrist, will represent Satan having fully gathered the powers of the world to himself.

This decline in the physical protection of Christians in modern times can be seen when one looks at modern Christian persecution. Last century, more Christians were martyred than in the last eighteen centuries combined. There were in excess of 26 million documented cases of Christians being martyred, whereas in the previous eighteen centuries combined, there were 14 million documented cases of Christians being martyred. However, these are merely the documented cases. The estimate for the actual number of Christian missionaries that were martyred last century is 80-100 million. Today, eleven Christians are killed each day for their beliefs. This is the highest number for this statistic in modern history.[151] The graph curve for this statistic really starts to steepen at the time of the French Revolution, just after Napoleon’s birth. Check it out for yourself.

Finally, during the short reign of the AC4, when Satan has fully gathered his power, there will be a Great Tribulation suffered by the saints at the hands of this FINAL ANTICHRIST before they are taken up to be with Christ. Revelation 13:7 says – ‘He [The FINAL ANTICHRIST] was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them’. Daniel 7:21 says – ‘As I watched, the horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them’. Revelation 11:7 says – ‘Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will attack them, and overpower them and kill them’.

For the saints, this period will be very difficult indeed. Matthew 24 says that it includes: famines, wars, earthquakes, persecution, deception, apostasy, an increase of wickedness, suffering, distress and false prophets. This suffering will be so bad that it will be ‘unequalled from the beginning of the world to now and never equalled again’ (Matthew 24:21). Also Jesus recommends that they ‘flee to the mountains’ without taking their belongings (Matthew 24:16-18), and hopes that these calamities will occur outside of winter and when no one is pregnant (Matthew 24:19-20). However, it will be short lived, and they will be able to cling to their inner relationship with God to access spiritual peace, hope, joy and love. However, their physical selves will be constantly imperilled. Many will die in mass exterminations of God’s people. These exterminations will be so efficient, so swift and so all-encompassing of entire populations that they could accurately be labelled ‘industrial’. Will all of the Christians be killed? From the verses above, it seems certain that most of them must be. Consider also that the Jews cannot be saved until all of the Christians have been (Romans 11:25), and that God’s people will ascend to heaven before the heathens descend to hell (1 Corinthians 15:23-24).

It is important to note, however, that this is not a punishment to Christians. It is simply God shaking the orange tree of his people to save as many as possible and to sanctify those he already knows to the greatest possible degree. Also, the withdrawal of this protection is occurring slowly and progressively, as was evidenced by World War Two, where God eventually saved the Christian nations.

This decline in physical protection can be seen in the Bible. Revelation 20:9 describes John’s vision, stating that the forces of the Antichrist ‘marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves’. This does not describe a literal city, but the people of God, who are surrounded, in other words trapped, at the mercy of the Antichrist and persecuted. This idea is also conveyed in Matthew 24:4-35, where the historical event of the surrounding and destroying of Israel is prophesied. However, via double-fulfilment, this also refers to the last days surrounding and attacking of God’s people. Ezekiel 38 is also helpful here. This passage has a double fulfilment. It came true in the days of the Old Testament, but it clearly pertains to the last days as well, as it is so similar to the narrative of the book of Revelation. Ezekiel 38:11 says, about the forces of the Antichrist ranged against the people of God, – ‘I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people – all of them living without walls and without gates and bars’. However, God will only allow this in order to show his greatness, as Jesus smashes the Antichrist with his second coming and executes his judgement. Ezekiel 38:18-23 puts it like this:

‘This is what will happen in that day: When Gog [the Antichrist] attacks the land of Israel [God’s people] my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign Lord. In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground and all of the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign Lord. Every man’s sword will be against his brother [there will be Christians and pagans in the same family]. I will execute judgement upon him [the Antichrist] with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulphur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’

MY JOURNEY

Whilst the substantiation of the 4-part Antichrist was a good confirmation to gain, I couldn’t get out of my mind the amazing correlation between Daniel’s Kingdom-opposing third beast and China. I decided to investigate this further in the next chapter.

ENCOURAGEMENT

HOPE

Nothing can alter what must enter history some time after the year 2020 – two disastrous future Antichrists of worldwide magnitude that are designed to shake the undecided to repentance.

In provoking this repentance, God intends to do what he can to encourage hope among Christians.

What is hope?

The New Testament prophecy of the Bible tells us. There, Christians are told of God’s unpleasant acts of testing that they must endure, and are urged to keep their faith under the sufferings involved – to stand. However, they are also told that, throughout it all, God will ensure that they are spiritually protected against the clown Antichrist – by the true King.

What does it mean to be spiritually protected?

It means a lot of things. I will look at three.

First, it means that our most urgent and essential spiritual needs will be ceaselessly satisfied and provided for, right throughout any suffering or trials.

What are these needs?

They are our ultimate relational needs. That is, in a cosmic sense beyond this time and this world, our needs to belong, to be cared for, and to be relationally significant.

Second, it means that we will be spiritually developed in order to be spiritually healthy; for to be spiritually healthy is to be spiritually growing in joy and peace.

Third, it means that our names, as Christians, will continue to be written in the book of life, the seal of spiritual salvation, the absolute guarantee of the reward of the future good life in the New Earth.

And this last guarantee will be fulfilled when the time comes. Therefore, ‘hope’, in this sense, means the unassailable assurance of a good future with God. Additionally, hope meets our needs in the present, as well.

In 1 Peter 1:19, the recipients of Peter’s letter are described as ‘receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls’. Also, in Mark 10:29 Jesus states the following: “…no one who has left home or brothers or sister or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life”.

Note that Jesus emphasises the suffering of those who may lose, or be betrayed by, members of their own family. Our true family is the family of God who are ‘those who names are written in the Lamb’s book of life’ (Revelation 21:27).

In this book, I seek to reassure you the reader by proving that, as the wider political circumstances of Christians change, God’s spiritual protection of you will not change. I will prove this by calling out various political developments for what they are and how they fit into God’s loving plan, and by reminding Christians of the eternally righteous and trustworthy character of their God and his promises.

(10) THE COUNTRY OF THE THIRD ANTICHRIST

Fascinated by the apparent correlations between Daniel’s third beast and the modern Chinese Communist Party, I decided that I should further investigate the modern nation of China. Would this investigation support my suspicions about China as the country of the third Antichrist, or would it debunk them?

THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY

The following is a side note. In any discussion of Chinese people, I wish to be correctly understood. I will never allege that Chinese people are comparatively evil, as against anyone else in the world, just as I do not regard Frenchmen and Germans as particularly evil because it turned out that those nations had been used by God as Antichrist nations. Antichrists come because of the evil of the world – they are our evil coming back to us, so that we might acknowledge it, confess and repent. And, from the evidence of Napoleon and Hitler, it is the nature of Antichrists that they are only as evil as the humanity that supports them. Antichrists do not institute evil, human populations do. Antichrists exploit evil. Furthermore, they need to have plenty of evil in the world around them before they even start their campaign. If it turns out that China becomes the nation of the third Antichrist, China will simply have been chosen by God to be the next Antichrist nation because it suited Him, but it could have been many other countries, in fact any country. Chinese people are not intrinsically evil. For centuries they have been honest business dealers, polite immigrants and a nation of peace. In being chosen by Satan to host an Antichrist, they will simply have been targeted for deception by him in a somewhat unique way, but then every other nation in the world will be targeted for deception too.

Additionally, the Antichrist will not be a product of the will of all of the Chinese people. He will be a product of the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP). Many Chinese people oppose the regime of the CCP. Therefore, when I speak about the evil that has been or will be committed by China, I am limiting these comments to those Chinese people who belong to, or choose to support, the CCP in its evil activities.

THE OSCILLATING ANTICHRIST CYCLE

Whilst investigating the modern nation of China to test the apparent correlations between Daniel’s third beast and the modern Chinese Communist Party, I discovered an historical pattern. I call this pattern the Oscillating Antichrist Cycle. Not only does it identify that the next Antichrist must come from a Left Wing country, as China is today, but it also identifies the traits of Left Wing Antichrist nations. But, will these traits line up with the nature of the modern Chinese Communist Party?

THE LEFT AND RIGHT WINGS OF POLITICS

China has a Left Wing political system. Left Wing politics will be critical in the development and the methodology of the next Antichrist who will espouse a perverted form of Leftism. Why do I say that? Let’s look at the dynamics of Left and Right wing politics.

The atrocities resulting from the extreme Right Wing fascism of the Nazis in the Second World War were so unimaginably shocking that even today humanity looks over its shoulder in trepidation lest they might ever happen again. Thanks to Hitler, Right Wing extremism is, and has been for a long time, the most prevalently shared notion of evil in modern humanity. Thus, most people who look to the future fear Right Wing extremist dictatorships. As a result, since World War 2, humanity has been both consciously and unconsciously recoiling from any Right Wing extremism, and, notwithstanding other influences such as those that may have spawned the Thatcher-Reagan era, now tends to slowly move leftwards. In recent times, this has caused the Left Wing to become quite extreme, while the Right Wing has been forced to become ever more centrist and moderate in order to win elections. This extremism can be seen in today’s social engineering, identity politics and political correctness.

For example, in Australia, there was a Right Wing Liberal Party Prime Minister by the name of John Howard, who lost his position in 2007. He was the one who, more than any other person, represented this party. His government was petitioned to pass gay marriage legislation; however, Howard refused and compromised with legislation that ensured both extensive human and legal rights for gay partnerships. However, in 2017, this same Liberal Party engineered the eventual passing of gay marriage legislation. Similarly, Howard’s position on the centrality of coal as an energy source in Australia had become completely untenable for his party by 2019. Thus, in as little as 12 years, John Howard went from being representative of his Party to unrepresentative, due to its movement to the left. President Donald Trump will not win the 2020 election. He will be the last of the hard-Right presidents in America for some time, as the Republican Party will be forced to move leftwards, and thus in towards the centre of the political map, to win elections.

Therefore, these days, due to this perpetual drift to the Left, the political position that we call ‘Left Wing’ now is actually an extremist Left Wing position by past standards. Likewise, the position we now call ‘Right Wing’ is actually a centrist position by past standards, because the world has now moved further to the Left than a conventional past Right Wing position could be. It is like we all live on an unmoored houseboat on a tidal river. The tide is gradually carrying the boat down the river. However, because the movement of the boat is so slow, the only people who ever notice it are the ones who have consciously lined up the boat’s original position with a marker on the river bank.

Let me be clear that my personal political preference is neither for the Right or the Left Wing of politics, but somewhere in the middle. As evidence for this I would cite the fact that I have voted for both Left and Right Wing candidates in federal government elections in my country.

Also, in order to be fair to people of the genuine Left Wing persuasion of the past, when I criticise the current Left Wing, I will call it what it actually is – the Extreme Left Wing. Genuine Left Wing politics has, down the centuries, been a defender of the poor and weak, and a civiliser of laissez-faire capitalism. This does not describe modern Left Wing behaviour, which has taken some Left Wing ideas much further. Therefore in this document, I will describe modern Left Wing behaviour as extremist. Moreover, genuine Left Wing government was largely a force for good. However, political extremism at either wing is a dangerous and destructive thing. Thus, modern Left Wing extremism can be both dangerous and destructive.

THE LEFT-WING/RIGHT-WING ANTICHRIST CYCLE

The politics of the two Antichrists who have lived so far, Napoleon and Hitler, have differed greatly from one another as a result of the political environment in which they emerged and established their governing power. I will argue that these political environments have oscillated between an extreme Left Wing one and an extreme Right Wing one: Napoleon (Left) and Hitler (Right). Moreover, there is reason to believe that this will continue to occur such that it forms an Antichrist cycle: AC1 (Left), AC2 (Right), AC3 (Left) and AC4 (Right).

What is my substantiation for this? I shall provide six reasons.

(1) NAPOLEON AND HITLER BELONGED TO POLITICAL WINGS

First I must substantiate the claim that Napoleon was a Left Wing ruler and Hitler was a right Wing one. One problem I have is that I have already argued that both Napoleon and Hitler steered middle or centrist political courses in their leadership of their respective countries.

Earlier, I stated this: ‘Both navigated the middle road of politics, centrism, towards the end of their reign of power.’ If my statement above seems to contradict my assertion above that both Napoleon and Hitler steered extremist Left and Right Wing political courses, please allow me to explain. It is true that each steered a middle political course in the last years of his reign. Each one did this because of his prideful satanic mission of gathering all power to his nation, and thus himself. Hitler worked to create a one thousand year power era, and Napoleon sought to establish France as the world’s model nation. This mission required the full political scope of available actions and reforms, without the constraint of holding to either Right Wing or Left Wing principles. Thus, neither was not limited to the policies of either the Left or the Right political Wing. They weren’t political leftists or rightists because their true power came not from politics but from Satan, therefore their agenda was a spiritual one more than it belonged to any particular political party. This is because both ultimately gained their power from a spiritual rather than political source.

Nonetheless however, in the first place and for most of their reign, each one needed to gain sufficient political power, as a launching pad for their spiritual programs. Thus, in order to build popularity, it was necessary for both to start by identifying with one political wing and its accompanying constituency, and to become its saviour and spokesperson. Even Jesus did this, by first joining a political movement, John the Baptist’s group, a group that was not completely a-political.

But, if much of their reign was executed as centrists, and only their ascension to power occurred at the Left or Right Wing, why do I refer to them as extremist Left Wing or Right Wing figures?

I do this because when I label Antichrists as being extremist Left or Right Wing I am tracking and explaining their rise, and not their reign, when their power has been well and truly established. I am concerned with how they come to power in the first place. So, when I describe the extremist Left Wing actions of Napoleon and the extremist Right Wing actions of Hitler, I am describing that part of their reign that directly results from the public persona which they had to adopt in order to rise to power in the first place. I do this to explain how each acquired such immense power, which is by far the most difficult and remarkable thing that an Antichrist ever does. After all, this ascension to power facilitates and platforms every subsequent issuance of power they ever execute. The hard part about being an Antichrist isn’t sitting on the throne; it is getting to the throne in the first place. To do it, they must perform the ‘magic trick’ of completely hoodwinking their society whilst appearing to champion whatever political and social cause about which their people are, by now, fanatical.

Thus, in each case, both Napoleon and Hitler entered that wing of politics which their populace, in general, preferred at the time. Napoleon worked for the extremist Left Wing revolutionaries of the French Revolution in the late 1700s. Hitler rose by allying with the extremist Right Wing anti-Semitic, anti-Bolshevik and anti-Communist members of the Volkisch Movement, the Thule Society and the extremist Right Wing German Workers Party, which later became the Nazi Party.[152] Napoleon dabbled in the extremist revolutionary Left Wing politics of Jacobinism, to such a degree that he was called a terrorist. Hitler fought loyally in defence of the old established order.[153]

(2) NAPOLEON LEFT, HITLER RIGHT

THE LEFT WING NAPOLEON.

For Napoleon, this meant that his power was born of an extremist leftist philosophy. But, where did he get these Left Wing ideas from?

As I have explained, in the 1700s, various French and other European thinkers attempted to supplant the wisdom of God with human reason. These subtle falsehoods increased in size over time. From these values, emerged the Leftist inspired French Revolutionary War that was fought against the tyrants of the upper classes. Then, from it, emerged a 24 year old general named Napoleon who appropriated its values as his arguments, purposes and political sales pitch that he would use to gain power.

Thus, it was from the Enlightenment and the Revolutionary war, that Napoleon derived his political philosophy. Napoleon simply enlarged, and then executed, many of the Enlightenment’s most treasured new Leftist ideas and social panaceas: democracy, human rights (such as equality before the law) and the innate power and virtue of reason. All of this was anticipated to result in peace, opportunity and mutual human respect – in other words quality of life for all. However, in the end, this formed the exceptionally seductive and deceptive ideology with which he prosecuted his programme of aggressive expansionism, including mass-murder and ethnic cleansing. This hardly represented quality of life for all. This is typical of political extremism. Its often well intentioned schemes end up being destructive. This is because its ideology contains the deceptions of Satan.

Another example of this phenomenon of Leftist satanic deception is the glorification of the spirit of reason. At that time, the French were so enamoured with the power and virtue of reason that they erected a statue to the Goddess of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral in 1793, when the Revolutionary French Convention proclaimed the Goddess of Reason as a replacement for Christianity, and installed it on the high altar of the cathedral. Additionally, they built a Temple of Reason for this new belief system that was designed to replace Christianity, the Cult of Reason, based on the ideals of reason, value and liberty. To this end, churches were converted into Temples of Reason in which atheist and licentious sermons replaced the regular proscribed services. However, this ideology of reason did not stop the mass-killings and bullying of the clergy by the state.

Overall, Napoleon’s execution of Leftist Enlightenment ideas resulted from a warped version of the faculties of discrimination and discernment, as he threw out many sound and time-honoured ideas in favour of many new-fangled and truly unsound ones to create his new law system and other seemingly humanitarian reforms.

Even today, most people still believe that a future of fully realised democracy, human rights and human reason will automatically result in widespread quality of life. After all, they argue, what exactly are the ill-effects of democracy and human rights’ movements? In response, I would point to the future. These movements will eventually become what I call Hyper-Democracy. (See the later section called Hyper-Democracy. In that section, I will explain the lesson that history has taught us: that human rights will become barterable trade-offs by which violent regimes buy silence and inactivity from would-be protestors, so that they can continue their social engineering programs.)

Note that the failures of Napoleon testify to the fallacy that human reason, without any help from God, is sufficient to provide people with the protection, guidance and wisdom they need to live well.

For example, the Leftist Enlightenment apparently brought a much greater freedom of thought and action, and this seemed to be something that would give societies freedom. However, consider what life was actually like for French people who were given these new rights. It was not like we know Western democracies and human rights to be today. They were forced to endure a reality where supposedly democratic movements such as elections and plebiscites were completely rigged, faked and lied about by government propaganda machines; where a massive secret police and large-scale professional espionage force spied and reported on citizens’ most private activities; and where most males were press ganged by large scale military conscription into horrific wars, as Napoleon conceived new forms of statecraft aimed at enforcing his power. Hippolyte Taine, who was one of the foremost intellects amongst the critics of the man he called the ‘Diocletian of Ajaccio’, outlined what might have become had Napoleon triumphed over the Russians in 1812. He described a European empire that was a slave continent with its entire male population indentured in holding down the subjected, and crushing the obstinate via spying and bullying.[154] Additionally, Napoleon’s Law Code: reduced the rights of illegitimate children in a raft of ways; reduced the rights of women such that they could not disobey their husbands, acquire, buy or sell property or hold an office of any sort; re-introduced colonial slavery; abolished the teaching of revolutionary subjects such as history, philosophy, political science and literature that may have sharpened people’s reason and given them the capacity to expose his weaknesses; set about educating girls solely for the purpose of submission to their husbands; restricted and censored freedom of the Press to the tune of reducing the number of newspapers from 73 to 4 approved ones, claiming that liberty was ‘not for the common people’; and restricted the importation of superior British goods, causing many businesses in France to fail, the economy to slump disastrously as it slid into unemployment and inflation, and a measure of famine and starvation to take hold of the country.[155] Moreover, he had the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen document omitted from the final draft of France’s constitution, whilst living a kingly life of exalted rights himself, which included: having vocal opponents killed, receiving a 500,000 Franc yearly allowance (Robespierre’s was 6,750), crowning himself Emperor, creating his own loyalist class of nobles by awarding them honours and titles for their allegiance, and putting a series of his own relatives on many European thrones.[156]

I submit that the above does not represent an outcome of democracy, human rights and equality for all before the law.

Just as Napoleon used the political leanings of his times as a launching pad for his own mission, so too did Hitler. However, this time the thrust came from the other side of politics – the extreme Right Wing.

THE RIGHT WING HITLER.

Hitler was anti-communist. However, he was also anti-capitalist. Thus, he settled on a political position that was Right Wing, to avoid communism, and fascist, to avoid what he saw as the excess or unmanageability of capitalism. Therefore, as a far Right Wing leader, who was also both fascist and anti-communist, Hitler’s leadership style could be described as (1) ultra-nationalistic, (2) socially conservative, and (3) anti-egalitarian.

Regarding Hitler being ultra-nationalistic, Hitler came to power with no revolution, leaving the old establishment entrenched. Rather, he converted the mass of the population to nationalistic causes and usurped and corralled all of society’s economic, bureaucratic and political organisations into the national interest. Even when he did establish social programs in Germany, such as the Hitler Youth, it was for ultra-nationalist ends – usually to establish German power and conquest in the world.

Regarding Hitler being socially conservative, Hitler revived German nationalism through the Third Reich (the Third Empire) in a serialised history of German political reichs or empires. By considerably revising history, the Nazis asserted that the First Reich was the medieval Holy Roman Empire (800-1806), the Second Reich was the German Nation State Monarchy (1871-1918), and the Third Reich was to be modern Germany (from 1918 onwards for one thousand years). The intention was to continue the glorious history of German empires in honour of the admirable and timeless German ideals of the past. This was a very socially conservative agenda. Incidentally, it is quite interesting how similar he is to Richard Wagner, from whom he took inspiration in this area. Wagner’s greatest masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), is a massive 4-part opera in the Tetralogy tradition of Ancient Greek drama presented as four-part pieces. It took 26 years to write and requires 15 hours to perform. Thus, like Hitler, Wagner’s inventions took the form of serial creations in which he could repeatedly produce conservative results with nationalist historical themes that sat within an overall model or construct.

Finally, regarding Hitler being anti-egalitarian, in the 1850-1900 period, various new ideologies emerged which were based on the idea that some hereditary characteristics were stronger, more moral and more attractive than others. Furthermore, it came to be regarded that heredity itself could be artificially contrived to exemplify these characteristics in a race of people. Moreover, it was thought that, for the good of all mankind, inferior races should be exterminated, and thus their heredity should be extinguished. Examples of this vein of thought include Phrenology, Francis Galton’s Eugenics and the Social Darwinist Strongman Theory of Friedrich Nietzsche. But, what Hitler turned these into was truly a horror of Ultra-Right Wing Fascism. Hitler turned these theories into the movements of hyper-intolerance, racism and genetic superiority that spawned the Holocaust.

(3) THE OSCILLATION OF THE ANCIENT EMPIRES

As additional support for modern Antichrists oscillating in a Left-Right cycle, it is interesting to note that the Antichrist-type nations of Daniel’s ancient empires also correspond to this oscillating Antichrist cycle.

It is fascinating to observe that Daniel’s first beast (the winged lion) and his third beast (the winged leopard) are similar. Both are winged cats, and thus symbolically possess a degree of sophistication and grace. Upon further examination of the first and the third of the modern Antichrists, this can be seen to correspond with their attempts to manifest ingenious social and combat policies, social welfare, religion and culture in the world. Thus, it can be observed from history that the French and the Chinese have and will bring to the world extremely clever and totally original war strategies and societal organisational principles, as well as a degree of social equality and a contribution of culture. These two beasts would seem to correspond to the two Left Wing Antichrists.

Similarly, Antichrists two (the bear) and four (the globalist) are also similar, both being described as particularly fierce and strategically organised, efficient, practical and thorough (Daniel 7:7b – it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left). The meticulous record-keeping of the brutal Nazis and the thoroughness of the merciless FINAL ANTICHRIST (Daniel 7:7b) stamp both of these as very pragmatic, practical and efficient mega-systems. These two beasts seem to correspond to the two Right Wing Antichrists.

Moreover, one can take this whole pattern a step further back. It can also be seen in the previous fulfilment of this prophecy, the four ancient kingdoms that are listed in chronological order in Daniel: Babylonia (the winged lion), Medo-Persia (the bear), Greece (the winged leopard) and Rome (the terrifying beast).

The Babylonian Empire was significantly more cultured than the Medo-Persian one. The Babylonian Empire, or Second Babylonian Empire, spawned a great renaissance of religion, culture and artwork, reprising many elements from the previous two thousand years of Sumero-Akkadian culture. On the other hand, the Medo-Persian Empire, or the First Persian Empire, was mainly noted for its organisation and efficiency. Its centralised bureaucratic administration featured a tax system, a banking system, canals, underground waterways, way stations, a governance system of 127 provinces, a universal currency, a roads system, an official language, and a postal system that operated via a relay of horses stationed throughout the empire; all of which inspired similar systems in later empires.

Also, the richly cultured Greek Empire furnished the world with philosophies of civility and society that promoted social welfare, religion and culture. On the other hand, the Roman Empire was so outstandingly organised and pragmatic that it was able to establish the first guaranteed, controllable and secure broad-based pan-national state of peace and order, the Pax Romanus, which facilitated the reliable transit of travel, commerce and social life. However, Rome was so uncultured that it had to co-opt the rich culture of the Greeks.

This pattern in these ancient empires gives added credence to the theory that Antichrists oscillate, because these Antichrist-like ancient empires were the forerunners of the modern Antichrists. It shows that Satan has always acted this way in constructing mega-tyrants, and there is no reason to believe that he will not continue this. Thus each modern Antichrist empire can be compared to its corresponding empire in ancient times. For example, according to the biblical book of Esther, during the time of the Medo-Persian Empire, King Xerxes 1 came under the influence of a man named Haman, and Xerxes sanctioned, at the state level, a fully funded and organised plan to kill every Jew in his empire. The only other time that this has happened in history was in the corresponding bear empire, the Nazi one, when Hitler came under the influence of the anti-Jewish sentiment of his day and sanctioned the very same plan. The difference, however, was that, with Satan released from prison, God was not protecting the Jews under Hitler, because he wanted them to receive an indication of what it would mean for them to deny Jesus Christs – their total spiritual destruction in hell. As it transpired, nearly every Jew in every Nazi occupied country was killed.

(For those who retort that the Medo-Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great was nowhere near as evil as the Nazi one under Hitler, consider that Cyrus’ descendants Darius and Xerxes definitely spoil the honourable record of Cyrus’ reign, and blot the Medo-Persian copybook. Though he was not a major Antichrist, Darius ascended the throne in true Antichrist style, by murdering the rightful ruler Bardiya, stealing his throne, then lying about how he died. He then took Babylon, impaling 3,000 Babylonians in the process. And, Xerxes, after him, wasn’t any better.)

Therefore, using the above correlations, we now have the opportunity to speculate upon the upcoming Antichrist reigns (i.e. that of AC3 and AC4) by comparing them to the ancient Greek and Roman Empires. Under AC3, will we see a popularising of Chinese art, philosophy and theories of social organisation, as we did with the Greeks during their empire? Under AC4, we will see some pretty impressive social organisation, but it will be used for brutally murderous ends.

(4) THE TWO SIDES OF SATAN

Why should there be precisely two types of mega-tyrants: the leftists with their set of characteristics and the rightists with their set of characteristics? I mean why not three or four or five? There are two because there are two natures or two sides of Satan himself. And, each of these two kinds of Antichrists, Right Wing and Left Wing, corresponds to one of the two natures, or the opposite poles, of Satan. These poles are: (1) the sophisticated and cultured, clever and charming subtle manipulator whose manipulations continue to mislead others a long time after his death; and (2) the bestial and animalistic, fierce and well-organised destroyer. This bilateral nature can be seen in the scriptures. The word ‘devil’ means liar or slanderer, and refers to the devil’s deceptive side. The word ‘Satan’ means adversary or accuser, and refers to the devil’s aggressive and warlike side.

Thus, the ancient empires of Daniel’s four beats which were the Antichrist forerunners patterned themselves in a left-Right oscillation. Following this in modern times, Napoleon worked his way to the top as a Left Wing aspirant, and Hitler as a Right Wing one. However, is there any reason for believing that this pattern will continue to AC3 and AC4?

(5) CHINA

If one looks carefully at the actions of modern-day China, this trend does indeed seem to be continuing right before our very eyes.

China is a Left Wing Marxist Communist nation run by a Central Committee, the Chinese Communist Party, that is building up to Antichrist strength in a distinctly Left Wing fashion, which is reminiscent of both Napoleon and Daniel’s leopard.

Why do I say that? What is Leftist about the current CCP Antichrist build-up?

I will give 7 reasons, all of which are further substantiated in other parts of this book.

1) China is assembling a massive cohort of allies that are as different from one another as a leopard’s spots. When a cohort of 22 Western allies wrote a signed letter protesting against China’s concentration camps in Xinjiang, China was able to return a signed note of opposition to this from its allies numbering not 22 but 37! And, this number did not include two more allies that were unable to sign at the time, Iran and Turkey. This group of allies grows in number every year;

2) China’s actions are perceived by her allies as being remarkable achievements in the field of human rights;

3) China has stated that it wishes to resume its place at the centre of the world by 2049;

4) China harbours the kind of hardline victim mentality required for an Antichrist state, and this ideology has been both intensified and popularised in China over the recent decades;

5) Just as it has been mentioned in this book that AC1, Napoleon, conceived evil and ingenious new forms of statecraft aimed at enforcing his power, interestingly, China has already created and instituted similarly evil and ingenious devices: a social credit system, debt trap diplomacy, forced technology transfer, the theft of intellectual property on a grand scale, and other nefarious schemes;

6) The leopard is a creature of ambush, and this requires secrecy. China’s schemes for worldwide power emphasise secret strategies: diplomacy, the media, investment flows and infrastructure development. In Australia, China has attempted to buy the influence of parliamentarians. It has also used an aggressive method of subversive warfare in the areas of: intellectual property theft (particularly in universities), forced technology transfer, cyber attacks and espionage. [157] Quite simply, China tries to prevent other nations from foreseeing the grave future it plans for them until such time as the there is no escape from them - that is, once the trap has sprung, the noose is around the neck, and the leopard has pounced;

7) I have already shown that Napoleon was a false unifier of diverse peoples. Interestingly, China is fast assembling the most diverse force ever possessed by a world super-power.

COINCIDENCE?

Looking at everything that the CCP is doing today, and particularly these seven points, it seems unlikely that it would be a coincidence that China would so closely resemble both Daniel’s leopard and the other Left Wing modern major Antichrist, France, and not be set to produce AC3. So, it appears that the third of the four jigsaw pieces is slowly moving into place: Napoleon (Left Wing), Hitler (Right Wing), An unknown Chinese leader (Left Wing) …and… AC4 may be Right Wing.

(6) RIGHT WING VIGILANCE, LEFT WING APATHY

Even if China appears to be a Left Wing state that is building up to host AC3, is there any reason to think that this trend of Antichrist oscillation would continue beyond them to spawn a Right Wing AC4?

Due to the current fear of extreme Right Wing dictatorships mentioned above, if a Right Wing extremist ever plotted a territorial expansion today, or even attempted to mount a preparation for this, he would be quickly quashed, because humanity is currently vigilant in its opposition to Right Wing extremism. However, if an extremist Leftist were to do the same, humanity would be much slower to react, if it reacted at all, mainly because of apathy. This would give such an extremist Leftist both ample time and opportunity to establish power. Thus, after an extremist Left Wing Antichrist, all vigilance will be directed to the Left, so that an extremist Right Wing Antichrist will be able to blindside humanity. This actually happened just after Hitler had risen to share the top level of power in Germany. His power was not stable yet, and he could have been toppled by his enemies. However, they didn’t do this because he was dealing with the communists so well, and they thought that it was the Left Wing agitants who were the real enemies. Then after an extremist Right Wing Antichrist, all vigilance will be directed to the Right, so that an extremist Left Wing Antichrist will be able to blindside humanity, and so on vice versa. Imagine a person who is about to cross a road. However, they are only looking to the right, never to the left. Their neck is locked to the right. As they cross, they will not be run over by a car that is coming from the left, but they may well be hit by one that is approaching from the right.

Therefore, the stage is set today for an evil extremist Leftist to be supported by the current zeitgeist of extremist Right Wing vigilance, but extremist Left Wing apathy. This apathy results in a naively compliant international population which would allow an extremist Left Wing Antichrist to begin his diabolical work without being detected. However, it is impossible for a Right Wing one to do the same in the current political climate. Like a swinging pendulum, Antichrists move from extreme Left Wing to extreme Right Wing to extreme Left Wing to extreme Right Wing. By doing this, people will be fooled by them, and will not see them coming. Thus, Antichrists must oscillate from Left to Right Wing.

Therefore, it would appear that this oscillating Antichrist Cycle will continue to AC3 and AC4.

The left-right oscillation is one pattern that can be inferred about modern Antichrist Cycle. From historical observations of Napoleon, Hitler and China, there are other patterns that can be inferred about the Antichrist Cycle. I have listed these below.

PATTERN 1 - THE ANTICHRIST CYCLE MIDPOINT

The Antichrist cycle midpoint is a pattern that can be seen across the Antichrists who have lived so far. From historical observation it can be seen that, in between the first two Antichrists, there is the midpoint in the Antichrist cycle. Here, the opposite wing to that of the upcoming Antichrist will often predominate widely in world politics and economics.

In Europe in the 1730s, Right Wing monarchism and royalist state leadership was growing, eventually providing Napoleon with his political opponent when he was in power in the 1800s.

In Europe in the 1860s, Communism started to flourish and grow such that it eventually gave Hitler his political enemy and scapegoat when he took power in the 1930s.

Recently in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan joined forces to unleash a revolution of capitalism and economic rationalism to create a modern climate of Right Wing dominated state economies all around the world, and this may have established some of the political policies for the next Left Wing Antichrist to rail against when he takes power. This Right Wing prevalence of attitude peaked in about 2007 with the Global Financial Crisis. This crisis appears to have been somewhat of an historical watershed because, after it, the normal characteristics that are associated with the Right Wing became Left Wing, and vice versa. Previously, the Right Wing of politics had been known for aligning with the interests of rich people and openly and transparently persecuting the Jews. The Left was more known for defending the rights of the poor and being so outraged by the Holocaust of Jews that they instituted wide-ranging anti-discrimination programs. However, since 2007, the Right has championed the poor and the Left has openly abused the Jews. What is interesting about the year 2007? If one takes, from a later calculation in this book, the number 124.5 to be the approximate amount of years that separate Antichrists, an interesting fact emerges. The year 2007 is the exact midpoint between the end of the era of AC2 and the end of the era of AC3: 1945 + (124.5/2) = 2007.

PATTERN 2 - SUCCESSIVE ANTICHRIST CYCLES INVOLVE LONGER WARS

Both the Bible and historical observation also reveal what seems to be another Antichrist pattern. The spiralling and cyclic nature of the ascendancy of evil during the church age that is depicted in the book of Revelation implies that each successive Antichrist cycle will produce a worse Antichrist, who will gain more territory and many more dominated subjects. Logically speaking, this should take longer with each Antichrist. This would appear to have been evidenced in history. In fact, I have calculated the duration of the build-up for each Antichrist and this can be seen in Appendix 5 – The Dates and Durations of the Antichrists.

Regarding Napoleon, his build-up of power started with the Revolutionary War in 1789 and ended at the fateful Battle of Waterloo in 1815 – a total of 26 years.

For Hitler, his build-up of power also started before Hitler took power, with Satan’s historical preparation for his rule. It started in 1907 when Germany came to feel threatened by the triple entente (union) between France, Britain and Russia, in response to Germany’s 1881 alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. Thus, Germany began to look for ways to start a European war. This build-up finished in 1945, lasting 38 years; 12 years longer than for Napoleon.

There is a pattern that can be inferred here. This pattern is that each successive larger and larger mega-conquest will take longer to achieve, such that more time will need to be spent by each Antichrist in the build-up up his power and conquests. Thus, the wars will be longer.

I will now extrapolate this pattern into the future. Please note, however, that by extrapolating this smaller pattern into the future, I am forfeiting any right to claim accuracy in my prediction here. As this pattern is not a big-picture pattern but a small-picture pattern, its reliability, as regards replicating into the future, will not be certain. This will be the case for all of the numerical calculations that I make from now on that are intended to extrapolate patterns. The quantitative answers produced will be strictly suggestions only, and I will not be claiming that they are necessarily accurate figures.

Now, to extrapolate.

According to calculation 3 in Appendix 5, the next Antichrist nation, China, should take about 54 years from the initiation of island building in the South China Sea in 2013. This period will last from the beginning of its military expansion into recognised international territory, to the death of AC3, which could be in about 2067, as I speculate in calculation 8 in Appendix 5.

As I explore later, for the fourth Antichrist, this build-up could occupy more than half of the time between Antichrist 3 and Antichrist 4. In a calculation 4 in Appendix 5, this is calculated to be about 78 years.

From the pattern above, it follows that for each successive Antichrist, it will be harder to conquer the vaster slabs of territory and larger numbers of people that he will annexe, because the world’s defences will be more connected and thus more able to combine in massive counter attacks. Also, the world will probably have, to some extent, learned the painful lessons of the former destructive Antichrists; but not, it seems, learned them sufficiently. Moreover, it will also be more catastrophic when later Antichrists do actually succeed in major conquests, because of what it will have taken for them to accomplish these.

Thus, in order for later Antichrists to succeed, they will need more allies than earlier Antichrists. This pattern has already been witnessed by history. Napoleon had 9 main allies: Spain, Prussia, The Ottoman Empire, Bavaria, Wurttemburg, Baden and the satellite kingdoms of Italy, Naples and Holland. Hitler had 11 main allies: Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Iraq, Thailand and the Soviet Union (for a time).

Extrapolating this pattern in to the future, AC3 will have many allies, and they will come from every continent of the world. He will be the leopard whose every spot is different in shape, signifying the diversity of his allies and empire (see earlier in this book). These allies will not be equals with China, but subordinate vassals.

From what I will infer about AC4 or the FINAL ANTICHRIST he will go one step further. He will have allies in every single country of the world. Whereas Antichrists one to three all fought or will fight from a national platform and for nationalised values, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will be fundamentally different in this respect. Because his movement will be a global one that fights for the purest form of the very values of Satan himself, it will take the form of an attempt to finally snatch away power from God and put it into the hands of humans forever. Therefore, he will not fight for national values and not from a nationalist platform, but from an international platform, and for a form of evil that reaches all the way back to the core and essence of evil itself – the original anti-God spirit of Satan in the Garden of Eden.

From history, it also appears that the downfall of each Antichrist will be more swift and sudden as one proceeds along the Antichrist sequence of four Antichrists. Napoleon fell in gradual stages. First he was removed as leader and imprisoned, second he escaped to re-lead the army, third he was re-caught and re-imprisoned, and fourth he enacted his final rebellion by reinstating himself in many hearts as a hero for the ages by writing a powerful, if grossly inaccurate, memoir. Hitler’s fall was quicker. He was progressively militarily defeated over a period of about four years. AC4 will be removed very quickly via the Word of Christ, just as God’s people reach the point where their faith can sustain them no more.

Finally, it can be said that, during the build-up stage for AC3 and AC4 there should be periods of great prosperity and peace, featuring average living standards that are higher than any that have ever been seen before. This is something to look forward to.

PATTERN 3 - FEMINIST MOVEMENTS

Earlier I mentioned that a militant feminist movement seems to be present as a pattern when Antichrists are growing up. I cited the feminist movement of the 1750’s for Napoleon, and the violent feminist suffragette 1890’s movement for Hitler. From this pattern, it is possible to extrapolate somewhat into the future. It is interesting that, according to the approximate birth year that I calculated for AC3 of 2013 (see Appendix 5), his mother will have already experienced an era of Extremist Feminism involving social engineering and identity politics. Given the pattern that has already been established, it is entirely possible that this will contribute to the forming of AC3, and that he will also over-identify with his mother, producing similar results to the first two major Antichrists.

CHINA’S REPENTANCE

In fairness to China, it should be noted that the trend of the last two Antichrist nations is that they were defeated in war then repented in some form.

Just after Napoleon, at the Second Treaty of Paris in 1815, France agreed to pay a large war indemnity, reduce its border size and submit to being occupied by a 150,000 strong standing army for five years (it ended up being 3 years). Subsequently, during the Bourbon Restoration of 1814-1830, France kept a low profile in Europe, and helped out with various peace initiatives. However, France resumed empire building in 1830, so its repentance could be described as incomplete.

Germany’s repentance has been more complete than France’s. Germany has thoroughly re-educated its citizens in anti-Nazism, outlawed Nazism, and has erected hundreds of anti-Nazi, city plaques in a public apology to the world.

Similarly, I believe that China will also repent after AC3 has been defeated.

MY JOURNEY

Although I have confirmed much, I am still a bit uncertain about whether I can ever prove that this present era is in fact the era of the FINAL ANTICHRIST. What if I am wrong about that? What if the period of the final and most Kingdom-opposing Antichrists is not actually due for hundreds of years? I decide to search for hard evidence with which to settle this issue.

ENCOURAGEMENT

CHRIST JOINED WITH US

When life becomes difficult, it should be remembered that the passage Romans 8:38-39 tells us that nothing ‘can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus’. In fact, not even a million enemies can do that.

God’s closeness to us is so great that Christ actually joined with us when he came down from heaven, in the incarnation, by condescending to make himself merely a servant in the form of a man (Philippians 2:7). And when did this glorious act take place? When he was blessed by a dove and God’s voice commended him from the skies? No. When he was transfigured? No. When he rose triumphant from the grave? No. It was when God took his spirit from him and abandoned him on a cross to every sin and evil that exists, while he was naked, mocked, spat-upon and dying. At that moment, the process of Jesus fully joining with man was complete. This process was one of ardour and pain, but he did it for us – ‘Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him’ (Hebrews 5:8-9).

And now that Christ has joined with humanity, nothing can disjoin him. He is now most truly the Son of Man. God’s promises are complete. We are embraced by God. ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20).

And while ever we are joined with God, we have the life-giving sustenance that enables us to cope with this life.

A partial analogy for this is the diving bell. It houses divers down at the bottom of the ocean where there is a lack of oxygen, a prohibitively high water pressure and a current that could sweep them away. However there also exists, in a whole different dimension and domain, the boat from whence they came. It sits not surrounded by water, but by air, where none of the dangerous water conditions exist. And, from this boat, comes many life-sustaining things: oxygen down a tube, pressure-control down an electric wire, and a stabilisation cable to resist the pull of the currents trying to sweep the divers away. So that while ever the diving bell remains connected to the boat, the divers are able to live and thrive in what would otherwise be an environment that is life threatening. The boat is God, we are the divers, and the water is this world.

IMAGE 7 – NAPOLEON

(11) WHEN WILL THE ANTICHRISTS LIVE?

WHAT ARE THE LAST DAYS?

The last days can be defined as either: (1) the whole era between the two comings of Christ or (2) the era after Satan has been released from prison and immediately preceding the Second Coming of Christ. I will use the second one for this book.

The Bible says that a number of special things will happen in the last days. However I ask the question: Are we in the last days today? So far, I have argued that it is likely, from everything that I have looked at, that God released Satan from prison for a short time to intensify his activities on earth in about 1789, when France was dechristianised. This was just after the French Enlightenment philosophers became popular. However, is even this late time in the history of the world the start of the period that is the last days - the one that is close to the Second coming of Christ? After all, if this era of four major Antichrists that I am theorising winds up lasting for, say, 1,000 years, then this era won’t have been close to the second coming of Christ, and won’t have been a short time, and therefore, it won’t have been the last days. So, how do I determine whether we are in the last days at the moment?

ARE WE IN THE LAST DAYS TODAY?

To answer this question, I investigated both the Bible and history, and found only evidence that supported the assertion that we are in the last days at the moment. I found no evidence that opposed this proposition. Here is a list of the best reasons I found that support this. These six reasons are drawn from both the Bible and history.

1) Satan will be released from his prison to go out and deceive the nations for a short time. As has already been mentioned, Napoleon and then Hitler amassed the greatest concentration of liquid wealth, valuable assets, intellectual property and power, as well as the highest number of trained and capable people, of anyone in the history of the world. They also acquired the largest percentage of the world’s power since the height of Caesars. Thus, the figurative 1,000 years of Satan’s captivity would appear to have ended with Napoleon. In Revelation 20, this captivity is followed by the devil being set free for a short time, after which there will be a judging of the dead at the end of this world. This short time is the last days. Therefore, we must be in the last days now.

I will argue that I estimate this time to be about 402 years, which is less than one quarter of the approximately 1,756 year millennium. For those who think that this period is too long to be the last days, in his Bible commentary on this verse, Albert Barnes notes that the phrase ‘short time’ (mikron chronon) means a little time compared to the length of the millennium[158]. I have previously estimated the length of millennium at 1,756 years. It will be noted that 402 years is less than one quarter of this length, which is 442 years. Therefore, this satisfies the requirement of a short time. Also, the final conflict between the devil and God’s people is described in Revelation 16:14 and Revelation 19:19 as a war, not a battle. This denotes a conflict that is prolonged.

2) In Romans 11:26, Paul states that ‘all Israel will be saved’. Later, I will show how this means that those people of Israel who will accept Christ will be saved, and that this will be a large enough number to represent their race as a whole. Thus, at the end of this age, a large number of Jews will convert to Christianity at God’s spurring because they will sense that the world is ending and that they have missed the coming of the Messiah, for it must have been Jesus. Also, when Jesus comes, he may signal the Jews such that it is evident to them that he is the Messiah. Interestingly, Israel became a nation again in 1948. This happening looks certain to be one of the factors that will assist with such a mass-conversion one day by drawing many Jews together. Thus, the re-creation of this nation is a direct preparation for an event that should happen right at the end of this world’s history, and so it should belong in the end times in our thinking.

3) The majority of the West’s population believe there is no god. In a later section of this book I will show how, today for the first time in human history, the majority of the West’s population have come to believe in the philosophy of atheism. This is despite what some may publicly profess on census documents and the like. Atheism can best be expressed by the Second Humanist Manifesto (1973), ‘…that there is insufficient evidence to support a belief in the supernatural, and that God is merely an idea and can save no one’[159]. The widespread turning towards this belief was particularly advanced by the French Enlightenment philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Swiss), Baron D’Holbach, Denis Diderot, Julien La Mettrie, Claude Helvetius, Pierre Cabanis and Jacques-Andre Naigeon.

Interestingly, Matthew 24:10-12 says that ‘At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.’ So, this verse is saying that, by the time of the FINAL ANTICHRIST, atheism will be embraced by the majority of the world’s population. In a later chapter called ‘Today’s Particularly Bad Worldwide Mass Deception’, I will show that this is in fact the case today. Today’s decline in spiritual belief is a sign that the FINAL ANTICHRIST, the Man of Lawlessness is starting to draw relatively closer. Therefore, we must be in the last days.

4) The expansion of man’s land habitation has nearly come to an end. Since he was created, man has been filling the earth; from tribal lands, to countries, to continents, to the whole world. Today, we have nearly filled the whole earth. Only small land areas are yet to be settled by people. There may be some very limited habitation that is possible on Mars, but there is almost no water on that planet. Therefore, this habitation will not accommodate large numbers, nor can any mission to Mars be sustained for long. The same can be said for space stations. The world’s population stands at 7.77 billion today, and many scientists believe that the earth’s maximum carrying capacity is just over 10 billion people, which it will reach by about 2050. Due to all of the above, and even with population restrictions such as a one-child policy, it appears that there won’t be sufficient room or resources on earth for the continued growth of its human population for more than about another three centuries.

5) Artificial Intelligence. Throughout the long history of man’s development of technology, nature has been imitated in myriad ways. In fact, every technological advancement that has been made has in some way mimicked nature, from the pulley that mimics the human arm, to the aeroplane which mimics the flight of birds, to computer networks that mimic the human body’s central nervous system. However, the imminent development of A.I. signifies the beginning of the end of this process because it mimics the most advanced object in all of nature – the human brain. After that, there is nowhere further to progress to.

6) The Genesis conditions are now steadily reversing. In Genesis, chapters one to eleven, God communicates a number of protective rules for humans to follow. I will detail some examples of these below. These rules are critical for the welfare of humans and societies. Starting in the times of Napoleon and accelerating since, God’s protective laws for humans have steadily been not only disobeyed but reversed by humanity. We can know that this represents the last days having begun, because these gracious and loving safeguards that God has instituted to protect people from their own sin cannot be rebelliously usurped for long without this behaviour destroying the human race, or making life unbearable for people.

With respect to these reversals of God’s protective safeguards, certain disastrous consequences can be inferred from them as being at least possible and probably likely. Because these consequences could eventually either kill the human race, or make life for humans extremely painful, if God leaves them as they are for long enough, and because our God is a compassionate god, so he will institute the judgement event of the last Antichrist and the end of this world to free people from their own inhumanity against themselves. These reversals are just beginning to happen or will happen soon, in no particular order, in the areas of:

First, the reversal of God’s rules for human societies, causing them to malfunction. The complementary way that God made Adam and Eve, and his instructions for them in Genesis 3, as to how they were to relate to each other were given by God so that loving human families, and thus societies, can be formed today. However, new and ever more evil social theories of identity politics and social engineering are turning societies into tragic settings of broken relationships, depression and suicide. This situation is quickly becoming worse and, at the present rate of escalation, is projected to cause great suffering in the future;

Second, the reversal of man as a created being and God as creator, prompting man to hack God’s creation at the molecular level and lower, in an effort to try to become the creator himself. This is projected to cause all kinds of destruction to plants, animals, and people in the future. It will be done using technologies such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum technology, particle theory, synthetic biology, and future technologies that are as yet unknown. A mild example of this is when synthetic biology creates a new species of life which is then released into nature and beats out a natural species for resources, thus eliminating it and damaging the local ecosystem. More extreme examples of synthetic biology include super-sophisticated biological weapons, designer human beings, and warriors that are biologically man-made from rogue humans or apes then let loose upon societies. In all of these kinds of creations, it will be artificial intelligence that accelerates the learning of humans such that these massive leaps in science can be taken. A.I. allows scientists to set the very fast and ingenious ‘mind’ of a computer to solve problems working day and night over months and years. Thus, at its most powerful, A.I. will so accelerate the making of scientific and technological breakthroughs that the 50 years from 2150 to 2200 should yield more scientific and technological progress than all of the time before then;

Third, the reversal of God’s death sentence upon the bodies of people, prompting people to gain genetic mastery and the ability to alter and lengthen life itself. Many technologies are currently working hard to solve the ageing ‘problem’ via the technological movement called Life Extension. Research is being conducted in the areas of tissue rejuvenation, stem cells, regenerative medicine, molecular repair, gene therapies and pharmaceuticals. Once artificial intelligence is developed, this whole process will accelerate. However, again, this is ultimately projected to cause disastrous consequences, such as overpopulation and the problems associated with transhumanism (the modification of human psychology or physiology by sophisticated technologies);

Fourth, the reversal of the natural limitations of childbearing, prompting both technology and a lack of biblical ethics to be used to create processes to ‘solve’ most of the problems concerned with fertility, birthing and the health or ‘quality’ of the babies that parents produce. These processes will often yield widespread catastrophic results. They will involve technologies such as IVF, stem cell therapy, genetic modification and a brace of technologies that use the technologies listed in (B) above, and are expected to be developed in the future. As well as becoming a worse and worse minefield for ethical transgressions, this technology will also lower the value of human life by creating orderable and customisable babies, and thus also by prompting the rejection and destruction of those babies who do not meet the quality requirements of their parents;

Fifth, the reversal of the communication muddle of Babel, causing humans to be capable of virtually unlimited communication through means such as digital language translation and the information revolution, both of which directly facilitate globalisation. This coming together of the sinful minds of humans in mass-cooperation is allowing evil to spread as never before, as the world develops towards one day becoming a true global village. Examples of this include all of the technology listed above, which may sometimes be used for good, but will also be used for evil. This situation is projected to get much worse in the future;

Sixth, the reversal of the toil to gain food, causing food to become easily accessible for many who do not even need to work to gain it. With God’s protective provision of work gone for many people, idleness and a personal conception of being unable to contribute to one’s community, and therefore being useless, will cause widespread unrecognised and hence untreated mental illness, and therefore multiple forms of sin, to abound in the world. This is also projected to worsen in the future.

In response to all of this, it is helpful to realise that Jesus’ magnificent Second Coming will oppose and defeat the sin above by causing the whole of creation to renew itself by replacing evil for good. It will do this by instituting the following reversals:

1. God will replace sin with righteousness - the reversal of man’s Fall;

2. God will replace our present broken earth a new perfect and Earth - the reversal of the earth’s natural decay process;

3. God will replace death with eternal life - the reversal of the natural human ageing process.

COINCIDENCE?

Putting all of the above together, it would appear that to very unlikely that we are not in the last days now, and that all of this is merely a co-incidence. Rather, it does appear that we are in the last days now.

HOW LONG WILL THE LAST DAYS LAST?

The total period of the last days should last from Satan’s release in 1789, until the death of AC4. Then, extra time must be added for the Second Coming of Jesus (whenever that will be), if that comes after the death of AC4. But, how long will that be?

In Appendix 5, I calculate the approximate year of the birth of AC4 as 2138. I then calculate the average life duration of the Antichrists we have seen so far as 53.5 years. I then add this to his birth year, 2138, to calculate his death year as 2191. Therefore, I would posit 2191 as a very approximate year for the death of AC4. Thus, to calculate the approximate duration of the Last Days, I would calculate the time from 1789 to the death of AC4: 2191 - 1789 = 402 years.

Note that this length of 402 years for the end times fits the words of Revelation 20:3 that Satan will be ‘set free for a short time’. As I have mentioned, for those who think that this is too long to be the last days, it should be remembered that the Bible commentator Albert Barnes stated that the phrase ‘a short time’ merely means a short time in relation to the length of the millennium[160].

WHEN IT COMES TO FUTURE DATES, I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING

Of course I am just playing with very approximate guesses here, but I am doing this to try to show at least rough approximations of these quantities. I can only say that the Parousia will occur sometime after this. This calculation is not at all precise or definite. But, if Jesus stated that he did not know the exact ‘day or hour’ of his Second Coming in Matthew 24:36, it is not for me to know either. I do not know, and I don’t want to know. When it comes to the uncertainty of when the end will be, Jesus used the example of Noah. Just as, in Genesis 6, Noah was privy to God’s prophecy of a massive historical event which was accompanied by signs that most did not recognise, so it will be at the Second Coming – some will be able to place it in a broad time period, but most won’t even care. Thus, in this book, I am neither able to, nor do I want to, identify the exact time.

In addition to not even knowing, I would argue that, even if they did know, most people wouldn’t even care. Why would most not even care? They won’t care because the world will, by then, be too stuck in its ways to even want to change, even if AC4 is by then expected by many. By then, most people’s hearts will truly belong to Satan. By courtesy of developments in artificial intelligence, most of the circumstantial problems in life, such as sickness, will be solved. However, there will be just as many problems as there always were, because people will be the problem. As Jesus says in Matthew 24:12, ‘Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold…’

Of course, this figure of 402 years is not necessarily the exact duration of the end times because the Final Antichrist may parody the Intertestamental period of scriptural and prophetic silence before Jesus’ birth and be born approximately 400 years later than all of the estimates I have given. Also, the date of the death of AC4 may not coincide with the end of this world – he may die sooner than it. But, it gives an idea of a very approximate time span for this period. Also, the AC4 death date of 2191 may be a bit too early if, by this time period, it transpires that the average person lives for significantly longer than people live today.

Therefore, exactly when God will execute Jesus’ Second Coming is a mystery. If anyone says they know, they don’t. God will not reveal it. It is important that it remain a mystery. If the date of the Second Coming were known, people would be tempted to try to manipulate God by carousing in sin until just before the Parousia (return of Christ), and then ‘repenting’. Considering that I don’t know the date of the birth of AC4, nor do I know how long he will live, nor do I know how long people will live at that time, nor do I know if there will be a gap between the Parousia and the end of this world, I am dealing with an unknown upon an unknown upon an unknown upon an unknown. So, you can see that I have no clear idea when either the Parousia or the end of this world will be.

Remember, my purpose for this book is not to nail down the dates or the exact individuals of the future. It is to gain a ballpark understanding of a huge portion of the Bible – prophecy.

MY JOURNEY

I have now become fascinated by the question of the timing of the Antichrists, and can see all sorts of patterns of timing in the Antichrists who have lived. In the next chapter, I will explore this further in a bid to understand the timing of the Antichrists of the future.

ENCOURAGEMENT

GOD GUARANTEES OUR FUTURE

God has his hands around an eternal future for all Christians, and nothing can stop him. Not even a clown Antichrist. He is the king of the kingdom.

One example of this is God’s protection of scripture. God wishes for his Word to be well substantiated and proven by early and authoritative, hard-copy manuscripts that can be picked up and read. There was a real chance that many of these crucial old documents may have been lost, but our God would not allow it. Let me give two examples of this.

First, in 1844 in the St Catherine Monastery in Sinai, a wall was demolished. Behind it, the monks found parchments and papyri. They decided to feed them to their furnace. A man named Constantin von Tischendorf heard of this find and arrived in time to rescue the Codex Sinaiiticus, the world’s oldest complete Bible.[161]

Second, the Bodmer Papyri were found by a shepherd in the desert near Cairo in 1952. He took them into town and tried to sell them to his friends in return for cigarettes, but they refused him. Instead, he took them home, to use them to light his fire. An antiques dealer named Martin Bodmer heard of his find and reached him as he was about to feed them into the flames, rescuing them for all humanity. They contain the earliest complete copy of John, 1 and 2 Peter and Jude, and date as far back as 200 AD.

The Bible we have today is backed up by thousands of old and authentic manuscripts and, by their doctrinal agreement and the lack of textual divergence between old and new, these prove the accuracy of today’s scriptures, such that it is not possible to successfully question the Bible’s accuracy anymore.

In the word of God, we have the unquestionable rock of truth that nothing can invalidate. If we stick with that, our future is guaranteed.

IMAGE 8– JOHN THE APOSTLE

(12) THE TIMING OF THE THIRD AND FOURTH ANTICHRISTS

HOW TO FURTHER TEST MY THEORY

My theory is that there will be four major Antichrists, who will escalate all the way to the FINAL ANTICHRIST, known as The Antichrist, who will be the worst of them all. Further, I contend that we are in the last days at the moment, and that Napoleon and Hitler were the first two Antichrists. My wish now is to test that hypothesis further. One problem facing me is that I have a sequence of only two Antichrists to work with. The existence of two Antichrists in succession cannot, in and of itself, entitle me to infer two more. How do I know that this series will not end at two evil men, after which a long time gap may occur before the incidence of the Man of Lawlessness, who will be completely unrelated to both Napoleon and Hitler?

If this progression of Antichrists is really to be a series of four and not just two, I need to establish that a third Antichrist will come and do his work on earth within a credible time gap from the appearance of the second Antichrist, Hitler. How long will this time gap be?

At this point, the best I can do is to approximate this time period using what has already transpired in this regard, the pattern I have established, the time period between Napoleon and Hitler. Please note that all of the calculations pertaining to this appear in full in Appendix 5. In respect to this time period, there are actually two numbers that can be used. The first is the time between the births of these two men is (1889 - 1769 = 120 years). The second one is the time difference between the seven major life turning points for each man that I displayed earlier in Table 5 (this is 129 years). The problem I have is deciding which one of these to use. Let me explain this.

As I do not expect any of the patterns that I identify in this book to replicate exactly throughout history, both of these numbers could become slightly varied in the roll-out of the next Antichrist. For example, as calculated in Appendix 5, Napoleon rose to power as a relatively young man – at the age of 30. On the other hand, Hitler assumed power at the more conventional age of 43. If Antichrist 3 were to rise to power at an age that was either particularly young or old, would this alter the 129 year gap between the major life events of Hitler and AC3? In all likelihood it would. For example, it is possible that 129 years may be at the high end of difference, due to Napoleon acceding to the rulership of France at a young age.

Therefore, because of the probability of pattern variation along this proposed sequence of four Antichrists, I believe it would be safest to take, as a very rough time difference between Antichrists, the average (which is also the median) of the two time differences above. These two time differences are: (1) the difference between Napoleon and Hitler’s birthdates, and (2) the difference between the major life turning points for Napoleon and Hitler. This gives us a working time difference between Antichrists of (120 years + 129 years then divide the answer by 2, gives 249/2 = 124.5 years). Thus, I have deduced that the difference will be very approximately 124.5 years. However, this figure of 124.5 years is only an approximate average, and will vary from Antichrist to Antichrist.

(As an interesting side note here, former Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Washington, George Modelski, wrote a book in 1987 called ‘Long Cycles in World Politics’ which argues that there are substantial connections between war cycles, economic supremacy, and the political aspects of world leadership. However, the really interesting part for me is that Modelski argues that these cycles can last up to 122 years.[162] In the study of this inexact discipline, I regard this as a similar number to my 124 years.)

In Appendix 5, I determine when the next Antichrist will come. I do this using my number that represents the approximate time difference between Antichrists, 124.5, and add it to Hitler’s birth year, 1889. This gives the year 2013 as an approximate birth year for AC3.

Now that I have the birth year of AC3, I can also calculate when he should accede to national leadership. Napoleon was made national leader of France in 1799. If one adds a further 124.5 years, twice over, as the average time separation between the major life events of Antichrists, one reaches the year 2048 as the time when AC3 should become a national leader. This is 28 years from now. This would make AC3 about 34 years old when he accedes to national leadership. Now, of course, all of these calculations are very rough approximations and so, therefore, are also the final figures at which I have arrived themselves rough approximations.

There is, however, another way to determine approximately when the next Antichrist will accede to his ultimate position of political power. To do this, I take the average age of the formal accession to ultimate national power of Hitler and Napoleon, then I add this to the birth year of AC. This is presented in detail in Appendix 5 - calculation 12. In this calculation, I conclude that AC3 will accede to power in approximately 2050, which is approximately 30 years from the current 2020 date of the writing of this book. This give me two different numbers, so I decided to average these figures to arrive at 2049 for the accession of national leadership, at the age of 35.5 years old, which is 29 years from now. This figure of 2049 is significant because that is the date by which the CCP has vowed to be the premier power in the world.

WILL THERE BE A THIRD ANTICHRIST IN 29 YEARS?

As I said above, if this progression of Antichrists is really to be a series of four and not just two, I need to establish that a third Antichrist will come and do his work on earth within a reasonable time period after the second Antichrist, Hitler. This plausible time period has now been established at about 29 years.

I must now decide what criteria I can use to test whether the next Antichrist will come in about 29 years time in about 2049. In order to establish these criteria, I will, once again, turn to what has already transpired – some aspects of the pattern of the past. The aspects of the past that I have decided to use for this are the social changes that occurred as God was readying the world for both Napoleon and Hitler. If I can establish the various cumulative stages of an Antichrist build-up or lead-in, and link each of these stages to the social changes that accompanied it, I can then compare these stages to the social changes that are happening today to see whether or not they are present now. Then, I can ascertain whether it is likely or unlikely that we will see a third Antichrist in about 29 years.

ARE THERE STAGES TO AN ANTICHRIST BUILD-UP?

To ascertain whether or not here are discernible stages in the lead-in for any Antichrist, I studied the history of the times of Napoleon and Hitler and compared them. I found that there are stages.

WHAT ARE THE STAGES OF AN ANTICHRIST BUILD-UP?

In the power build-up of any Antichrist, there are sequential stages. Looking at the history of Antichrists 1 and 2, there are four stages. I call them the ‘Stages of an Antichrist Build-Up’. Please note that these stages may overlap with one another, so that, for example, stages one and two may still be operating as stages three or four begin. I will describe what these stages involve, and link each of these stages to the social changes that accompany it.

THE FOUR STAGES OF AN ANTICHRIST BUILD-UP

1) INSURGENCY – This will consist of an obscure and gradual insurgency by society against Christian values (see 2 Thessalonians 2:7) which will cause an increase in the rejection of both Christ and his forgiveness. In the last days, this secret power of lawlessness will have reached an all-time high after building since before the time of Paul;

2) UNSOUND BREAKAWAY IDEAS – These will consist of the development of academically unsupported and whacky, yet influential, scientific and social theories that will create the required societal scapegoats. However, at the time, these will seem like virtuous and reasonable ideas to most people;

3) WIDESPREAD WAR – This will consist of a military conflict that will be driven by a policy of scapegoating against a country or countries;

4) CONQUEST AND TYRRANY – This will consist of a dictator who will institute these extreme scapegoating policies against a people group or people groups, including a holocaust by mass-gassing.

STAGE ONE – INSURGENCY

In my study of the history of the times of Napoleon and Hitler, I noticed that the first commonality between the two periods was a widespread insurgency against God. What was the nature of this insurgency? It took the form of people abandoning their God-given safeguards against being tricked by Satan so that he became able to hoodwink them in profound ways.

Just before the time of Napoleon, the Enlightenment philosophers spread their seductive and convincing arguments against the existence of God, eventually replacing him with Secular Humanism, and causing a decline in church attendance and Christian belief. In the time of Hitler, just before World War Two, there was a spread of spiritualism right across Europe. In Britain, spiritualism was big business due to the fear of the war to come, which was foreseeable by many. The psychic press advertised scores of séances, as well as books and lectures on the occult, and thousands of séance circles were established. They offered a sense of wonder and intimacy that people were not experiencing in the Church of England. Reynolds News declared at the time that fortune tellers, astrologers, crystal gazers and teacup twisters had never had so many customers nor made so much money. Poltergeists were regularly reported in newspapers as fact, and DC Comics’ pre-Superman hero at the time was called ‘Dr Occult’. Meanwhile, the Church of England’s attendances were falling so fast that the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a committee to investigate the allure of the faith that had become its chief rival – spiritualism.[163]

This is consistent with Matthew 24:10-12. There, it is indicated that in the last days (of the major Antichrists) many will become deceived and will fall away from their faith. By the time of Antichrists, this deception will have reached high levels of prevalence in society. Moreover, this insurgency will cause a deception of humanity such that they will be progressively blinded to the manipulations of Satan. Then, he will take advantage of this selective blindness by seducing their egos with his lies. Finally, once it has become too late for them to protect themselves, he will spring his trap and bind them to servitude of an Antichrist.

STAGE TWO - UNSOUND BREAKAWAY IDEAS

The second commonality I noticed in my study was unsound breakaway ideas. What are they? They are a set of particularly irrational, imprudent and destructive polices adopted by a state preparing for an Antichrist, and they occur as a direct result of a drift into political extremism at either the Left or the Right Wing. Here, I will start with Germany because, in the case of the Nazis, these types of bizarro-world ideas are particularly easy to discern.

HITLER

From 1900-1945, weird doctrines, such as Phrenology, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Social Darwinist Strong Man Theory and Francis Galton’s Eugenics, spiralled upwards in popularity in Germany to one day become the madness of the Jewish Holocaust. Additionally, the Nazi state squeezed every aspect of the ordinary German’s life into the bizarre mould of Nazi thinking. This involved regulating everyday life decisions such as what families could eat for dinner and how spouses could talk to one another. And then there are the beliefs of the Nazi hierarchy, which were the weirdest of all. As I have already mentioned, Hitler is known to have based his political ideology on a delusion called World Ice Theory, which holds that the cosmos is really made of ice, in contrast to the Jewish theory of relativity, and that Aryans were created from divine sperm from space giving them racial superiority (a parody of Jesus’ immaculate conception). His minions, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goerring and Heinrich Hess, all based a significant amount of their military and tireless para-military work on occult notions such as astrology, relic searching, devil worship, witchcraft, the fabled undersea realm of Atlantis, Nostradamus and Radiesthesia (the notion that objects can be detected using pendulums and rods, and which was used by the Nazis in actual sea battles in the Second World War). These actions had Hitler’s blessing at the start of the war. Such ideas had been in the hearts and minds of Nazi leaders and ideologues from the Thule Society and other groups for decades before World War 2 actually started.

NAPOLEON

As has already been mentioned, Left Wing Antichrists are more subtle in their evil than Right Wing ones, and that evil manifests less during their reign but more after it than it does for their Right Wing counterparts. Also Napoleon was only the first in a series of ascending Antichrists.

It is not hard to see that the Nazis were a weird mob. However, in the case of late 18^th century French minds, it is not quite so clear and obvious. But unsound breakaway ideas are evident, if you look for them.

First, let’s take the madness of the reign of terror. In France from 1793, and onwards for a few years, over 20, 000 death sentences were carried out, and over 10,000 more people died in prison, some without a trial. This persecution was particularly severe on the Christian church in France, killing 30,000 priests and wiping out the legitimate Christian church in that country[164], as I will detail later. What was the rationale for this kill-fest? Robespierre wished for France to become a virtuous nation. His thinking behind the Reign of Terror was to weed out those who were not thought capable of possessing the virtue required of all Frenchmen to create a new and better France, either because they were counter-revolutionaries or they lacked ‘tolerance’ for the revolutionary ideas. This idea of virtue, taken from the philosophy of Montesquieu, was regarded by Robespierre to be the fundamental principle of democratic government. However, far from making France a more virtuous nation, it turned it into a horror of tyranny and chaos, with many of the leaders of the Reign of Terror later executed themselves. In the cautioning words of even that most materialist of philosophers, Voltaire, ‘we are all steeped in weakness and error; let us forgive each other our follies; that is the first law of nature. Every individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of his opinion is a monster’.[165]

Second, let’s look at Napoleon’s reforms. He brought many reforms to France. These were designed to improve the quality of life for his subjects, but, as I mentioned earlier, they often turned out to have almost the opposite effect. Whereas, during the whole period of French reform, from the Reign of Terror through to the Napoleonic period, these changes seemed likely, on the surface, to advance human rights and the general quality of life to produce human freedom, they were actually false freedoms. Each set of irrational philosophies and rights have resulted in the supplanting of God’s truths by Humanism’s falsehoods: false freedom, false purity and false compassion. This has resulted in rights that allow citizens and authorities choice beyond reasonableness. Thus, they have made poor choices because the whole process has shut God out, and allowed Satan in. When Satan is placed above God, the outcome may seem good, but will always turn out to be bad.

Furthermore, in bringing evil in to the picture, Satan has mixed it with a measure of good to fool people into thinking that is it pure, not evil. Yes, the Napoleonic Code provided real benefits, including: the abolition of birth privileges, the awarding of jobs to the most qualified applicants, the advancement of education, the establishment of civil order, the protection of property rights, the equalisation of the economy and taxes, the abolition of secret laws, the presumption of innocence in law courts, and the requirement that judges decide in all cases and do not abstain from deciding.[166] However, while these reforms seemed to make Napoleon’s whole reform program beneficial, it was not. It was quite destructive. Below, I will detail some of what came with the Law Code – Napoleon’s problematic reform program. To see a fuller catalogue of his atrocities, see my earlier section ‘Napoleon’s Brutality’ in ‘The Argument That Napoleon and Hitler Are Not Comparable’. Let me explain all of these in more detail below. In doing so, I will not necessarily tackle them in the above order. Also, let me remind the reader once again that Napoleon was the first in a series of Antichrists of ascending evil. Thus, I only have to prove that his reign was mainly evil – not evil in every respect.

(A) FALSE FREEDOMS.

Even though Napoleon’s reforms seemed to be things that would give societies freedom, they created false freedoms. It’s not as if these measures yielded no improvements at all – there were social benefits. However, what seems to have been an enviable degree of freedom of thought in that society came with a new kind of godlessness. As has already been argued, the paradox of freedom is that it can only be found in appropriate restriction. Humanism will point to historical decreases in poverty, hunger and disease as evidence of its effectiveness in producing a better world. However, the key to the welfare of societies is to allow God to set the macro agenda such as values, rights and obligations, and broad social policy, especially in as much as these things affect the far future, because only God can perceive a big enough picture in terms of time and large numbers of people to accurately calculate the incredibly complex problems involved in running a society. Humanism will disallow all of this and bring Satan into the picture. Therefore, Napoleon’s reforms were not restricted to obeying the mind of God, but rather obeying the mind of man. Ironically, its results were the opposite of its liberation aims, as always happens when a human’s mind is substituted for God’s. These reforms were designed to increase quality of life in France – they decreased it.

What did this false freedom look like? I would point to the clear injustices that accompanied the humanitarian reform program of this newly created Law Code. Napoleon’s Law Code reduced the rights of illegitimate children in a raft of ways; reduced the rights of women such that they could not disobey their husbands, acquire, buy or sell property or hold an office of any sort; re-introduced colonial slavery; abolished the teaching of academic subjects that may have sharpened people’s reason and given them the capacity to expose his weaknesses, such as history, philosophy, political science and literature; educated girls solely for the purpose of submission to their husbands; restricted and censored freedom of the Press, claiming that liberty was ‘not for the common people’; and restricted the importation of superior British goods, causing many businesses in France to fail, the economy to slump disastrously as it slid into unemployment and inflation, and a measure of famine and starvation to take hold of the country.[167] I submit that the above does not represent an outcome of freedom.

Also, a new concept of total warfare had been born such that, along with it, grew other institutions: the secret police; large-scale professional espionage; government propaganda machines; the faking of supposedly democratic movements, elections and plebiscites; and large-scale military conscription’.[168] For a set of reforms designed to further freedom, this is a pretty bizarre result.

Finally, consider what life would actually have been like for French people who were given these new ‘rights’. It was nothing like we know Western democracies and human rights to be today. They were forced to endure a reality where supposedly democratic movements such as elections and plebiscites were rigged, faked and lied about by government propaganda machines; where secret police and large-scale professional espionage spied and reported on citizens’ most private activities; and where many males were press ganged by large scale military conscription into horrific wars, as Napoleon conceived new forms of statecraft aimed at enforcing his power. Hippolyte Taine, who was one of the foremost intellects amongst the critics of the man he called the ‘Diocletian of Ajaccio’, outlined what might have become had Napoleon triumphed over the Russians in 1812. He describes a European empire as a slave continent with its entire male population indentured in holding down the subjected and crushing the obstinate via spying and bullying.[169] Again, this is hardly freedom.

(B) FALSE COMPASSION.

Napoleon and his reforms claimed to create a compassionate society. What resulted was quite different. This is most obvious in Napoleon’s wars. As I have already detailed, Napoleon’s treatment of native populations of islands such as Haiti can only be described as the most extreme level of heartless brutality imaginable. Soldiers at war were sacrificed a million at a time as if they were cattle. People of non-white races were mass-exterminated in makeshift gas chambers. Charles Esdaile estimates Napoleon’s total casualties in soldiers and civilians to be 5-7 million, between 1803 and 1815.[170] However, even more troubling than the number of Napoleon’s casualties was the manner in which many died. It seems that every place at which Napoleon’s armies fought witnessed horrific, large-scale barbarity.

However, even though this lack of compassion is most obvious in the context of war, it is most potent in the context of society, because that is where it has lasted until today. Napoleon and his reformers had many ideas about how to socially engineer a society to produce compassion. However, judging by the results above, these ideas were pretty bizarre. The reforms above not only produced bondage but also produced an uncompassionate society where suffering was rife.

Today, the ‘compassionate’ values of ‘egalitarianism’, ‘human rights’ and ‘inclusion’ are held in high regard by the West, and Humanism is considered to be the only way to achieve them. Christianity has been falsely framed by Satan as harsh, cold and violent. This is part of the great deception of Satan that was wrought during the time of Napoleon. In 2020, Christianity is considered by most people in the West to be defunct, obsolete, and as ready to be replaced by Humanism as steam was ready to be replaced by electricity. However, only at the cross of Christ are true egalitarianism, true human rights and true compassion for the weak achieved. As Billy Graham used to say, ‘The ground at the foot of the cross is level’. Thus, the cross is the antithesis of all of the false solutions of the doctrine of Humanism. This humanist doctrine could be called ‘the Anticross’, because it parodies the cross, just as an Antichrist parodies the Christ.

(C) FALSE PURITY

Napoleon and the other reformers of that period wanted to mould a France that was cleansed of any elements of greed, injustice and anything that might harm the national interest. But, how pure was what they created? It seems that, instead, they did a very good job of banishing the most pure elements France had.

First the Robespierre Jacobins attacked the religious purity of Christianity. They attacked the source of true purity in France, the church. I detailed earlier the atrocities that were committed against the church in the Dechristianisation of France from 1793-1794.

As I have previously mentioned, whereas these practises were discontinued after the 1801 Concordat, which reconciled the revolutionaries and the Catholic Church, Napoleon continued to persecute the church after this. He: (1) did not return the stolen church property, (2) selected the bishops, (3) supervised the church finances, and (4) retained and used this power to redistribute church parishes and bishoprics at his pleasure. All of this saw bishops become much less powerful than they had been, and saw them lose their political voice. Additionally, the priests who had surrendered to the state-controlled church model and co-operated with its dictates were mostly disallowed employment by the churches themselves after 1801.

All of these reforms were simply logical extensions of the materialist philosophers of the Enlightenment, led by Voltaire.[171] Additionally, Napoleon popularised the new Enlightenment philosophies, which are profoundly anti-Christian, and this has eventually resulted in multitudes of people being charmed and tricked into an anti-God lifestyle, and thus not giving their life to Christ. And this will continue into the future. Also, Napoleon is the man who created the fully developed State Church that almost every religious persecuting head of state since has since used, and created the institutionalisation of modern atheism, at a state and then a pan-state level, as the major guider of public policy that nearly every state in the West uses today.

Then, they attacked the genetic purity of the Jews. Some argue that Napoleon protected the Jews, because he made it illegal for anyone to illegal to bully them and moved them out of their ghettos to give them proper housing. However, their ‘protection’ was a falsehood. In a letter to his brother, Napoleon described them as ‘the most despicable of manhood’. In a letter to Champagny, he asserted that ‘a very great number of Jewish activities are harmful to our civilisation’. Napoleon employed armies of youths to ‘de-Jew’ the Jews by banning their rituals, he largely abolished their lending practices, and he dispersed their housing through the population in order to convert, intermarry and culturally assimilate them.[172]

STAGES THREE AND FOUR – (3) WIDESPREAD WAR, AND (4) CONQUEST AND TYRANNY

The third and fourth commonalities between Napoleon and Hitler that I noticed in my study were widespread war and tyranny.

The original visionaries of the Enlightenment and their interpreters, the French philosophers, intended to create an equal and thriving society of mutual rights and respect. They did not intend the wholesale banishment and abuse of French church leaders and a black holocaust on various islands. However, bloodthirsty bands of heathen revolutionaries were fed these ideas and, through their populist leader Napoleon, were then incited to twist them into their most violent manifestations. In Germany, Friedrich Nietzsche and Francis Galton intended the planning of high functioning societies which were happy and prosperous, not the Jewish Holocaust. However, a populist Beer Hall speaker, Hitler, incited groups of bigoted right wing nationalists, such as the Volkisch Movement, to twist these ideas into something far more macabre.

Therefore, what seems to happen when there is an Antichrist is that well-intended unsound breakaway ideas are seized upon by the more violent sections of society, whom I call the Wild Bunch, and used for war and tyranny, resulting in extreme violence and the death of millions. The Antichrist then takes this violence even further than the Wild Bunch, eventually taking them with him.

These wild bunch groups are invariably populated by people who are sensitive to the humiliation of their nation and wish to rectify this situation. However, they do not wish to tackle this through the slow and patient process of hard work and international relationship building, but instead via the rash and impatient process of aggressive expansionism, simultaneously trying to destroy any nation who stands in their way. As I will explain later, they do this because they have a psychology of inferiority. This was why Hitler planned to build such gigantic structures in Germania, Germany’s intended new capital, to offset a national inferiority complex.

We have just looked at the four stages of an Antichrist build-up to study the changes that occurred as God was readying the world for both Napoleon and Hitler. Having established the stages of an Antichrist build-up or lead-in, I can now compare these stages to the social changes that are happening today and ascertain whether it is or it is not likely that we will see a third Antichrist within about the next 29 years. This is turn will help me determine whether the incidence of Napoleon and Hitler was just a non-recurring event or whether they are part of a continuing sequence. It will also help me to determine whether the 124 year time difference between these two tyrants will see a third tyrant come after the second in a patterned sequence, or whether it might be much longer before we see another Antichrist. As we have not yet experienced stages three and four in today’s context, I will examine stages one and two.

THE TIMING OF THE NEXT TWO ANTICHRISTS

Let’s start with stage one – Insurgency. In the section ‘Today’s Particularly Bad Worldwide Mass Deception’ later on in this book I will detail myriad examples of how people today are abandoning their God-given safeguards against being tricked by Satan so that he became able to hoodwink them in profound ways. Therefore, today’s worldwide populace has already passed into this insurgency stage. People are being powerfully seduced by the lies of Satan that will one day facilitate the mission of a new Antichrist.

Next is stage two - Unsound Breakaway Ideas. I will now present the evidence that we are currently in this stage, and that it does appear that the patterns of the last two Antichrists are repeating as I write. I will then infer an extrapolation of this pattern for both the current Antichrist build-up period and some aspects of AC3.

UNSOUND BREAKAWAY IDEAS TODAY

In the West, in this present Antichrist build-up, stage two - Unsound Breakaway Ideas began in earnest in about the early 1990s, with the rise of the Marxist ‘Tolerance’ Movement. This took the form of the development of bizarre academically unsound breakaway ideas capable of creating scapegoats for those who indulge their own self-pity. These ideas include such movements as the Tolerance movement, the Social Engineering movement and the Identity Politics movement. The politics of these philosophies is ingenious. In the words of sociologist John Carroll, ‘They facilitate scapegoating by making sure that pious extremist accusers can exorcise their own hatred, borne of self-pity, while maintaining a clear conscience and the self-image of being a peace-loving and compassionate person committed to equality and social harmony. This allows for the venting of rage without the normal associative guilt, producing emotional catharsis and contributing to personal identity the merit and significance of being a virtuous crusader. The targets of disapproval are those remote and rather mythological subjects of newspaper articles (picked because of their novelty and a-typicality) or cherry-picked and simplified statistics – the accuser rarely having any real experience with or knowledge of his or her quarry. For example, the movement to invalidate Western historical literature is based on the exaggerated claim of Western historical discrimination and violence which simply serves as a proxy-style victimhood for those who desire to personally experience the supposed rage of victims, such as black people, minorities and the poor’.[173]

Thus, the activism that arises out of this movement is pseudo-empathy. In other words, it is compassion that is ultimately aimed at oneself as a powerless, cruelly treated victim. Pseudo-empathy involves the apparent breaking down of barriers, the apparent empathy for one’s fellow human being, and the apparent purity of relating to one another respectfully. However, it actually results in disharmonious community relations and a simultaneous disregard for both truth and justice. For example, the ‘offence movement’ and the ‘minority movement’ seem to be genuinely constructive measures that build free and loving communities. However, each cause their communities to be more and not less divided, and less and not more respectful.

Whereas many social injustices will have seemed to have been corrected, in fact there is a scapegoat class who pays the price for each one – they are treated by their community with merciless brutality for attempting to introduce any dissenting truth into the conversation. In doing this, the people of their community are projecting their guilt upon them.

PROJECTING

What is ‘projecting’?

Due to the Fall of Man, a degree of scapegoating exists and always has in nearly all group behaviour. Why? The central need of humans is personal justification, the shedding of sin. Sin can only be shed by accepting the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. This involves casting our sin onto Jesus. However, our sin can seem to have been shed if we cast it upon another person. This is projecting. It is what those who are not appropriating Jesus’ forgiveness can do to try to free themselves from the pain of the guilt from their sin. It can be done by Christians or non-Christians. This phenomenon of projection is at the heart of political correctness, social engineering, identity politics, virtue signalling and other such social movement. For, the horrible truth is this, those who refuse to be forgiven by the legitimate and willing scapegoat (Jesus), cast their sins onto those unwilling and undeserving scapegoats from their fellow citizenry who make the easiest targets, because they are the least able to defend themselves.

In ancient Israel, goats were allowed to escape into the desert wilderness so that they could carry away the sins of the people. Hence, the term scapegoat was born. And, just as these ‘scapegoats’ could be torn apart by predators in the wide spaces of the lonely, lawless and cold desert, so too will our scapegoats be ostracised in our lawless jails and the deserts of social marginalism. We truly are animals of prey.

Our society is shamed, without remedy. So it must constantly punish and project. And nothing works better than accusations of petty sexual misconduct. With the accusation of a petty sexual misdemeanour, the victim is shamed into silence, such that no one will stand up to identify with or defend them. However, the real loser is the accuser – the ones who compulsively shame others. Because they refuse to be forgiven by Jesus, they have no way to purge themselves of guilt but to project it upon others. Therefore, it is they who are the most shamed; the shamed shame. But this projecting only makes their shame worse in the long run.

As a result of all of this, a false anti-discrimination regime will emerge whereby an apparently equal society will be created on three levels: 1) personal makeup – equality on the basis of race, gender, etc.; 2) lifestyle – equality for ‘alternative lifestyles’, 3) non-human life forms – increased rights for many non-human life forms as against humans. This will include chimpanzees, followed by many non-human mammals. This anti-discrimination regime will yield disastrous results. These will include all manner of quotas in workplaces in the name of employment equality (gender, age, race, etc.) and parents being prohibited from instructing their own children, in an errant attempt to combat discrimination against the young.

Currently, many in our society strongly believe that movements such as anti-discrimination, political correctness, social engineering and identity politics are ultimately compassionate measures which are having the effect of sensitively improving people’s lives. However, whereas there are benefits from many of today’s left-wing programs, they will ultimately fail to protect humanity because they will come with a raft of other left-wing measures that will be horrendous for both societies and individuals.

COINCIDENCE?

Given all of the correlations listed above, I don’t think that we have a coincidence on our hands here. I believe that today’s people have already passed into these stages of (1) insurgency and (2) unsound breakaway ideas that have been explained above. In Napoleon’s day, these two put together formed a revolution, and a revolution that combines these two is also happening today. Now, I will detail two forms of this revolution, and what they will lead to in: (A) France’s Revolution, (B) Today’s Revolution, and (C) Inferring the Future.

(A) FRANCE’S REVOLUTION

The only extremist Left Wing Antichrist so far has been Napoleon, whose mission was born of the French Revolution. In the days before the French Revolution, there was a widespread revolutionary spirit that can be summarised in the work of Thomas Paine, and which called for the establishment of Enlightenment-era transnational human rights. In his revolutionary pamphlet ‘Common Sense’, which was read by most Americans at the time of their revolution and is still the all time best selling American title, Paine argued that the colonists should fight for egalitarian government, and that monarchies were unfortunate institutions.

At the time of the French Revolution, Paine’s viewpoints became popular in France, via his pamphlet ‘The Rights of Man’. Thomas Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s. There, Benjamin Franklin helped him to gather funds for the American Revolution. As a result of all of this, Paine became quite popular in America. However, things changed for him in the USA, where Paine became unpopular for his ridiculing of Christianity. Paine even wanted the clergy and the church destroyed in the USA, but this was refused, and he died there a forgotten man with only six people attending his funeral. This is an interesting example, because his ideas were received in two countries, but in two very different ways. In France, they became evil fodder for Napoleon. However, in the USA they were interpreted in the light of Christianity, with the unchristian bits being removed, and they helped to make America the nation it became – not a perfect country, but one that defeated Hitler, gave the world many important democratic traditions and scientific discoveries and, most importantly, avoided being subjected to a tyrannical government. Thus, many of Paine’s fundamental ideas were not intrinsically bad but could be used by Satan for evil purposes. In fact, in his book ‘Christianophobia’, Rupert Shortt states that the English-style liberty (which prevailed in the USA) set the limits of the state whereas the French-style imposed ‘liberty’ upon the State, so that the French Revolution eventually became a totalitarian democracy, with the Enlightenment being described as religious persecution disguised as equality[174]. And, speaking of English-style liberty, it is also noteworthy that the English may have adopted the principles of the Enlightenment for a time when they executed King Charles 1 in 1649. However, they could not continue in this vain, so they re-established the Monarchy. This was widely interpreted as a restoration of the natural and divine order. The Enlightenment in France, however, was different to this. Its effects are not temporary, they are permanent, and they have spread. And, considering that many today extol the Enlightenment, this makes it perhaps the most widespread con in history.

Such a widespread movement as that of the Enlightenment must come before a left wing Antichrist, and one is in progress today. Its purpose in God is to create a movement of the people which can be used for personal anti-God selfishness and ego, such that these evils can be brought to the surface and dealt with by God so that repentance of overt sin is possible.

The main idea behind the Enlightenment revolution was anti-feudalism. In the twenty-first century, the revolution preceding AC3 will be characterised by anti-colonialism – the desire to break down the ‘immovable’ power barriers of tradition, government and companies to produce a new accessible democracy which allows people ‘real rights’, ‘freedoms’ and ‘equality’. Whereas the Enlightenment movement fought landlords and kings who imposed a system of class distinction, today’s revolution will fight the invisible walls that still block the right to true participative democracy for all.

In the right hands, such a revolution for citizens’ rights can be good, but in the wrong hands it is bad. This is because Satan always mixes in some good with his evil plans. Under Napoleon, fair courts, workers rights and better education were created. However, from the prideful godlessness that powered these changes came death and horror on an unheard of scale. Today, it is not only important to reform things for better superficial results, it is also important to reform society according to the will of God, because anything else will bring as much destruction as improvement.

(B) TODAY’S REVOLUTION

In 1990, a generation of baby boomers with a median age of 35 owned one third of all US real estate by value. In 2019, a similar sized cohort of Millennials of median age 31 owned just four percent of all real estate.[175] Millennials are not happy about statistics such as this, and they and future generations won’t just sit back and accept it.

The generation before the activist generation of today, X-Generation, was a generation of ‘accountants and strategists’. They were a relatively non-activist generation, and they mainly accepted the immovable power pillars of tradition, government and business as institutions that could not be changed, and so generally they did not try hard to change them.

Not so with the generation of Millennials. They are less likely to accept that things cannot be changed. They formulate bold reform strategies, take real risks and make genuine sacrifices in order to enact them. They often use civil disobedience, as it gets them attention whether they are arrested or not. Humanity needs this generation, otherwise difficult reforms, such as economic and social equality reforms, will not occur. But, it also needs them to be Godly, and by and large they are not.

They want a revolution. And they will eventually get one. It will be The Second Enlightenment. Just like the first Enlightenment, it will bring many good reforms, but more bad ones. Looking back, we will wonder how we could have ever lived without its compassionate reforms, but we will also shudder at the destruction that came with it. The millennial revolutionaries do not seek the election of centrist leftist parties and politicians. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected as a centrist left winger to clean up and punish the Wall Street financiers who caused the worldwide financial crisis that hurt so many. He did not do this. So, this generation believes that the world needs a far-left government not a centrist one; that is, it needs revolution, not evolution.

These different generations can be seen to run in cycles of three stages: (1) the thinkers who incite the next activist stage, (2) the activists, and (3) the consolidators of the gains won by the activists. We are in the second cycle now.

What is this activist generation like?

One could start with Wikipedia, an online commons site which has prospered because people have, for no remuneration, created content for it in an altruistic spirit and in contrast to the competitive ‘me first’ attitude upon which so much of the West has been built.

Then there is online connection, socialising and speaking out about what one thinks (being heard) on social media, which has led to connection phenomena such as crowd funding, dating sites, etc. All of these measures have solved to varying degrees the problem of people being disconnected from one another, and all of these problems had been considered unsolvable. Additionally, they have established the right for people to be themselves by fighting such things as: discrimination, bullying, hate speech, political incorrectness, intolerance, sexism (the #Metoo movement), and many more.

Finally, there is the push against colonisation, the denunciation of slave-holders, native land invaders and the like. The year 2027 will see the end of the Greatest Generation of 1901-1927 birthdates, and this will also be the approximate death year for Queen Elizabeth, the person who has done more to preserve the old order than any other in recent times. It will be the nail in the coffin for the old order, and will be marked by the imminent move to republican independent government of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, leaving the government of the Commonwealth to cover only the UK and a bunch of small islands.

This generation seeks to change the world for the better in the areas of gun crime, inclusion and the environment. They want be an access revolution that will bring the following reforms: more access to satisfying and meaningful work that fits into one’s life; more flexibility in the structure of work than ever before, resulting in work and wage forms undergoing their greatest change since the Industrial Revolution; the reform of financial systems, so that no more greed-based global economic depressions of the kind seen in 1930’s will be able to occur; and an increase in participatory democracy, resulting in more members of each population having a voice. In addition, they wish for national debts to be cancelled; international trade terms to be altered to favour poor countries; formerly colonised countries to return to using their native language, changing their place names and acquiring real power to control their own destinies; the cultures and histories of individual nations to largely replace organised religion as a bonding and guiding force; company CEO wages to reduce to become much closer to that of their workers, who will have increased ownership and control of companies; jobs to adapt to people and not the other way around; accessible housing that will see homes adapt to people and their needs; medicine for all; world music, television and cinema that will see Africans and Asians starring in Western living rooms and around the world; history and philosophy being rewritten according to the viewpoints of indigenous peoples and not the dominant cultures; and environmental responsibility to be forced upon the worst offenders who are USA, China and India.

This generation believes in cooperative, purpose-led, altruistic autonomy and self-organisation. This will finally result in no less than the reorganisation of Western democracy, by connecting people of all races, dealing aggressively with systemic racism, white supremacy, and the harms and losses caused by a patriarchy that tends to separate people and make them feel powerless.[176]

Millennials seek to push down the walls that separate people from others, people from power and even people from themselves. These are the walls that can separate some people from their safety, their freedom, their happiness, their dreams, and their destiny.

Many times a major event has marked a breakthrough or an attempted breakthrough for these ideals. One example is the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, which was a series of anti-government protests in a number of Arab countries against oppressive regimes and a low standard of living. The demands that were made included democracy, free elections, economic freedom and human rights.

Another was the Occupy Movement in 2011, an international movement crusading for social equality, economic equality and accessible democracy.

Yet another was Brexit in 2016, wherein the people fought a seemingly immovable Parliamentary power elite over Britain’s right to exit the EU in favour of self-determination.

The Extinction Rebellion in 2019, though superficially seen primarily as a Climate Change activism movement, in fact sought to dismantle colonial systems of oppression and replace oppressive government structures with systems of self-management and true participatory democracy.

Many of these ideas are not bad in themselves, and can have very good uses, as can clearly be seen from the examples above. However, the ego must be sublimated to God in order for movements like these to avoid being used by Satan for problematic ends. In other words, we can have the French version of Thomas Paine or the American one.

And, the ego won’t be sublimated to God. And, Thomas Paine will be French. And, to quite an extent, the ends, for many, will be terrible.

(C) INFERRING THE FUTURE

So, what will these problematic ends look like? What can be inferred from the patterns that have been established? The following is what I believe is most likely to happen.

In all probability, these reforms will be anti-democratic, for it will not be the ballot box but civil disobedience tinged with communist anarchist ideals that will prevail. Picture the Great Terror of the French Revolution, as the community’s faith in institutions is white-anted, God is declared to be dead and the lessons of history are lost, as even the knowledge of history is gone and mob rule arises. As Edmund Burke said, the ideals and philosophy of the French Revolution, the granting of human rights in the abstract and in isolation, will lead to violence and social disintegration.

Admittedly, in a sincere and long needed push for equality, the rights of people from the most impoverished races and countries may be elevated almost to the present level of most Western white males. Hospitals, roads, education, infrastructure and well-paid jobs will make Africans ‘white’ in their power and riches, and they will become some of the most prominent citizens in the world. However, economic ‘poverty and disease’ will almost certainly be replaced by a ‘poverty of autonomy’ to the countries that loan them money, as nations lose their true independence and self-determination, as well as their integrity, morality, soul, self-respect and ultimately their freedom. This will be the result of greedy alliances, and their accompanying conditions of deference payable to creditor nations. It will arise because these poor nations felt that they had to agree to oppressive terms in order to develop. Indeed, one might say that the Third World War will be started by a million tiny compromises.

These modern day enlightenment-type values will one day be seen for what they really are (just as Napoleon is being revised by some historians now) - as the philosophy of Humanism that has killed billions. Similarly, the use that AC3 makes of a social engineering ideology may not seem as bad as Hitler (as AC3 will be an extremist Left Wing Antichrist, who is by nature more manipulative than an extremist Right Wing one who is more overtly destructive) but it will be murderous. He will even extend Napoleon’s legacy and springboard forward from Napoleon’s Law Code to do terrible things in the name of ‘rights’.

These social engineering programs are the new Napoleonism. They are reforming societies according to humanistic visions in the same spirit as Napoleon’s Law Code. And, it will end up being about as compassionate as Napoleon was. Tolerance, Identity Politics and Social Engineering will grow into a disaster. Remember that Phrenology, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Social Darwinist Strong Man (or at least what Hitler made of it) and Francis Galton’s Eugenics, from the second half of the 19^th century, matured from 1900-1945 into the Jewish Holocaust.

Leading up to an Antichrist there will be a massive enlargement of the normal levels of projection in communities.

The sharp increase in the level of projection that is seen in society today is a portent for the evil of AC3. Accelerated projection has already been seen on a smaller scale in other extremist Left Wing states – for example, the twentieth century iron curtain countries. As with them, the new scapegoating, as we approach AC3, will involve suspicion, prying into others’ secrets, complaint making, paranoia, and an inability to know whom one can trust – even in an easy going country like Australia. As Left Wing extremism becomes ever more brutal, both the law and its enforcement will become ever more bullying, random, inconsistent and bizarre.

Also, there will be a humanistic inquisition, a witch hunt or scapegoat-fest. Due to the decline of Christianity, there will be a world record number of unforgiven people in the world. The only way they will be able to absolve themselves of their guilt will be to project it on to others. This will take the form of witch hunts in the media, law courts and workplaces. These will become so severe that there will be virtual inquisitions of Christians and other non-conformists wherein those who refuse to accuse will be punished (the marker of a witch hunt). The ‘Popes’ of this quasi-religious movement will be its psychologists, rigged and biased research being their papal encyclicals. The religious police will be the media, who will act as the storm troopers of this oppressive religion by aggressively harassing its prey.

The need for, and the incidence of, scapegoating will become so great that young children will be trained at school to accuse people (usually ‘males’) of sexual assault, and other shame-inducing charges, and will be believed by courts almost regardless of the facts. Meanwhile people will fill jails for the slightest errors of politically correct speech.

Writing this in 2020, the pressure for a revolution is building inexorably; when it reaches 100% the pot will explode and the revolution will come. But this will not occur for a while; oftentimes these things simmer for a long time.

When this pot does explode, the activists will mainly be 18-24 year olds, for if you can mobilise this group, you can take society at large. This was done by Mao Zedong who recruited millions of Chinese youths, by the Russian Communists, who devised ingenious ways of attracting Russian youths to their cause, by Hitler, who convinced university professors of his doctrines before any other group in society so that they would pass them on to their students, and by Napoleon, who built many new schools called lycees for boys aged 10-16, who would later fill the positions in his bureaucracy and military.

However, despite the apparent power of movements in the name of anti-racism, anti-poverty, anti-Muslim discrimination, and anti-colonialism, all of these will be absorbed into the Marxist Leftist Movement, which will in turn be absorbed into the China movement, which will in turn be subsumed into AC3. I call this ‘the Subsumption Principle’. And all of this will be co-ordinated by Satan. Even the Great Reset, which is pre-empted in the January 2020 document of the World Economic Forum, and which announces eight predictions for the world for 2030, will be subsumed by China. The WEF has identified China as their chief partner in resetting capitalism. It’s not hard to see that, when these two entities work in partnership, China will eventually get the upper hand.

A similar thing happened in Napoleonic France when the Robespierre Jacobins and the Third Estate, the commoners of eighteenth century France, had their movements subsumed by the larger Revolutionary Movement, which was itself subsequently subsumed by the even larger expansionist Napoleonic movement. Again, something along similar lines happened when Napoleon respected Islam in all his conquered lands and refused to kill their Islamic leaders, but preferred to control them, so that they did what he wanted and sometimes even worked for him. Once more, this principle was seen in action when Hitler repeatedly co-opted Islamist leaders into the activity of his World War Two efforts. During this war, the Islamist leader of Mandatory Palestine, Amin Al Husseini actively supported the extermination of the Jews of Europe. He subsequently organised the Free Arabian Legion, a part of the German Army. The Ba’athist government of Iraq conducted a pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad and provided air support for the Nazis. The Pan Arabist al-Futuuwa (Hitler youth) attacked Baghdad’s Jewish community. The Algerian government assisted the Luftwaffe. In Egypt, the Young Egypt Party resembled the Hitler youth. And, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party was a fascist group with an anthem that used the tune of the German national anthem and a red hurricane emblem taken from the Nazi Swastika.[177]

So, does an Antichrist in 29 years look likely? From all of the above, I say ‘yes’. Also, from the chapter ‘Today’s Particularly Bad Worldwide Mass Deception’ I find even more evidence with which to affirm this.

Such is the future according to the social conditions today, which resemble those of the last two Antichrists, particularly Napoleon. But, if China is to be the nation of the next Antichrist, it should be exemplifying these conditions. Do these social conditions apply to China today? And, will China even be the nation of the next Antichrist?

CHINA – THE HUB OF THE WORLDWIDE REVOLUTION

In China, their unsound breakaway ideas started in earnest in the early 1990s when the Communist Party mandated the teaching of a version of Chinese history that encouraged a victim psychology and a desire for revenge in Chinese people by asserting that China had been humiliated by other nations for 189 years prior to the creation of the Communist Party in 1949 (see The Timing of China’s Build-up). Today, this idea encourages Chinese people to salve their shame by bullying other nations as scapegoats.

Today, China is the country that is driving the global revolution more than any other. Xi Jinping boasts that China is reducing poverty, racism and anti-Muslim discrimination through its Belt and Road initiatives, which are reversing the old colonial order and giving real economic access to numerous disenfranchised nations. He stated that Belt and Road will construct ‘a community of common destiny for humankind’.[178] In one way of looking at this, the rich countries of the West are at least partly to blame for global inequality. For years, the greedy West refused to provide third world countries with real access into global markets, so now China has stepped into the breach. This welfare scheme of China’s will extend so far that I believe even the USA will one day sign up to Belt and Road for what it can do to help their ghettos problems and other social ills. Under AC3, China will then move forward in expansion using a massive alliance made up of countries from all parts of the globe. You don’t believe me? It is already happening. Take a look at the 37 nations that signed their support for China’s controversial ‘re-education measures’ in Xinjiang in a letter commending China’s ‘remarkable achievements in the field of human rights’: Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Kuwait, Laos, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. And you can add to that list Iran and Turkey, who didn’t sign for various diplomatic reasons, but are committed to China’s programs.

All of these countries could be described as some combination of: poor, Muslim, the subject of colonialism and the subject of racism. The movements that are fighting these social problems are the very movements that China is subsuming; for example, the Islamist movement. Hence China is recruiting representative nations from these movements for that very purpose.

How far will China take all of this? Interestingly, in China today, the national ideology of a new and great China emerging from its humiliating history is producing people and sentiments that are eerily similar to those of the French Revolutionary and German Volkisch movements. They have distinct wild bunch overtones. In 2019, a Chinese student remarked on the television show, ‘The Bolt Report’, that Australia should understand the importance of submitting to China because when war does break out, it will be ‘on the front line’ of conquest. Also in 2019, Professor Wang Yiwei warned Australia that if it did not align itself with China it would become the ‘first sacrifice’ in the new cold war between China and America.[179]

This new revolution is only just starting to sprout, and is only at the beginning stages. There will be a Left Wing revolution, where social barriers will seem to be demolished, but this is more than a decade away, so it won’t occur until the 2030s or after. The revolution will come, harder economic times will bite, and China will be overrun by aggressive elements before the next Antichrist accedes to his ultimate position of political power.

That is the situation for China, but what about the other superpower of the world, the U.S.A?

THE FUTURE OF THE U.S.A

Today, it can be observed that the USA has not won a war since 1945, because since then they have honoured the works of Humanism over the works of God. And, though they will have opposed AC4 for quite a time, even the United States will spiritually fall. But, surely the signs will have been there for them to see for a long time.

Today, the Tolerance Movement in the USA is literally destroying the moral fabric of that country. There will always be a truly Christian community in America – a remnant. I call them the righteous eagle of the USA, a remnant that continues the glorious evangelistic purposes of the first Mayflower pilgrims. However, as I have mentioned before, Christian countries will be attacked and ravaged by humanist forces in the rise of the last two Antichrists, even more than they were in the rise of the first two. In the USA, a cohort will rise and do the same, as they become what I call ‘The New USA’.

In a vision that I had, I saw that this cohort will kill the righteous eagle from behind as he drinks from the stream of life. In this vision, the eagle will implicitly trusted this new USA as a friend, and thus turn his back on him to drink. This new USA is the Tolerance movement that has progressively burgeoned within the USA in response to Enlightenment ideals. The Eagle will not agree with his Tolerance friend, or what he stands for, but will nonetheless accommodate him, love him and sacrifice for him in a display of true selfless brotherhood, in the spirit of the Statue of Liberty. This act of love will be reciprocated by Tolerance’s poor treatment of the Eagle in response.

What makes this new USA so evil?

In my vision, it was like a snake with a wide leering grin (politically dishonest), eyes of backlit jewels (an avaricious will) and a faux-cooperative countenance that vanished as soon as the one to be deceived left the room (a liar). From its throat emanated a cicada-like hacking, which was a shrill roar of hatred and conquest-desire, but also a call to its allies who rose up from inside every dark log and rock crevice. They became numerous in number within seconds. This dark ‘Pied Piper’ was followed by many as it betrayed the true USA by giving the jealous ‘heathens’ of the atheistic world their chance to satiate their hatred of the ‘lighthouse nation’ and sack it mercilessly, whereupon the snake adopted an evil knowing-smile as it saw its long-term objective being finally achieved.

And, so, during the reign of the fourth Antichrist, as all countries will fall, so the USA must fall to outright anti-Christianity. Yet, never before will have a more tragic sight been seen as when the people who fled European Christian persecution in the 1600s finally betray themselves and become the Christian persecutors of their own people and other nations. Yet those Christians who are persecuted in the USA should remember that there will come a time when the persecutors of Christianity will call to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us” (Revelation 6:16) in response to God’s dire judgement upon them, which will be meted out by God for the intended prompting of their repentance. Christians in that day, and this one, should bow to Jesus and serve Him, accepting and welcoming everything he brings. For, He is only and always love.

MY JOURNEY

As I have written of these patterns in Antichrist timing, I have seen correlation after correlation in present day events where China is concerned. I will further explore this in the next chapter.

ENCOURAGEMENT

DON’T CONDEMN YOURSELF

When he gains power, the clown Antichrist will want the world’s people to be in a state of shame and discouragement. This will enable him to animate them with a victim mentality. Satan wants this shame for you today. Our king can protect us from all of that, but we must do our part too.

James 1:2-4 says: ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything’.

God will allow us to be tested so that we can develop the kind of faith that will act as a bulwark against shame. When we are tested, we shouldn’t fall into shame or condemnation by dwelling on our sins but, as Romans 8:5 says, ’have our minds set on what the Spirit desires’. After all, why is it that John 16:10 states that the Spirit convicts believers of righteousness, and not of sin? This is because it is grace, and not the consciousness of sin, that produces righteousness in believers. Titus 2:11-12 says, ‘For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives’. Also, Hebrews 10:22 says ‘let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water’. Finally, 2 Peter 1:9 states that the reason some or another Christian may lack Christian qualities is because ‘he has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins’.

And, the best thing about having God build our faith is that we can keep its results. External achievement, either in the form of accomplishments or successful relationships, cheers us up in the moment, but is impotent to protect us against future disappointments – its benefits don’t last. However, the inner transformation of building a stronger faith produces a joy that lasts, because it develops a better way of responding to life that doesn’t fade, but rather becomes a permanent part of us.

That is joy.

So we should give thanks to God. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says that we are to ‘give thanks in all circumstances’, and Ephesians 5:20 urges us to be ‘always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of or Lord Jesus Christ’.

IMAGE 9 – MAO ZEDONG

(13) THE TIMING OF CHINA’S BUILD-UP

If I have correctly established a pattern for a four Antichrist ascending sequence, and I have the timing right for a Chinese Antichrist to arise by about sometime in the 2050s, shouldn’t I see distinct signs of this in China today? I have looked superficially at the contemporary Chinese situation, but now I want to examine it in detail. Surely this will yield many clues about whether or not I am on the right or the wrong track. I will look at seven signs. Each one will examine a method by which China is illegitimately accumulating international power in the present period.

(1) Accumulating international power the Nazi way

One way to see if there are signs of an Antichrist build-up in contemporary China is to compare it to the Antichrist build-up period in one of the other Antichrist nations. Regarding the build-up of China’s power and aggression in the world today, political commentator Salvatore Babones commented, in the magazine Quadrant on 29/10/20, that there are eerie similarities between today’s China and yesterday’s Germany under Hitler before the Second World War:

a) The reunification of Taiwan - and the Anschluss. Today, China intends to absorb Taiwan into itself by reunification, and has moved towards this objective in recent years. In 1938, Hitler wanted to unite with Austria (the Anschluss) but there was still some anti-Nazi resistance in Vienna. Nazi agents then cultivated pro-union sentiment there, assassinated Austria’s anti-Nazi leader Engelbert Dolfuss, and pressured the new leader Kurt Schusnigg accordingly. Union was achieved.

b) The occupation of the South China Sea - and Germany’s unilateral remilitarisation of the Rhineland. In 2013, China illegally occupied the South China Sea with armaments, turning it into an offshore military base. In 1936, Hitler’s forces entered and militarised an area called the Rhineland that was on Germany’s western border. Despite the fact that this contravened clear provisions in both the treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaty, the Germans were unrepentant in this action.

c) Claims to speak for and defend all of the Chinese ancestry everywhere - and 1930’s pan-Germanism. Today, the CCP claims and sometimes enacts sovereignty over all Chinese people, in all parts of the world. Pan-Germanism was a pan-nationalist German idea that was very prevalent in the 1930s. It describes Germany’s aspiration to unite all German people everywhere under the one political entity, Grossdeutschland.

d) Hong Kong - and Danzig. Today, Hong Kong is a disputed territory in as much as the Chinese promised at its handover in 1997 that it would remain a free state, yet China is now beginning to dismantle its power structures and annexe control of its political system. Danzig, or today’s Polish city of Gdansk, was a disputed territory between Poland and Germany. In 1933 Hitler began to politically white-ant this city, then took all of Poland in 1939.[180]

(2) Accumulating international power by the use of ingenious strategies

If one looks at the current Chinese soft-power strategies, such as forced technology transfer, the Thousand Talents program, and the use of the massively distributed Chinese Diaspora to buy political influence and promulgate many other Pro-CCP schemes, all of which I detail elsewhere in this book, an ingenious power accumulation program emerges. The cleverness and secrecy of these tactics is very impressive, and no doubt there are many more to come. I am reminded, here, of Napoleon. Napoleon and his people invented and initiated a new concept of total warfare and, along with that, many other evil institutions: the imposition of state religion, the secret police, large-scale professional espionage, government propaganda machines, the faking of supposedly democratic movements, elections and plebiscites, and large-scale military conscription. As I have already mentioned, left wing Antichrists posses a level of sophistication and ingenuity that the more crude and practical right wing Antichrists do not, thus their evil is often missed, even though it lasts longer.

(3) Accumulating international power by temptation and luring

To examine the role of China as an accumulator of power by tempting and luring, I will use the analogy of a bear trapper.

As a bear sleeps on a path, a trapper creeps out and lays baits on the path ahead of it. The trapper then recedes to his forest vantage point and hides. The bear wakes and consumes the baits as he finds them. He gains a taste for this food and sniffs out future baits, taking the paths that contain them. Eventually, the bear takes some bait that was laid in a cage, the cage springs shut and the bear is trapped.

How can this analogy be applied?

The nation that is the major bear trapper in the twenty-first century is China. On the same day as the 9/11 disaster occurred, China opened up its trading markets to the world, in preparation for its eventual admission into the World Trade Organisation on 11/12/2001.[181] Although this act portended its future desire for mega-power, it was missed by almost everyone because it was hidden behind the atrocities of 2001, and remained hidden behind the further attacks of Islamist terrorists for another ten years or so. Such was the secrecy of China’s positioning, whether intentional or not.

Between 2013 and 2020, 138 countries signed up to the Belt and Road program, most of them having amongst the lowest national credit ratings in the world. The range of Belt and Road includes countries as different as Kenya and Malaysia, Ethiopia and Thailand, Central Europe and Indonesia. One example is the African nation of Uganda. In 2009, China invested in Ugandan projects such that they created 5,500 jobs.[182] In 2010-2012, 265 Chinese enterprises started businesses in Uganda.[183] That was an enormous shot in the arm to the Ugandan economy. However, this economic aid came with many reciprocal obligations from Uganda to China. Today, China’s Belt and Road (land and sea) projects of both civic improvement and equalisation in some of the world’s poorer countries, where they wish to garner sufficient influence to gain power over various trade lines and links, include infrastructure for rail, industrial zones, pipelines, cities, ports and maritime authorities.

To this end, China has leveraged the economies of many nations to their ‘behaviour’; in other words, if nations behave a certain way they will be much better off economically. And it will be required that this ‘behaviour’ falls increasingly in line with China’s culture. Indeed the social credit system in China already accomplishes this with China’s own people, because it ensures that their behaviour either benefits or hinders many aspects of their daily lives. In this way, they can eventually influence corporations, governments and media outlets to do what they want. Once they do this, they will effectively have control of most of the world’s people. Culture is a very effective power tool, because winning hearts and minds earns a country more power than military threats usually do. One example of this occurred in July 2019 when 22 countries signed a letter of concern about China’s controversial ‘re-education measures’ in Xinjiang. In these programs, nearly one million people who, by virtue of their ethnic or religious status, were not deemed to be co-operative with the Chinese Communist Party, were confined in camps, some to have their organs harvested, some to be raped, and many to be separated from their families. Tellingly, this group of 22 countries contained not one Islamist state, many of which are now in cahoots with China. In countering this letter of concern, Beijing was able to obtain the signatures of 37 other nations. Nearly all of these countries were Islamist nations of poverty who have appalling human rights records, and tend to be hostile to democracy. As well as influencing many nations, Beijing also holds power and influence over many multinational corporations that are large enough to, for example, annually send their CEOs to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Currently, the Chinese government, in seeking to leverage more and more influence upon the opinions of people at the international level, is forming convenient and much appreciated economic treaties and alliances with other nations. This government will then demand that those nations tolerate their tyranny against the world, as they become the world’s bully. Those recipient nations, unwilling to lose their new and lucrative privileges, will nearly always accede to this demand. In time, this tyranny will spread the world over relatively unopposed, as this oppressive government moves towards assuming the status of being untouchable.

These schemes only work when the world’s people gradually abandon their better values and trade them in for the lazier and more self-indulgent positions of selfishness and greed, thus becoming temptable. In international trade, many nations now practise hyper-globalism, the notion that markets should prevail over almost all ethical considerations. It is Humanism’s smooth and seductive arguments which are deceiving and cajoling people into doing this. The politics of Humanism makes it seem as if people are refining their values to be more community-centred, whereas actually they are simply inflating their own egos. Hence, Humanism makes people feel so good that they do not want to reject its influence.

Returning to the Bear trapper analogy, with a compliant country, China could get behind them and push and they might co-operate with China. However, for a wilful people, the only way for China to gain their compliance is to bait them from the front. That way their greed, their ego and, most of all, their inflexible hard-hearted will, can be used against them such that they entrap themselves, even when they know there is a chance they may be entrapped. They are the slaves of their own obsession. All it takes is for the trapper to be both secretive and patient.

Most of the world’s countries will selfishly and short-sightedly strike deals with China’s Belt and Road program, believing that they are exploiting China for (1) economic gain and/or (2) political gain, whereas China will actually be using them as a power lever.

Consequently, a post-Brexit E.U. gutted of the moral steel of Britain is likely be led by its greedy nose until it is tricked into becoming China’s financial dependent. If this happens, the CCP’s hand on its shoulder will grow a menacingly sharp metal claw.

Therefore, China has developed three kinds of strategic power: economic control, military control (mainly through economic means), and control of the international zeitgeist. Thus, China will come to have an outsized influence on the world’s values. However, England, the USA and some of their allies still partly refuse to co-operate with China, much like they refused to co-operate with Napoleon and Hitler.

Interestingly, just as both Napoleon and Hitler revived the spirit of the Caesars, so does China with its Belt and Road program. The Roman Empire included a network of roads that was 80,000 kilometres long, generating wealth for Rome as trade routes, binding many nations to the control of Rome, and providing Roman armies with fast transportation. Does that sound familiar?

(4) Accumulating international power by leveraging its super-development

China intends to become the world’s dominant nation by 2049. In its attempt to do this, China aims to become the world’s pre-eminent military and economic power by then. Since it joined the WTO in 2001, China has produced the largest industrial revolution in history, producing 60% of the world’s consumable cheap goods by 2016, and transitioning from having 90% percent of its people living below the poverty line to just 3% by 2020.[184] Between 2011 and 2013, China used more cement than the United States used in the entire twentieth century. Today, it is the world’s second largest economic power in GDP terms, the largest merchandise exporter, the second largest merchandise importer, and the third largest commercial services importer. However, I view these economic and military achievements as merely the two bottom corners of their triangle of power, not the superior apex. The apex achievement, that would, to the greatest extent, establish China as the world’s dominant country, would be to become the world’s dominant culture. This would give China power over nearly every aspect of the lives of its vassals and minions.

As at 2019, the CCP’s worldwide economic and military build-up points to a nation that will be ready to assume world power by the time that it promises it will – 2049. China has been secretive and patient as it has formed alliances based on powerfully tempting inducements. These alliances have already formed a mighty and diverse China-led coalition – as diverse as the spots on a leopard’s skin!

(5) Accumulating international power by removing religious resistance

The last two Antichrists brutally removed any resistance to their regimes that might have been posed by religious people, who tend to stick to their guns even after secular people have succumbed. This resistance was defeated within their own country first, then outside of it. Under the French Revolution and Napoleon, Christians were brutally suppressed in the name of libertarian equality. Germany nearly wiped out the entirety of European Jewry, and had planned to target the Christians after them.

Another distinct sign of a rising AC3 in China today is the intense and deadly religious conflict within that country. Today, China has permanently imprisoned more than one million Uyghur Muslims. They are using these people as human organ growers, and are harvesting these organs from them, amongst other things.

China also harbours the world’s largest Christian revival, of many millions of people. Currently, this population is suppressed and persecuted by having their churches banned as places of worship, having to worship the Chinese State Church and not the real Christian God, and being harassed in myriad ways. If China is to rise to become an Antichrist nation one day, it will need to swat this ‘pesky mosquito’ dead. At first, they will be incarcerated. However, there may eventually be too many of them for that. I believe they will be secretly mass-murdered using poisonous gas, and that this act will be so secretive that the rest of the world won’t even find out until quite a while after the deed is done.

(6) Accumulating international power by hijacking an existing system of power

It would be logical for a Chinese Antichrist to wait until China has the world’s premier economy and military system, as well as a string of alliances that will bind many nations into servitude to China to some degree or another, before he takes ultimate power. That way, he would have a chance of holding onto power.

Earlier in this book, I talked about the transition of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, known variably as ‘The Roman Revolution’, or ‘The Fall of The Roman Republic’. As I have argued, this transition was essentially a process of devolving a decentralised democracy into a centralised autocracy, in a nation that is already very powerful. Earlier in this book, I said that the FINAL ANTICHRIST will come to power by hijacking a powerful institution with decentralised power that was created to be and purports to be relatively equal. It will be some aspect of the globalised world. This institution will go the way of the Roman Republic and end up becoming dictatorial. What will this institution be? Can you guess? I believe that it will be the future Internet of Things (IoT). I will detail this later.

Later, I will talk about how AC4 will do this. However, as part of the ascension of the four Antichrists, AC3 will also do this, but to a lesser extent than AC4. And, the CCP has already started.

Firstly, the CCP is attempting to hijack one existing power system - the world’s world trading system. Through Belt and road and many other means, China is progressively annexing world trade in order to bring it under its control.

Secondly, there is another system that is under attack - that of scientific and academic innovation and discovery. In a scheme called the ‘Thousand Talents Plan’, the CCP has offered many thousands of leading academics both profitable salaries and additional perks, such as tuition for their children, jobs for spouses, housing subsidiaries and international travel, if they patent their inventions in China, giving the CCP control over them. This scheme is similar to Forced Technology Transfer, whereby companies working with China must declare the details of all of the workings of their trade technology to the CCP, so that the CCP may then exploit this knowledge if it chooses to.

Thirdly, however, there is a much more powerful system that the CCP is currently attempting to hijack – the Internet. Exiled Chinese dissident Guo Wengui, a former business tycoon, has said that China has a strategy for world domination known as BGY: Blue (control the internet), Gold (buy influence with money) and Yellow (seduce key people with sex)[185]. Currently, in most places in the world, the Internet is permissionless. This means that anyone can create a new Internet address, and also that data transfer along the Internet is uncensored unless it can be proven to be dangerous. There are some states where these freedoms do not exist. One is China. In China, people must apply for a license to host their own website. They can be excluded for the Internet due to scoring too low a number of social credit points, and are excluded from sites that the CCP does not approve, for example Google. In addition, they can be sentenced to two years prison for trifling online breaches of political correctness such as calling Xi a steamed bun in a private chat group. The CCP is currently pushing hard for the core Internet protocols to be remodelled so that Internet connections to it can be centrally censored and authorised with respect to both Internet addresses and the data transferred across them. Called ‘New IP (Internet Protocols)’, this scheme would be a revamped version of the TCP/IP standards in order to accommodate two new technologies: 1) a shut-off protocol to cut off misbehaving parts of the Internet: and 2) a new top-to-bottom governance mode that centralises control of the Internet, instead of leaving control to the users, as happens in most places today. These changes would essentially have the dual effect of: 1) imposing the CCP’s autocratic views on the rest of the world, and 2) securing lucrative economic gains for Chinese companies and for China itself. The building of this new Internet by engineers from industry and academia across multiple countries will start soon. The CCP is pushing for a fast timeline to get this implemented by a vote in the Internet’s governing body. As yet, they do not have a majority. However, it is a favourable proposal for many third world countries because it offers two valuable things: 1) the Internet cannot be used to rally against the government, and 2) there are distinct commercial advantages for companies. So far, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia have declared their support for it.[186]

When it comes to selling the idea of Internet censorship, since 2014, China has held the Annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China. It attracts many of the world heavyweights of the Internet, including Google’s CEO. They aim to promote their policy of ‘Internet Sovereignty’, first to belt and road countries, then to the world. This policy involves Internet censorship, and the CCP conducts seminars that teach countries how to make it work in practice by monitoring negative public opinion and re-spinning it. Vietnam and Russia have enacted these reforms nationally.

(7) Accumulating international power using the revenge mentality of its people

Another way of shedding light on the timing of the next Antichrist is to look at the timing of the CCP power build-up and, particularly, when they will be ready to have an Antichrist at the helm. Just before the French Revolution, France was a nation of peasants who were humiliated by the oppression of the upper classes; hence the formation of the ‘People’s Movement’. Germany was a nation humiliated by its World War 1 defeat and subsequent obligation to meet its reparations debts; hence the rise of the ‘Volkisch (Folk) Movement’.

According to the Chinese Communist Party’s record of historiography and nationalism, China now claims that it has suffered severe humiliation over the last 189 years because of the following lost wars and the consequential requirements to give up territory and pay reparations: 1839 to 1842 – the first opium war, 1856 to 1860 – the second opium war, 1894 to 1894 – the first Sino-Japanese war, and 1937 to 1945 – the second Sino-Japanese war. The same document then cites the last 73 years as stimulating an ongoing upturn of pride and nationalism due to: becoming one of the four ruling nations after World War 2, along with the USA, USSR and Britain; the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 by Mao Zedong; the successful repelling of UN forces in the Korean War in the 1950s; the reunification with Hong Kong in 1997; the reunification with Macau in 1999; the hosting of the Beijing Olympics in 2008; and China’s large scale economic and military expansion since then.[187]

To truly heal this victim mentality, China must process and move on from the pain of their past abuses and humiliations at the hands of other nations, and not try to cover it with notions of superiority, otherwise it will fall victim to the famous Carl Jung maxim: ‘Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering’. However, the CCP does not wish to do this. Rather, China wishes to resume its Ming Dynasty place at the power centre of the world by 2049, one hundred years after the 1949 date of the forming of the PRC by Mao Zedong. This triumph would constitute the completion of what it calls the Hundred-Year Marathon. Chinese communist thinker Liu Mingfu writes that once China is at the centre, it will spread its influence through culture, language and values. This centrality of China will be somewhat reminiscent of the Ming Dynasty, when China was the central power of the world. Under this type of arrangement, China will attempt to rule the other nations of the world as vassal states whom it will leave in peace only as long as they submit to China in what was once known as the ‘Tributary System’. Under this system, China was the predominant nation in networks of trade and military relationships, and the other nations paid tribute to it.

This imperialist sovereignty may be accomplished via economic domination, but it will be justified by lies. Recently, Xi told US President Donald Trump the lie that Korea used to be a part of China. China claims ownership of the South China Sea islands based on the assertion that China discovered, named and explored the whole region 2,000 years ago. However, the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague ruled that this theory (which is yet to be credited) gave China no claims to those islands. China responded by calling this highly condemnatory verdict, ‘a piece of paper that is destined to come to naught…a pack of lies’. In 2003, Hu Jintao addressed the Australian Parliament and claimed that China had originally discovered Australia when Ming Dynasty fleets encountered it in 1421. This was discredited by scholarship at large. Two years later the Chinese Ambassador to Australia, Fu Ying, reiterated this claim to the National Press Club. Eleven years later in 2005, Li Zhaoxing reiterated it to the Australian National University. It is now the official CCP narrative on the subject. If the other territories that China claimed to have discovered are any indication, Australia is in for a bumpy ride in its relationship with China in the future.

In September 2019, Professor Wang Yiwei, Director of the Institute of International Affairs at China’s Renmin University, warned Australia that if it did not renounce its alliance with the USA and realign with China it might be the first sacrifice in a new cold war between the USA and Australia.[188]

In the early 1990s, the Chinese Communist Party built a national ideology of supremacy and conquest based upon their tortured history. An understanding of this ideology became a requirement for passing school and university year levels in China, and it was taught to every student, and still is. Additionally, public servants, the military and teachers, amongst other occupations, are still required to regularly attend refresher courses on this subject.

Li Xiaobo, the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner, asserted that this supremacist ideology is built on an historical self image of vanity arising from the conviction that China once ruled all under heaven, a concept known as Tianxia. Other writers note that some Chinese people are driven by a hidden fear of their own inferiority – one that can only be salved by the approval of the rest of the world. (This sounds eerily similar to the Volkisch ethos of the German people just prior to the rise of Nazism.) Indeed, I believe that it will be these Chinese people, suffering an inferiority complex, who will likely take this doctrine of a humiliated history to its terrible logical endpoint by advocating for all-out aggression as the means for China to ascend to its ‘rightful’ place in the world. This may form the core of a new and more belligerent China that the Antichrist will appeal to when he suddenly snatches power. This cohort may also support and fight for the Antichrist in many battles. Like the revolutionary peasant zealots of Napoleon’s cause and the Volkisch proletariat of Hitler’s beer halls, this group could be China’s Wild Bunch, that rogue element of shamed countrymen upon whose deflated egos the Antichrist will prey as he pumps up their self esteems and makes them believe that they can have and do anything.

COINCIDENCE?

Once again, there are too many correlations for a coincidence here. It would appear that China is set to produce a modern Major Antichrist sometime in the 2050’s.

IS XI JINPING THE THIRD ANTICHRIST?

All of this may beg the question whether Xi Jinping, the current leader of China, will turn out to be the third Antichrist. However, we should not worry about him. In China, Xi is known as a ‘princeling’, that is, he was born into the family of a senior Communist Party official. He also married a celebrity musician, someone who was much more famous than he was at the time when he married her. He is not at all the material from which an expansionist Antichrist is made. Princelings are not as concerned with expansion as they are with preservation, as they seek to conserve their power and that of their country. Hence, Xi seeks to annexe only those nations that he believes are already part of China, not outside nations. He does this to preserve what he sees as the true China. An Antichrist, on the other hand, comes with a chip on his shoulder caused in part by his personal obscurity and low standing in the community. He would certainly not tolerate a famous wife who takes the nation’s attention away from him.

Rather, Xi is a methodical servant of China, a ‘farmer’ and a ‘builder’, the grower and builder of the new CCP system which will serve the brutal ambitions of a future Chinese Antichrist. He is more defensive and possessive of what he already has, or thinks is his, than expansive. And where he seeks to enlarge Chinese world power, he will do that to defend China from bullying, not so much to make it the world’s tyrant. And even though he sometimes resembles the old Ming ruler, the Longqing Emperor (1567-1572), in that he militarised the sea in defence of his territories, purged the government of corrupt officials and made the nation more orderly, he won’t be the attacker, instead he will be the preparer. He will prepare for the future Chinese Antichrist by building the international political infrastructure that will platform him and his world domination. He will be more of a John the Baptist than a Jesus.

Therefore, Xi cannot be AC3 because an Antichrist’s psychology, and the psychology of his nation, corresponds to the ancient mythical Wotan archetype. Psychologically speaking, the Wotan is an industrious, aggressive, wandering and travelling soul who interlopes onto the territory of others, seeking power and respect in order to compensate for a victim mentality and a humiliating chip on his shoulder. This description does not quite match Xi, he is not expansive enough. However, it does match Napoleon (and France), Hitler (and Germany) and to some extent modern China and Russia. Indeed one of Hitler’s assistants, Heinrich Himmler, once approached him to request that Germany replace the old Gods of Christianity with the Germanic cult figures of Wotan and Thor. Whereas Hitler refused, it is significant that Himmler did this.[189]

In fact, even the Antichrists themselves are the products of personal humiliation, through bullying. When bullied by their father, they tend to take shelter in their mothers, who eventually cease to be purely mothers, but rather take the place of their father. In the end, this false motherhood results in their developing characteristics that are the opposite of motherhood - a harsh emotional nature and a completely unnurturing disposition. Napoleon was bullied by his classmates for his manner of speech as a Corsican immigrant to France[190], and Hitler was bullied by his father. A sense of both personal and national humiliation is an indispensable part of an Antichrist’s destructive drive. Only Jesus Christ represents the perfect antithesis, the polar opposite of bullying. Whereas a bully casts his sins onto an innocent victim, in Isaiah 53 the biblical text tells us that innocent Jesus ‘took up our infirmities unto himself’ – the opposite of bullying.

The Antichrist, therefore, will not be Xi. As things look right now, I believe that China’s second or third ruler after Xi (depending upon interpretation, as the politics of power transfer can be extremely messy) will become the AC3. However, while ever Xi is in power the world is at least safe from an all out direct military assault. So, in my estimation, the Antichrist will be about the third leader after XI.

This is how I think the immediate future of the Chinese leadership will look. Xi’s excessively transparent disrespect towards the rest of the world, especially regarding the COVID-19 breakout and China’s immediate response to it, will hurt China’s international interests and weaken their alliances. Sometime after Xi, China will require a leader who is less shambolic than Xi was when he pursued his aggressive foreign policy of worldwide bullying that alienated China from other nations and ultimately cost it some of its worldwide power. This prediction accords with the theory of leadership stylistic failure by Edward Luttwak, the Romanian military strategist, historian and author of the 1968 best seller ‘Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook’. His theory argues that regimes fall because of leadership stylistic failure, which happens when the regime’s ideology and style of government has become terminally outmoded, irrelevant or ridiculous – shambolic.[191]. Thus, the CCP will eventually appoint a leader who is more diplomatic, and able to be the kind of smooth deceiver that will effectively advance China’s soft-power style of world dominance.

However, even this new and more diplomatic leader will not be sufficient to solve all the problems of the CCP. He will not pursue global dominance as quickly as the wild and impetuous elements of China’s ambitious populace, whom I call the ‘Wild Bunch’, would like. Hence, the Wild Bunch will eventually become impatient, because their country will not look like achieving genuine world conquest by the planned 2049 date. Though the Wild Bunch will have existed covertly for some time before this, as the year 2049 approaches they will start to come out of hiding and overtly demonstrate to many Chinese people that China is not progressing fast enough towards world domination. Sometime after this, most probably after another leader has come and gone, there will be a soft coup, then this Wild Bunch will elevate AC3 to power to accelerate China’s agenda of world domination. This soft coup will be confusing, and it will not be well-understood by many outside observers why one leader is coming and another is going. Like with Russia, who laboured under the incompetent 72 year old Konstantin Chernenko only to replace him with the excessively Western Mikhail Gorbachev then eventually settle on the corrupt mafia-like figure of Vladimir Putin, this new Chinese leader will be intrinsically corrupt. He will surf the Chinese people’s communal wave of victim mentality and hatred, and give them all they want and more. He will be more zealous than them, and will go further to achieve his aims than they will be prepared to. But, they will love him, and will ultimately follow him. This wild element of China will be the counterpart of the West’s new revolutionary generation which is impatient for change and willing to fight to get it. However, at any cost they will demand their own way – CCP tyranny used to its full extent to control the world.

Moreover, this pattern of a leader who is perceived to be weak being replaced by a hawk of a leader was the way of succession for both Napoleon and Hitler. In each case, the weak and ineffectual leader of each nation was unable to manage the changes that their nation was experiencing at the time, and the threats to its welfare from within, so power was seized by a hawkish leader. In France in 1799, the extremist Jacobins expelled men of moderate views from their leadership hub The Directory, but still felt that it wasn’t strong enough. Therefore, Emmanuel Sieyes, an influential member of the Directory, announced that it needed a military dictatorship lead by a sabre of a man. Although Sieyes then tried to buy off Napoleon by giving him the empty title of ‘The Great Elector’, Napoleon went on to become one of three consuls, and the ruler of France. In Germany in 1933, leader Paul Von Hindenburg was a senile man who was not in possession of all his faculties. He mistook an urban torchlight ceremony for the triumphant return of the Kaiser’s troops who were celebrating a World War One victory that never happened. That same year, under pressure from the opposition party communists and Hitler, as well as his own advisors, he caved in, and Hitler was able to take control of Germany. Note that this was also the pattern of another Antichrist type, Antiochus Epiphanes, who illegitimately seized a throne that was due to be given to Demetrius son of Seleucus, who was both very young and also a hostage in Rome at the time.

(As a side note here, some commentators, such as Carl Minzner [End of an Era], George Magnus [Red Flags] and William Overholt [China’s Crisis of Success], forecast the possibility of a dim immediate future for the CCP, as an institution that is relatively unsustainable due to its weaknesses and inability to reform itself. I disagree. Just as the French Revolution found its genius in Napoleon who cut it a new path using invention and daring, so eventually will the CCP.)

Therefore, according to the pattern already established, the next Antichrist should be expected to emerge sometime in about the early 2050s. China’s power build-up will involve it becoming the number one economic and military world power by about 2049, one hundred years after the formation of modern China, and the official date by which the Chinese Communist Party said that they want China to become the world’s most powerful state. All of this would require a military build-up over many years for the purpose of expansionism. That is exactly what is happening today. China’s international military build-up began in earnest in 2013 when China began island-building on the Spratley Islands in the South China Sea. Although an arbitration tribunal ruled against China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, the CCP stated that they did not recognise the authority of this tribunal.

WHY IS GOD ALLOWING US TO KNOW ALL THIS BEFORE IT HAPPENS?

The reason why God has allowed history to provide us with the critical clues by which to identify the Antichrists at this time is because it will not manifestly tip their plans off course. This is because, in these days of disobedience and cynicism, even if the world’s people know that their own sin will collectively lead the world into the hands of an abusive tyrant, they will remain so addicted to their sinful ways and so cynical that they will not make a significant effort to change. It is a bit like the last worldwide financial crisis of 2008. Despite the fact that it was known that Wall Street insiders stymied attempts to create US fiscal laws that may have safeguarded the world from this disaster, nonetheless, even after the crisis, it was still those same insiders who were appointed to key government economic administration posts, and these bad laws were not changed.

ENCOURAGEMENT

GOD TURNS EVIL INTENTIONS INTO GOOD OUTCOMES

Regarding all of the above, never fear. Just as Revelation notes that, ‘The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire’ (Revelation 17:16). Therefore, this alliance of hatred against the world, and particularly Christians, will turn on itself and ultimately destroy itself. For, just as love ultimately unites, in the long run hatred can only divide.

Additionally, the method of the Antichrist is described in Revelation 13:13 as: …’causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men’. This describes a similar attempt to challenge the power of God as was tried by the Prophets of Baal. However, as we know, God eventually beat them. Therefore, pray for the Christians of China, God has a powerful work for them to do.

In fact, when examining the clown Antichrist’s future plans, it is timely to remember the words of Genesis 50:20: ‘You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives’. No matter how dangerous the Antichrist’s plans will seem to be, they are actually God’s plans – to save many. So, keep evangelising as God gives you opportunity to do this, and not just to save them.

God can make your life into such a wonderful story that it will be a myth for all to behold. A myth is a story with added symbolism that gives it meaning. Time and again in the Bible, we read of characters’ lives that God made into powerfully meaningful stories; Joseph, Moses, David, Jonah, Ezekiel, Peter, Paul, and many more. Look into your life for the symbolic meaning that God will put in there. It will minister to you and then to others, if you follow its godly instructions.

To obey the directions of symbolism may involve suffering. However, remember that God is love (1 John 1:16), therefore any suffering that he allows us to experience has a loving purpose. Also remember that it was by suffering that we came to God in the first place, as we never would have approached him purely by our own choice. Likewise, in our Christian lives, the suffering that God allows us to experience can lead us further and further into the good life of God, if we persevere.

IMAGE 10 – HU JINTAO

(14) TODAY’S PARTICULARLY BAD WORLDWIDE MASS DECEPTION.

In the Bible, scriptures such as Matthew 24:10-12, 1 Timothy 4:1 and 2 Timothy 3-4 talk about a time, that is in the last days, when many people will be extremely ungodly because they are deceived. It will be a worldwide mass deception. This creates another marker in time for the advent of the last days and the four-part Antichrist. Has that time already come?

THE TWO DECEPTIONS OF SATAN

As I have mentioned, when it comes to the deception of Satan as a weapon against God’s people, there are two types. I will start with the second type of deception first, the specific deception. The specific deception is the one referred to in Revelations 20:8, which is designed to set in the minds of more or less all people universally an open and proud hostility to God’s people such that the nations gather to persecute God’s people. This deception has been limited by God to being executed only when Satan has been released from prison. Therefore, it will spike each time a major Antichrist accedes to power because this man will be capable of acting as a lightning rod for hatred against God’s people. Therefore, its pattern will be to spark for short periods of time, then re-spark with the next major Antichrist, escalating as history proceeds through major Antichrists one to four. Examples of this include the times around Napoleon and Hitler that saw the Dechristianisation of France and the German anti-God fervour that killed the Jews and planned to kill all Christians. Both of these were attacks against God’s people that universally appealed, such that anyone could be tempted to do it. It is as though Satan’s release from prison removes the restraints of suppressed evil, which then emerges as a proud, shameless, emboldened, merciless and hateful open rebellion against God and his people. It is true that, in the times between major Antichrists, there will still be persecutions against God’s people. However, these persecutions will not be ones that universally appeal. Also, they will not be fortified persecutions that attack God’s people at the root level of belief and sideline them in their own land so comprehensively that they never fully recover. And so will not be as severe. As such, they belong in the next category of Satan’s deceptions that I will now detail.

The other type of deception is the first type of deception, the general spiritual deception. The general deception occurs at all times, whether Satan is in or out of prison, but only manifests in those who are particularly opposed to Yahweh. Because this deception builds right throughout the church age, it will become most apparent by its outer manifestations in the last days. This is the deception referred to in Matthew 24:10-12 (‘At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.’), and 1 Timothy 4:1 (‘The spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.’). It is also ‘the secret power of lawlessness already at work’ from 2 Thessalonians 2:7. Throughout the church age, this deception has progressed in surges, but overall, it has moved forward. Its nature is to seek to inspire in its subject a disbelief of God. It also seeks to prepare the people of the last days to be deceived by the specific deception, the one that aims to gather the nations to persecute the people of God. One example of the general deception being used as a preparation for the specific deception was the Enlightenment.

ARE WE IN THE MASS DECEPTION TODAY?

In this chapter, I am going to talk about the first kind of deception, the general deception. With respect to the general deception, are we already in the type of particularly bad worldwide mass deception that the scriptures from Matthew and Timothy above refer to? Many ages have seen a mass deception of some kind. Furthermore, what generation hasn’t complained of the evils of the younger generation? So, how can we know whether or not the mass deception of this age is THE mass deception that the Bible is talking about? I decided to investigate the question: Is today’s scene really a particularly bad mass deception, or just another run of the mill spiritual lull that has happened so many times in the last two millennia?

The essence of the general deception is to cause people to doubt and then disbelieve God. However, as a preparation for the major Antichrists of the last days, it should influence its subjects: (1) to become gullible enough to believe the deception of a major Antichrist, the Christ being imitated by a satanic parody; and to (2) to become ready to co-operate with the Antichrist’s new and godless agendas. Has this deception already started? I will argue that, yes, it has. How is this deception manifesting today? It is being accomplished by Satan removing the safeguards that usually keep people from being deluded. What are these safeguards that are being removed? In our time, there are three main ones: (1) godliness, (2) dedication to truth, and (3) democratic national sovereignty.

(1) GODLINESS

It is a fact that those who are Godly regarding their approach to Christ are less liable to being tricked by Satan.

Today, in the West, the deceptions of Satan can be seen everywhere. Moreover, the world has a long history of doubting God, which started even before Christ, then accelerated just before the time of Napoleon, via the shamed and errant philosophers of the Enlightenment.

THE LOSS OF GOD IN PHILOSOPHY

Earlier, I showed that the philosophies of people naturally move further and further from God as they refuse to surrender to Christ, only to then have their opinions shaped by Satan.

What, then, are the specific results of these philosophies upon the levels of godliness in people today?

THE LOSS OF GODLINESS TODAY

THE DECLINE OF CHRISTIANITY

I will primarily examine the West, because it is from there that AC3 will procure most of his power as liquid wealth, skilled people and assets. In the West, the level of godliness has always risen and fallen, but it has never been as low as it is now.

According to a 2011 Pew Research Centre Survey, in 1910 there were 600 million Christians in the world, then in 2010 there were 2.2 billion Christians in the world. This is significant because this growth rate is actually slower than the world population growth rate during the same period[192], showing that Christianity is on the decline.

I believe that figure of 2.2 billion is inflated. There are many surveys and census documents recounting what people say about their own relationship with Christianity as either believers or not. However, what people say is of little value, as they will often claim to be Christians, and yet not be. What they actually do is much more instructive.

In fact, collectively in the West, there has been a spate of law reforms in the last 30 years that indicate a fall in godliness. These include gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, IVF, child surrogacy, anti-evangelism laws, pro-transgender laws, and laws that restrict free speech.

Under the Daniel Andrews Government of the State of Victoria in Australia, the following anti-Christian legislation was passed or has been planned recently – euthanasia; on-demand abortion; anti-evangelism laws; the full implementation of the very woke ‘Safe Schools Program’ which teaches young children liberal ideas about sexuality and gender; the banning of church teaching on gay marriage; the revoking of the church tax-exempt status; the compelling of statements that will break the confessional seal; the abolition of school scripture lessons delivered by lay parishioners; and legislation which appears to make it illegal for religious organisations such as schools, hostels and nursing homes to hire employees according to their religious orientation.

However, what is even more indicative about the state of faith in the West is the actions and decisions of its individuals in joining and attending churches, or not. Despite huge rises in populations over the last 60 years, Western countries around the world are showing an alarming trend of falling church memberships and attendances.

In the UK in 2014, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr Rowan Williams, announced that the UK is a post-Christian country after just 4.3% of the population participated in the Church of England Christmas service.[193]

Today, both moderate and liberal denominations in the USA close churches at a rate that is four times the rate at which they open them. Between 2000 and 2017 in the USA: 11% of Catholic churches were lost[194], and baptisms fell by 34%; the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America lost 30% of its congregation and closed 12.5% of its churches, with baptisms down by over 40%; the United Methodist Church lost 17% of its congregation and closed 10% of its churches; and the Presbyterian Church (between 2000 and 2015) lost over 40% of its congregation, and 15.4% of its churches closed.[195]

Between 2000 and 2017, in one state alone, Minnesota, 81 Catholic churches closed. The archdiocese of Minneapolis closed 21 churches and merged dozens more. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Minnesota closed 150 churches and lost 200,000 members. Additionally, the United Methodist Church of Minnesota closed 65 churches in that period.[196]

Since 1960, in Quebec, Canada, over 500 churches (20%) have closed or been converted for non-worship uses.[197] In Quebec the 1950s, 95% of the population regularly attended mass. In 2019, it is 5%.[198]

In the Irish diocese of Killala, two priests have been ordained in the last 17 years and there have been no priestly candidates since 2013, leaving only one priest in the area who is under 40.[199]

Obviously today Christian growth in less developed countries is much greater. I believe that, as globalisation spreads this century, this strong Christian growth will be progressively swallowed up by Humanism. However, God will have spread Christianity through these lands just in time to give as many people as possible a chance to know him. The same thing happened when the Age of Discovery began in 1336 and ended in 1778 when James Cook discovered Hawaii. Shortly after this, the great deception of the Enlightenment severely challenged Christianity in the world. However, both the Age of Discovery, and also the Reformation, had occurred just in time to precede the Enlightenment, and give as many people as possible a chance to know God.

THE DECIMATION OF THE FAMILY

There are other indicators of a profound loss of godliness in the West this century. One example is the modern decimation of the family, the institution by which God first makes his love recognisable to most people.

It is clear to be seen that, at times, the sexual revolution, the queer revolution, and the normalisation of the cohabitation of couples have attacked the modern family. However, there are three other forms of modern familial destruction that are particularly interesting, and all involve the influence of extremist feminism. First, the family is being decimated by the number of aborted babies, expunged by both surgical and chemical means. Worldwide, from 1980 to 2020, over two billion[200] (2,000,000,000) babies, or more than one quarter of the 2020 population of humans on earth, were aborted. And this does number not include the millions of frozen embryos who will never have a chance at a life. Second, the family is being decimated by the demise of the father. This has occurred both at the hands of family courts all around the world, and other social issues including desertion. And, third, it is also being decimated by the demise of mothering for children so that mothers can work long hours, with infants being farmed out to preschools, even at birth – known as day care on delivery. However, more than ever now, women tend not to become mothers at all. A quick glance at Western World statistics shows an enormous drop for this occurrence in modern times.

An aside about Extremist Feminism is necessary here. Notice I don’t say ‘Feminism’, I say ‘Extremist Feminism’. In order to be clear, I will add three disclaimers:

1) As an evil, Extremist Feminism is not the exclusive province of women. Extremist Feminism comes from a spirit, the non-gendered spirit of Extremist Feminism (NSEF), which can manifest in men just as much as women;

2) Men, by their power and sometimes their inactivity, support and empower extremist feminist wrongdoing in the world today on a grand scale; and

3) It is also important to remember that God made Eve from the side of Adam as a powerful symbol such that the two, though different and complementary, are created, in his eyes, to be equally loved and equally important. The ideal of the wholesome act of lovemaking, the very process of human creation, illustrates this perfectly.

If one looks at the above three forms of modern family decimation, they form a pattern. Using the law, people can effectively ‘kill’ family members or even family ‘roles’ via the removal of children (abortion), fathers (de-fathering) and mothers (day care on delivery). Yet, often, no statistics are even recorded as evidence. The information source is cut off, the history is deleted. This resembles the modus operandi not of Hitler - the Nazis tended to keep meticulous records. But it does resemble Napoleon and his Law Code. Why? Because Napoleon’s was a regime that tended to fail to keep records, often the records it didn’t want kept. It also suggests the gradual rise of history’s second Left Wing Antichrist, as the Antichrist Cycle theory predicts.

A father I know experienced de-fathering, despite the fact that he had been a good father, according to those I later consulted. His ex-wife left him then indoctrinated his two children to hate him by slandering his name with dishonest allegations of violence, and by taking them to a child psychologist and plying him with her evil agenda. She then cut off all his access to his children. When he applied at court to regain his access, he received precisely no rights at law. The law demanded that the judge refuse to consider his side of the story at all, and deny him even a five minute meeting with his children to explain his side of the story to them. The many friends of his who regarded him as a loving father were noticeably traumatised just from hearing of this atrocity against him. In the five years since the day his ex-wife took his children from him, he has not heard a word from them, even though he has written to them many times. From all of the available evidence, it appears that they are caught up in an evil family cult of fear and love-bombing, and are too afraid to speak to him. Given how traumatised they probably are, he may never interact with them again.

Modern commentator Karen Straughan describes today’s extremist feminism as being a force that is metaphorically akin to the Roman Empire. Virtually no effort to fight it at law has succeeded in changing its course. Add to this the tendency of extremist feminists to alter art and history to portray women as superior to men - again, a virtually unstoppable force. Add to that the fact that, generally, even the most right wing of political commentators and media journalists will not speak out against the power of Extremist Feminism for fear of losing their commercial sponsors. And, what do you have? You have one of the strongest political forces in the world today – the very artillery of Humanism. Only Leftist Marxism is stronger, and it has absorbed Extremist Feminism. And, what is Extremist Feminism’s modus operandi? It is to kill and cover up; just like the Leftist Marxism that is controlling it. Right now Marxists are trying to delete history and the whole western canon of literature, largely the creation of white men, as if it never existed. This is anti-patriarchalism. It is against men who influence, men who father, and the ultimate example of both – Jesus.

To many, Leftist Marxism appears so caring and progressive. Yet, it executes the function of preparing the masses to be deceived by a parody of Jesus. This is a window into future life under AC3. It is the first instalment of the new Antichrist. It is a foretaste, a portent – for those with eyes to see.

Thus, it can be seen that all of these examples of the profound loss of godliness in the most powerful part of the world, the West, is creating a massive cohort of people who will be deceivable by a parody of Christ – the Antichrist.

Additionally, rising Jewish and Christian persecution are two more indicators of the fall in godliness in the West and elsewhere. These persecutions are guerrilla-type incursions that strike against either singular aspects of the lives of the saints or individuals from amongst the saints, and hence do not constitute either whole community or comprehensive persecutions of God’s people that are open and completely backed by a populace, and are designed to wipe them out as a people group.

JEWISH PERSECUTION

Jewish persecution experiences a build-up when Antichrists are on the horizon. In the present progression towards AC3, what is the situation of Jewish persecution today?

In Europe, anti-Semitism is currently rising sharply. In 2018, there was a 74% rise in offences against Jews in France, and a 60% rise in violent anti-Semitic attacks in Germany. In France, the recorded incidences of anti-Semitism rose from 311 in 2017 to 541 in 2018. Whereas, in Germany, offences motivated by a hatred of Jews reached a ten-year high of 1,646 in 2018. In the largest ever survey of the anti-Semitic observations and experiences of more than 16,000 Jews in 12 European countries, it was found that anti-Semitic hate speech, harassment and the fear of being recognised as a Jew were becoming the new normal, with 90% believing that anti-Semitism is growing in their country, 30% having been harassed, and 80% no longer reporting minor incidents because they think that nothing will change.[201] Today’s European Jewish population is the lowest it has been in a millennium.

Additionally, a CNN survey found that more than a fifth of the 7,000 people from seven countries that they surveyed believe that Jewish people have too much influence in finance and politics, and that 32% thought that the Jews had exploited the holocaust to advance their position. Also, one in ten Europeans said that they had an unfavourable attitude towards the Jews; that figure is nearly 15% in Poland and 19% in Hungary.[202]

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were 1,879 incidents of Anti-Semitism in the USA in 2018.[203] And in New York, anti-Semitic crimes jumped 21% in 2019.

Perhaps even more worrying is the modern trend of major political figures to openly exhibit anti-Semitic leanings. Two such figures are the Left Wingers Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. These men were influential political leaders in the UK and USA in 2019 and 2020 respectively, and, if they can safely espouse anti-Semitism without the fear of excessive loss of support amongst the masses, there must be a lot of it around.

So, where is God in all of this? Is he looking after his chosen nation? Will they regain their Temple so that they can properly enact Judaism once more? And, what will become of them in the final days?

WILL THE JEWS REGAIN THEIR TEMPLE?

The Jews – what a fascinating people. They are still the apple of God’s eye and, even though they are like the misguided brothers of Joseph (who was a symbolic forerunner of Jesus) they are still adored by God. The proof of this can be seen in the actions of AC2, Adolf Hitler, and his desperate quest to destroy the Jews, which became so obsessive that he even pursued it to the disadvantage of the German national World War 2 cause. This shows that the Jews are still a special people group in the eyes of God, or Satan would not have such an interest in destroying them. God continues to love Israel as a special people because his love never fades, but always leaves room for a remnant of people to return to him and to follow him.

The Jews once rose to the spiritual highest of heights of humanity, as God’s chosen people, and so can potentially be an extremely spiritually powerful people. However, whereas they are a people containing a potent spiritual power, this can be used for as much evil as for good, and thus they become fallen Jews if they do not accept their own native born Davidic Messiah Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

And, because they are such a spiritually powerful race of people, the Jews are at the lynchpin of the entire battle between God and Satan, for the world and its people. This battle has seen Satan try to claim a man with Jewish ancestry for himself when it comes to the last two Antichrists. Both had Jewish lineage, and we can expect this from the next two Antichrists as well. Whereas, in the case of Napoleon, this is harder to prove than it is for Hitler, Benjamin Disraeli did assert that there was likely some Jewish blood in Napoleon because Corsica (his birth place) had been peopled by African Semites before he was born. However, more specifically, this battle centres on the Jewish Temple Mount – the most fiercely contested thing in the world – that both the Jews and the Palestinians want ... very, very much.

The Jews and the extremist Palestinian Islamists in Israel have fought a modern battle over the current land of Israel since the middle of last century. At the ‘Camp David 2000 Summit’, Israel offered the Palestinian Islamists the entire Gaza Strip, plus 73% of the West Bank including eastern Jerusalem (rising to 90% after ten years), plus a Palestinian capital in a part of East Jerusalem in return for Israel keeping the other part of East Jerusalem which contains the Temple Mount. This represented donating to the Palestinian Islamists more land than was offered in any previous proposal. The Palestinian Islamists did not accept this. Why? Because the Palestinian Islamists want the Temple Mount. Instead, in 2002 at the Beirut Summit, the Arab League offered to bring to an end the Arab-Israeli conflict in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, The Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including all of East Jerusalem, and thus the Temple Mount. Israel rejected this offer.[204] This conflict is all about the Temple Mount and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, or the prevention thereof on that Temple Mount.

But, why is God keeping this from the Jews? The Temple Mount is so fiercely withheld from the Jews because God wants them to come to Christ, and not to resume their temple practices by rebuilding their temple on the Temple Mount. God will never ever allow them to repossess it. Jesus announced the end of the sacrificial system right to the last judgement in Luke 21:24 – ‘…Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled [meaning just before the final judgement]’. Likewise, in Matthew 21:43 Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God itself will be taken from the Jews, and said nothing of it being returned: ‘Therefore, I tell you that the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit’. After these things happened, the Temple was destroyed in AD 70. In 1 Kings 9:6-7 it says, ‘If you or your sons turn away from me and do not obey the commands and decrees I have given you … then I will cut Israel off from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my name’. Again, it says nothing of returning the Temple. In Matthew 23:39, Jesus sadly proclaimed to his fellow Jews, ‘For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say [if and when you say], ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. Given that Jesus is Yahweh, this implies that they will not commune with Yahweh until they come to Jesus. In Hebrews 10:10, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is described as ‘once for all’. This implies that the temple system, the ritual sacrifice, will not be restored, precisely because Jesus’ sacrifice was once for all. Finally, in Matthew 24:21, Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple as a time of “… great distress unequalled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equalled again”. This level of tragedy suggests the unrestorable destruction of the Temple. As a final word, Revelation 21:22 states that no temple is needed in the New Jerusalem because ‘…the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temples’.

Interestingly Josephus records that, as Jerusalem was about to be besieged in AD 70, many of the Jews gathered in Jerusalem as though God was just about to give them the physical kingdom of God. However, in the Olivet Discourse, Jesus had said, ‘then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains’ (Matthew 24:16).

Since then, God has, by various means, prevented the Jews from regaining the Temple Mount. Today he is doing this with what some Jews call the modern abomination that causes desolation – the Muslim Dome of the Rock. As has been mentioned, Jesus prophesied the AD 70 disaster in Matthew 24:2 - “…not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown away”. God has prevented the Jews from regaining the Temple so that, rather than returning to their old defunct system, as many Jews as possible will be saved by placing their faith in Jesus.

WILL ALL OF THE JEWS BE SAVED?

Daniel 9:24-27 announces that a large remnant of the Jews will be saved in the last days. In verse 24, it proclaims that, after a period of seventy sevens of time, the Israelites will be made righteous (or a representative number of them, anyway). These sevens are a figurative expression for God’s perfect period of time, and the amount of time varies for each seven. Verse 25 asserts that 69 of the sevens will pass by the time Jesus comes to earth. Verse 26 details the final seven, a very long one. It will include the crucifixion and the new covenant, as well as the destruction of the Temple system. It will last until the end of the church age, which will occur with the destruction of this world at the end of history.

In the Old Testament, God promised Israel that she would be brought back to her own land and restored. And she was, under Ezra and Nehemiah. In Romans 11:26, Paul says that ‘all Israel will be saved’. He then goes on to elicit a joyous doxology at God’s mercy to Israel. However, in Romans 11:23, Paul says that ‘if they do not persist in unbelief they will be grafted in’. Also in Romans 11:25, Paul says that ‘Israel has experienced a hardening in part (the part of Israel that is the non-remnant part of Israel) until the full number of gentiles has come in’. Therefore the Romans 11:26 statement ‘all Israel will be saved’ does not mean that literally every single Israelite who has ever lived will be saved.

Firstly, it does not include Israelites from all of history. Notice that the hardening referred to in Romans 11:25 is only temporary (Luke 21:24 – ‘until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’). Therefore, this salvation of all Israel will not occur throughout church history. Rather, this event will take place at the end of history when Christ returns in glory.

Secondly, it does not include all Israelites alive at that time. First, it does not include the entire people of God, because ‘Israel’, in this part of the Bible, denotes the race of ethnic Israel, and not the spiritual entity of the Jews. Second, it doesn’t even include all of the race of ethnic Israel. In the statement ‘all Israel will be saved’, the word ‘all’ in the Bible, when used for people being saved, means all who accept Christ, not every single person. An example of this is the so-called universalism proof text of 1 John 2:2, ‘He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world’. In this text, the phrase ‘the whole world’ is interpreted by non-universalists to mean all who accept Christ, and not every single person. Also, it states in Genesis 12:3 that God will bless all peoples. However we know that God only blesses those who will accept him. So, the phrase ‘all Israel’ means not every single Israelite of the last generation, but the ones who will come to him, and that number will be a large enough number to represent the race as a whole. This is consistent with Romans 11:23 which states that Israel shall be grafted in again ‘if they do not persist in unbelief’.

What will all of this look like? At the end of this age, there will be a large number of Israelites converting to Christianity at God’s spurring because, as a softer-hearted generation, they will realise that the Jews’ tribulations throughout the church age have come partly because they crucified Jesus. Thus, they will come to see that Jesus is their king, their Messiah and their alpha-Jew, the Son of Man. Therefore, they will stop waiting and embrace Jesus. In this way, the steadfast belief that the Jews have held onto, that their Messiah will one day come to earth, will pay off for them. In Revelation 11:13, it says that, after a severe earthquake that represents the imminent ending of this world by God, ‘the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven’. This indicates repentance from a hitherto unrepentant populace. Interestingly, Israel became a nation again in 1947. This happening looks certain to be one of the factors that will assist with such a mass conversion one day, by collecting Israelites in one place such that a mass movement can happen amongst them.

Therefore, Israel is the same as other nations, in that they can only gain salvation from God by accepting Jesus Christ. But why is Israel such a special nation today, a nation of conflict against nations and Antichrists alike, yet also a nation that cannot be destroyed despite its many enemies, so that it seems to have God’s protection? And, what happened to the promises God gave Israel?

The answer lies in studying the Biblical figure of Ishmael. Israel’s status with God today reminds me somewhat of the status of Ishmael with God. In Genesis 16:12, God said that Ishmael ‘will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand will be against him’. Also, in Genesis 17:20, God said that he will bless him and make him into a great nation, implying both God’s protection and the keeping of his promise to Ishmael and his descendants. However, in the next verse, God said that it would be through Isaac that he would establish his covenant. Therefore, the people who are the beneficiaries of promises from God, but have been by-passed by God’s plan for world evangelism, continue to enjoy the blessings of those promises, and protection against their many enemies but, like everyone else, cannot count upon being automatically saved. They must come to salvation God’s way – through Jesus. This is as true of the Jews today, as it is of the descendants of Ishmael, the Muslims.

THE LARGE REMNANT OF ISRAELITES WHO WILL BE SAVED IN THE LAST DAYS

For those Israelites who do embrace Jesus in the last days, what will this look like? It will require great humility. It will be like the death-bed conversion of a pagan who wanted to be the ruler of his own life while ever that seemed possible, but submitted to God when it finally became clear that this is not an option.

The story of Joseph in Genesis paints a picture of this. It talks about the fate of the Jews, not the Christians. As a child, Joseph was loved by his father, but not his brothers. However later on, he saved and forgave his brothers when they confessed their sins to him. So, Joseph is a Jesus type - a type of person who is like Jesus. His brothers represent the Israelites, who hated and persecuted him. They were born of Jacob’s unfavoured wife Leah and his concubines (which symbolises that they were sons of the law, according to Galatians). But, his youngest brother Benjamin who, like Joseph, was born of Rachel, the favourite of Jacob’s two wives (symbolising that he was a son of grace), represents the Christians in the church age. Benjamin’s mother died giving birth to him (as Christ did giving birth to Christianity) and wished to name him Ben-oni (‘son of my sorrow’), but Jacob overruled her and named him Benjamin (‘son of my right hand’, or ‘son of my power’). This is what Christians are. Jacob represents God because he was the father of Joseph, had a very close relationship with Benjamin and was the one whose love Joseph’s brothers wanted.

After Joseph was left to die in the pit, he rose to a powerful position, as Christ did after his crucifixion, but later on his brothers experienced a famine (symbolising the persecution of Israel in the church age). Fortunately, they repented of their actions, realising that their predicament had occurred because they had sold Joseph. Joseph then said that none of the brothers would have bread until Benjamin stood before him. This is comparable to the Bible verse that tells us that the Israelites will be saved only once the full portion of Christians has come in (Romans 11:25). Benjamin was then lavishly blessed by Joseph, receiving a silver cup (symbolising his being relieved of having to drink the cup of judgement that symbolises the cross of Christ), and the other brothers were given silver (silver symbolises the ransom paid to redeem something). The brothers then begged Joseph to save them. One even offered to sacrifice himself for Benjamin. This made Joseph forgive them. Why was this act sufficient? It was sufficient because this act signalled that the brothers understood and envied Jacob’s love and the way that he gave it to Benjamin (Romans 11:11), which symbolises God’s love for Christians. Thus, at last, they understood and joined with Jacob’s heart. This, in turn, symbolises the Israelites coming to understand God’s heart in the last days. They may even help the Christians (Benjamin) which would be a fascinating reversal of the cross. Joseph explained to his brothers that God had used their cruelty to save many lives. Interestingly, Joseph’s two sons were named Manasseh (to forget) and Ephraim (to be fruitful). This is what God did during the church age – he forgot Israel’s rejection of him by rejoicing in the fruitfulness of the era of Christian evangelisation.

Currently, Satan is trying to fight against the establishment of Jewish contrition that will one day bring about godly repentance. He is doing this by raising up a new generation of young Israelite Jews who believe that it is their religion that causes them unnecessary unrest and persecution. As a result, I believe that the Israelites will accept a political solution regarding East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount by the time of the 2050s. Enormous opposition will come from elders and young conservatives in their land, but they will lose to these new pragmatists until a new and more spiritual generation comes. And, I believe it will.

THE CURRENT PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS

Another indicator of the fall in godliness in the West, and elsewhere, is the current persecution of Christians.

Today, Enlightenment ideas blame Christians for the community tensions of conflict-ridden states so that, when Christians are attacked, it is justified by the argument that the Christians would have done as bad to others because all religions are irrational sources of violent behaviour, made worse when linked to Western imperialism.[205] Correspondingly, in the last 120 years, the persecution of Christians has become ever more frequent. In 2012, 200 million Christians were under threat, more than any other faith group.[206] The total number of Christians martyred in the 20^th century was about 78 million people who can be identified, but could be as high as 100 million.[207] This is a significant increase from the recent previous centuries. In the 21^st century, this rate of Christian martyrdom shows no sign of easing as Christians are already the world’s most persecuted minority group this century, and there hasn’t been a world war or a Christian holocaust yet.

Recently, in North Korea, a group of Christians was offered the choice of either denouncing Christ or being trampled by a steamroller as they lay bound to an asphalt road. They chose to be faithful to Christ and were crushed to death.

In the West, Christians are afraid to identify as such in job interviews for fear of receiving various forms of discrimination, and many countries are considering drafting a Religious Freedom Bill, primarily to stop anti-Christian discrimination because it has become so rife.

Outside of the West, Islamism will often claim a people group that contains many poor Muslims then refuse to allow them or their descendants to convert to Christianity, theoretically forever. One example of this among many is the nation of Malaysia. The Malays in that country cannot convert to Christianity or be witnessed to by Christians. Converts are confined to re-education camps where they are brainwashed and tortured, then bribed with false inducements to return to Islamism. If they do not return, they are violently persecuted or shunned by their families, and discriminated against by law courts, especially in the areas of divorce and child custody. Malay Christians who persist in their faith cannot possess Bibles, and must meet secretly in house churches as a last resort[208]. This type of occurrence happens in over 60 nations[209].

THE FUTURE PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS

I believe that the time of the next Antichrist will soon be nearing, and at this time just before the next Antichrist both Jewish and Christian persecution will rise substantially. This will occur from about the middle of the twenty-first century onwards.

Satan will use three forces, what I call the ‘unholy trinity’, against Christians: (1) Humanists who will attempt to wipe Christianity out completely, (2) extremist members of other religions that will attempt check the expansion of and stop the practice of Christianity, and (3) fallen Christians, who have been poisoned by the modern yeast of the Pharisees, who will sabotage Christianity from within by misrepresenting it and by persecuting those of their ‘brothers and sisters’ who do not conform to these misrepresentations. This last group is mainly constituted of Christians trying to harmonise their faith with modern humanistic ideas.

Leading up to the time of AC3, this persecution will increase and will be one of the signs of the imminence of these wars. Christians will need to use secret platforms to communicate with each other, as other means will be tracked and monitored. Christian voices in community debates will be dismissed from the public square as if Christianity has become irrelevant, but ultimately and ironically, it is them and their God who will dictate the fate of all of the pagans of the world.

God will allow severe wars to happen because the only way for people to find true happiness in life is to form a relationship with God, and the only way for them to do this is to repent, and the only way for them to do that is to be clearly shown the folly of relying on this world – and war has a way of doing that.

The response of Christians will be to form a kind of new monastic movement, with Christians partially and sometimes completely withdrawing from the world and into Christian communities where they will be safer from the risks to their soul via moral compromise, and their body via physical attack.

(2) DEDICATION TO TRUTH

In our time, the three main safeguards that usually keep people from being deluded by an Antichrist are: (1) godliness, (2) dedication to truth and (3) democratic national sovereignty. Satan is currently attacking all three of these.

Hand in hand with a loss of godliness in the West is a loss of dedication to truth. This allows for ungodly ideas to go unchecked as they become more and more untrue and eventually morph into the bizarre breakaway ideas that characterise one of the Antichrist build-up stages.

What form does this loss of dedication to truth take today?

It takes the form of a ‘might is right’ approach to public debate whereby people no longer wish to argue the facts but rather to indoctrinate others through the Internet and social media with aggressively presented half-baked arguments. These arguments do not rely on the authenticity of peer-reviewed research, but instead indoctrinate people with secular pseudo-religions characterised by emotion, zeal and ultimately abuse. When offered the chance to debate properly, these people tend to refuse the opportunity. When they do debate, they tend to lose miserably, pathetically and embarrassingly. As well as attempting to dismantle the entire system of debate and confirmation of facts, they are also attempting to dismantle Western scholarship itself, because it doesn’t agree with them. They are opposed to: (1) absolute truth, from which derives the classical literature canon and the rules of formal debate, (2) the father figure and its unique authority in families and society, and (3) God. They are all really just forms of legitimate authority. However, rather than stand under them, or even discuss that, many from this generation wage unprovoked war against them. Well, to the fighter will come the fight; live by the sword and die by the sword. This Western generation will eventually be subject to the war they have spent their life foisting upon others. And, through this, they will learn the lessons they need to learn.

One cannot have discussions because might is right people don’t ‘do debate’. Instead they disrupt cities and attack people. Then, when someone uses social media to point out that they are wrong, they destroy that person’s reputation with a campaign of insults and slurs.

It is a substitute religion that is adopted because humans need a religion because, without Christianity, most people’s hearts are a vacuum of need longing to be filled.

With truth and the checking of facts now subservient to religious zeal, populations are ripe for being tricked, and an Antichrist will use just that.

(3) DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

Today, globalisation is so entrenched that most Western countries cannot supply their own basic essentials for three months without access to international trade. This inevitably forces nations to cede their fullest rights to self-governance and standing up for what they believe, in order to please trading partners. However, the nations of the earth have been created by God to conduct their own affairs and make their own decisions. It is only when that happens that evil pan-national movements can be checked, and righteousness will have a chance to prosper at the international level. This scenario would be a major safeguard to keep people from being deluded by an Antichrist. Unfortunately today, globalisation is growing. This can be traced back to the re-organisation of Europe, straight after and as a result of Napoleon, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The upshot of this congress was that Europe went from being comprised of over 1,000 entities to being just a handful of states which, while it wasn’t bad in itself, managed to kick off the movement that has significantly overridden the governance of states around the world, globalisation.

The following pan-national political movements and alliances will, to some extent, usurp the national sovereignty of various nations: (A) Globalisation, (B) the Connection Movement, (C) Alliances, (D) Hyper-Democracy and (E) the Extremist Left Wing.

(A) GLOBALISATION

Globalisation is essential for the formation of a modern-day Antichrist who will have dominion over the majority of the world’s population. It usurps democratic national sovereignty everywhere. By interconnecting information, communication, commerce and culture, globalisation ensures that an increasing homogeneity occurs between cultures. This allows an Antichrist to surf the wave of a one-culture world with its singular values system, and seduce it en masse.

It would be impossible for an Antichrist to obtain massive pan-national power purely by force. The resistance movements against this would quickly overpower an Antichrist’s military resources and his people’s military resolve. However, if the world’s population could be of more or less one mind and one set of values, then they could be seduced en masse and would simply follow an Antichrist of their own volition. This is how to conquer on a massive scale.

Just as Napoleon’s wars had the effect of reducing the number of states in Europe so that there were less governing bodies ruling more people, so his corresponding major Antichrist, AC3, will witness a reduction in world governing bodies from over 200 national governments to much fewer global forces of various natures.

In the new globalised world, international politics will supersede national politics just much as state politics supersedes local politics and national politics supersedes state politics in today’s world. In this scenario, it will be a handful of dominant countries that actually comes to affect the everyday home and work lives of ordinary people in every country of the world more than their own federal, state or local governments ever can. The domestic policies of the world’s nations will actually be an internationalist policy, because of globalisation and homogenisation.

(B) THE CONNECTION MOVEMENT

Related to globalisation is another manifestation of Humanism, the well-meaning but somewhat naïve and errant Humanistic Connection Movement. Among Western Left Wingers there is a lot of support for this movement. Its philosophy is that if people can be connected in myriad ways, such as online, across borders, multiculturally and via inter-faith connections, then the globalisation movement around the world will be furthered. Moreover, they believe that this can only be good.

I would argue that it can only be Babel – the Tower of Babel. It will be a critical lynchpin of decline towards war and the Antichrist by accelerating and amplifying every evil, humanistic and pride-driven change. Today, most people think that by forming co-operative communities they can solve the problems of life, live genuinely satisfying lives and render God unnecessary. However, in the end, such communities will merely be hordes of spiritually lost and powerless men and women who cannot admit their sinful condition and, hence, will continue to lead each other astray, thus multiplying their collective evil. The ultimate result of the Connection Movement will be hyper-globalisation.

(C) ALLIANCES

In a world of international alliances such as trade blocs and political blocs, the nation AC3 will be allied and partnered more favourably than any other country. A crucial feature of his conquest will be his ability to ally his nation to both Russia and Britain at the same time, an alliance Napoleon needed but could not obtain, and something that Hitler shrewdly attempted, but could not achieve. However, this alliance will be temporary. Britain will eventually break away. China will form an alliance with Russia, Pakistan and North Korea, then the EU. Of course, China will lead those alliances. That block will cause much conflict, but won’t last intact for the whole period of the wars of AC3.

Related to both globalisation and the Connection Movement is the phenomenon of alliances. Alliances can allow democratic national sovereignty to be blackmailed, such that nations lose the choice to act according to their own conscience.

Through debt-trap diplomacy in populous countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, China will obligate hordes of people to live by its values and co-operate with its military agenda in the future.

However, this is only the beginning. As China posits itself more and more as a rich rescuer country, when the next economic crisis hits the world (an essential ingredient for the formation of any Antichrist agenda) nations will feel more and more pressure to cave in to China’s demands and values system in return for economic aid. Like the ambushing leopard itself, all China must do is wait for economic hard times and watch as nation after nation wanders into its debt-trap. Countries can be relied upon to be greedier than they are principled, and more fearful than they are courageous. In hard economic times, pressured politicians will give up the ‘luxury’ of moral scruples in return for the security of a guaranteed supply of money that will satisfy their voters and keep them in power. Western countries may parade their human rights achievements in front of developing and corrupt nations, but they would ultimately trade these away if push came to shove and material wellbeing came to depend upon it.

But it’s not just the politicians who will compromise. Take the Western workplace of today. Ordinary workers hold onto their job by cowing to bosses, and they do that by abandoning their principles. Consequently, when faced with choices like whether to lie or to be honest, whether to defend or to torment a bullied workmate or whether to defend an unpopular truth or cave in to the workplace mob, they will nearly always pick the choice that makes their career more secure. We are not so far from the scenario of the nineteenth century goldfields where ordinary decent men commonly slid into prostitution, gambling and lynch mob participation when ‘making something of oneself’ or ‘making one’s fortune’ was on offer.

Given the greedy and fearful nature of human behaviour, the extreme patience and restraint of China and the inevitability of yet another worldwide financial catastrophe, it is easy to see how China’s global plan will work in the long term. In fact, I would argue that China has already won that battle now. Why? They have won because the triumph of human greed over principles is inevitable. You don’t believe me? Just look at the self-censorship of Chinese criticism that is implemented by businessmen, companies, politicians, Hollywood, Big Tech and Big Sport as they drool in mesmerisation over China’s dazzling levels of logistical efficiency and productivity due to its absolute power over its people and resources. And, if that is already happening now in 2020, how much worse will it be in 2050 once China’s program of making economic dependents of most of the world’s countries has really bitten?

Additionally, by the time of AC4, the notion of nationality will be so atomised that people will consider themselves to belong to globalist pan-national political alliances more than countries, so that countries will be able to be divided and conquered by those at the helm of such alliances. Countries will have lost their power, and democracy will have lost its mandate.

Thus, it can be seen that a rigid set of national boundaries that guarantees the chance of genuine democracy and principled national decision making is a vital ingredient for a secure world. Take this away, and one more safeguard against deception is removed. Into that safeguard will stride one who purports to be the rescuer and the saviour of the world – the Antichrist. And the people will believe him. Moreover, when this safeguard is taken away people will rejoice at the weakening of national boundaries as the glorious breaking down of yet another barrier that ‘separates’ us. They will then rejoice in the furtherance of a vague sense of ‘brotherhood’ that seems to offer all sorts of societal improvements; but, never quite will.

Today, five evil nations of note are China, Russia, North Korea (who is to some extent under China), Pakistan and the EU (a pseudo-nation). The first four will form a block, whereas the fifth will be less stable. The EU alliance is so evil that even a reasonable nation such as England left it. It is even more volatile than a normal nation due to it being so connected to the economic welfare of its members and is thus tempted to act immorally for gain. The EU is also powerful and arrogant. After the next wars, nation blocks like that of the EU will not be allowed as they are too powerful.

To me, God seems to be saying the following.

For those who harbour in their hearts the godless humanistic spirit of this age:

“You who say you know enough to run society your own way and not mine, I will let you run it into ruin and disaster.

You who say you have the right to kill my unborn vulnerable ones instead of protecting them, I will withdraw protection from you such that you and your families suffer in great numbers.

You who think you can replace me with a human to worship; I will show you how evil a human is in his lack of mercy and love as he persecutes you.

And, I will do all of this that you might see the extent of your folly, feel the sting of your suffering, understand your feeble state of helplessness, and thus turn back to me as a humble pauper begs a good king for mercy.”

(D) HYPER-DEMOCRACY

One of the effects of Humanism and information technology on politics will be to produce a phenomenon called Hyper-Democracy. This occurs when national political leaderships govern in response to public opinion rather than principles. Therefore, as world trends, fashions and zeitgeists sweep the globe at lightning speed, so will nations conform themselves accordingly. Eventually, national governments won’t lead nations anymore, worldwide trends will. This is already happening today in the areas of Extremist Feminism, gay marriage and family law. It is exacerbated when democracies elect many independent candidates to legislatures who are not beholden to the values of political parties, and/or when the electorate uses digital activism more assertively and demandingly to place pressure on governments.

Due to the above factors, AC3 will be able to hold national governments in subjection and tyranny because these federal governments won’t be able to overrule him, due to the following problem of democracy; it will be a people’s movement, but the Antichrist will have captured the people. Therefore, too much democracy will produce tyranny because it will lack the balance that comes from restraining forces. On reflection, this is somewhat ironic. Hyper-Democracy causes nations to be vulnerable to an Antichrist who can manipulate populism for his own ends and turn mob rule against humanity by pandering to the masses. If governments try to oppose the Antichrist, they will be defeated by floor-crossers and independent people’s representatives in parliament who side with the Antichrist.

This is ironic because, whereas many will think that they are doing a good thing in life by supporting political phenomena such as unfettered lobbying, alliance making, free trade, globalisation and democracy. In fact, they will make things much worse.

As a mega-successful populist, this Antichrist will be a man who foresees trends with genius ability and will be a master at appealing to human ego, and so will become the darling of a world only too keen to embrace and pedestal him. The only times he will need to use force will be to silence relatively small groups of activist dissidents, and the use of that force will be both secretive and deniable. His nation will, from time to time, merely need to apply pressure to recalcitrant alliance members to force them to comply.

His rule by public opinion will dovetail perfectly with his weak spirituality as a pseudo-leader. He will be a destructive leader because he will lack principles.

(E) THE EXTREMIST LEFT WING

As we are currently in a left wing Antichrist cycle, which is rapidly accumulating and infiltrating left wing power throughout society such that it will unite people behind the next Antichrist, it is important to recognise the influence of this brand of humanistic thought on democratic national sovereignty.

Humanism attacks democratic national sovereignty by marching through its institutions to weaken the notion of majority rule by forming an alternative seat of power to rival democracy. As countless conservative commentators have observed, neo-Marxism, or post-modern-Marxism, was formed in the 1920s to expand Left Wing power in modern urban settings, and one of its strategies was formed in the 1960s by University activists Herbert Marcuse and Rudi Dutschke and called ‘The Long March Through The Institutions’. When I speak of Leftists or Liberals in the current setting, it is these Marxists that I speak of. Eventually, Humanism will march through nearly all of the institutions of society all around the world. Today, in the West, Humanism has eclipsed the following areas of society and the world (see Table 11 below): the UN, the World Wide Web, Y-generation, scientists, the LGBTI lobby, extremist feminists, euthanasia proponents, identity politics proponents, the media, universities, schools, research (read ‘the generally accepted truth’), corporations, most governments, legal systems, most professional workers, political correctness, the zeitgeist and fashion, as well as the great mass of the ‘mostly unconscious’ general population.

Table 11 – The Humanistic Cohort.

UN	Islamists	Environmentalists	Business	Indigenes
Anti-Semites	Y-Gen	Social engineers	Government	Doctors
Social media	Scientists	The media	Law	Professionals
Atheists	LBGTI activists	Universities	Fashion	The disabled
Humanists	Abortionists	Researchers	Schools	Worldwide Web
The great unconscious masses	Euthanisers	Identity politics warriors	Extremist feminists	Political correctness warriors

The Left Wing’s Western cohort will be very large - see Table 11 above. Note that these categories are only generalisations, so that not everyone in each listed category will be Left Wing. The majority, however, will be Leftist, and thus will express Left Wing opinions on behalf of the whole group. Partly as a result of its sheer size, this Left Wing cohort will create and set the zeitgeist worldwide, and the majority will regard this to be the truth and follow it.

When it comes to the Left and Right Wings, some may think that the Right Wing is competitive and discriminatory, whereas the Left Wing is inclusive and diversifying. However, as can be seen today from the tolerance movement, the extreme Left Wing only includes its friends in its ‘protection rings’, and brutalises everybody else. Unfortunately, the current extremist leftist media exposes virtually none of these injustices, because, although the extremist Left Wing movement claims to care for people, they only care for the ones they like, such as: women, children, immigrants/refugees, those of progressive sexual orientations, the disabled/sick, the aged and indigenes. And, even out of that category, they only care for the ones who agree with them, and can help their cause. So, they are not inclusive, but mercilessly sectarian, and the brutality that comes from this will have a destructive influence on the future.

Moreover, one day, it won’t just be the West that the extreme Left dominates. The information revolution is so effectively connecting the world that it is quickly becoming a global village. As a result, reasonably soon, the West’s Humanism will also annexe the third world, which will become another part of one large globalised world. Humanistic thinking will rule the world and, thus, largely, will Satan.

Therefore, Christians are urged to live their lives such that they avoid: partaking of humanistic behaviour, supporting it, tacitly supporting it, or even failing to speak out against it when God requires them to do so. This cannot be done perfectly; it is an aspirational notion. Additionally, Christians are urged to reach out to those pagans who are caught in the trap of an angry humanistic, mentality. God will give all such people their chance at genuine repentance, but he will also give Christians a role to play in assisting this. In this way, Christians who courageously stand up for God against persecution, threats and repression will encourage the church as well as the secular world, and will take their place in heaven as great and celebrated members of the eternal kingdom (Matthew 5:11-12 – Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…). A past example of such Christians is a group of Carmelite nuns called the Martyrs of Compiegne. Despite the fact that the French Government ordered all monasteries to close in the early days of the Reign of Terror in 1792, these nuns continued to live as a community in defiance of this persecution, and gave their lives as a sacrifice for France and the French church when they were executed in 1794. Also, Dietrich Bonheoffer continued to vocally oppose Hitler’s euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews, despite being threatened with death for his stance. He was eventually hanged by the Nazis in 1945.

As these spiritual heroes did, it is important to understand Satan the enemy, so that you may help to defeat his agenda of persecution and entrapment. And, to understand the enemy, we must understand the times. The sign of this anti-God environment approaching will be significantly more open opposition to Christianity by the populace at large around the whole world. As with the slandering of Jesus at his trial and his daily persecution by lies and envy during his ministry, so too will Christians endure this and be forced to operate in secrecy and caution for a long time, as did Jesus. The world’s turning from Christianity will involve a judgement made against Christianity by the public at large whereby people will have finally judged as ‘valid’ various pieces of false evidence which purport to convict Jesus of fraud, similar to when he was falsely sentenced to be crucified. Then, there will be a popular outcry against Jesus, as there was against him in favour of Barabbas.

MY JOURNEY

I now know more about the Antichrists of this final era. However, I yearn to flesh out the characters and lives of these tyrants. What will they really look like? Can I form reasonable and responsible educated speculations from what I already know? It is interesting to think that if I can, I might get a vivid picture of what these Antichrists will be like, and what it will be like to live in a world that is experiencing one. Then, seeing this ultimate Kingdom defying behaviour will also reveal in reverse what God does in fact want for his Kingdom.

ENCOURAGEMENT

A NEW MORE BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY HAS ARRIVED

The three revolutions of the sixties were the humanist revolution, the Islamist revolution and the Christian revolution.

The humanist revolution was a call to elevate and protect legal rights, particularly for women and members of minority races, in order to try to create a harmonious and peaceful world.

The Al Bakr movement in Islamism was a call to return to obeying the original and authentic version of Islam’s holy book – The Quran.

That clown, the Antichrist, will try to use both of these for his advantage.

The Christian revolution was a call to return to biblical values and truths. By continuing to do this today, God is empowering a large movement of Christians as they embark upon what is a bit like a Christian Al Bakr equivalent. He is moving us to shun the current general satanic deception that is so anti-Jesus and the yeast of the Pharisees, and rely on his unchanging word as the source of truth, hope and love. And, he promises that, if we do, he will, without the assistance of any army, ultimately deliver us from our enemies to safety and true heavenly fulfilment. He is the king.

This movement is currently manifested in the form of cells of Christians, just as the terrorist have their cells, but the Christian ones are much different. These cells are private, not public, peaceful and loving, not violent, truthful, not deluded. They are the countless homes and churches of dedicated Christians in church buildings and home-based Bible study groups, studying the Bible to understand it fully and accurately, and be maximally empowered to take part in the victory of God. As a result, our understanding of the Bible has soared in this time, and it is being taught accurately in a multitude of churches. This provides Christians with a constant infallible source of power, love and direction.

It’s a great time to be a Christian.

IMAGE 11 – XI JINPING

(15) THE IMMINENT ANTICHRIST - ANTICHRIST THREE

All that I have written so far suggests a pattern drawn from carefully exegeted biblical prophecy and from history. That pattern starts with two Antichrists who have already lived – Napoleon and Hitler. However additionally, I have established that it is most likely that this pattern will continue and become a sequence of four ascending modern Antichrists, who will live about 124 years apart from each other, that ends just before the Second Coming of Jesus. From this pattern, I have also inferred some things about the times we live in now and about future Antichrists. However, much more can be inferred. The next two chapters will infer all that I can reasonably and logically infer about AC3 and AC4 from this pattern.

And, what is this pattern? In order to identify any of the four Antichrists as parodies of Christ, look for the ‘leader’ of a developed country who: has an uncertain birth record in relation to the identity of his father; has a powerful intuitive knack for survival and success, including miraculously avoiding death; quickly rises to power despite public opinion; glues his mesmerised people to him; is politically ‘married’ to his nation; uses religious ceremonial symbolism to promote his cause; persecutes the followers of God; is an expansionist; and experiences what appears to be supra-longevity either of his body or his legend, and many more parodies of the earthly life of Jesus Christ.

2020-2050: THE LEAD-UP TO ANTICHRIST 3

I will look at the lead-up to the next Antichrist, AC3, in terms of both economics and morals.

An economic misfortune of one kind or another has occurred just before the ascension of both of the Antichrists we have seen so far. It produces, in the general population, a similar lack of godliness that is inside an actual Antichrist who has a grossly under-developed sense of God. In this way, the privations of the oppressed poor in France served as fuel for Napoleon and, to an even greater extent, the Great Depression served Hitler by providing for him an avenue to power by servicing him with starving and willing subjects, not only in Germany but in many nearby countries, such as Austria, where the formation of a union with Germany was voted into being by a landslide.

Such an economic misfortune will be necessary for the accession to power of AC3, because it will ensure that the majority of people lose a lot of whatever sense of God they may have had, in favour of a dry materialistic pragmatism, driven by the fear of not being able to obtain sufficient material supplies such as food, housing and medicine. Even today, many elderly citizens who were parented by Depression-era parents (and even sometimes their children) display the characteristic ungodly pragmatism of that era. In fact, it could be argued that, outside of the Second World War, the Great Depression was the most destructive event of the Twentieth Century. It should be remembered that, before the great Depression, Hitler only had two percent of the vote in Germany. After it, he was installed into power.

Thus, I would infer that an economic depression, or some kind of harsh worldwide economic crisis, will occur between 2020 and 2050, before the major military conflict of AC3. This economic depression will cause widespread personal greed and the loss of ethical and moral virtue in favour of materialism at a national and international level, as well as personally. It will also result in nations allying with China for the sake of saving their economies. Additionally, there may also be financial crisis inside China that precipitates a harsher government taking control of that country.

As for the morals of the era leading up to the next Antichrist, they will be an extrapolation of what we see degenerating today. The world will witness a progressive degeneration of the moral order (especially delivered by extremist Left Wing political parties) including: the genetic alteration and selection of babies based on health and gender, stem cell medicine, euthanasia, the right to suicide, etc. This degeneration will also include a proliferation of nuclear weapons and a cementing of the view that the beginning and end of this world can be explained exclusively and completely by science, and without a need for any religious explanations. It is particularly this that will result in Christians being both publicly and privately ridiculed and discriminated against in the media, the workplace and the law courts. There will also be a sexual revolution of promiscuity, largely online. Marriage forms will proliferate, along with the freedom to practise them.

THE LIFE OF ANTICHRIST 3

WHERE AC3 WILL COME FROM?

According to my calculations in Appendix 5, Antichrist 3 will be born in approximately 2013, will accede to national leadership in about 2049, and will die in about 2191. But, where will he come from?

Antichrists are always born just outside of where they rule, and usually in small rural settings – Napoleon (Ajaccio, Corsica), Hitler (Braunau am Inn, Austria). It could be that, although he will rule China, AC3 will also have spent a part of his life in Taiwan, and that this part of his upbringing will have been crucial for his development as an Antichrist. Maybe AC3 will spend his formative years in more than one country, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong or Singapore.

The last two Antichrists emerged from torn nations – nations divided over political or territorial disputes. I believe that AC3 will most likely emerge from such a dispute, possibly the following one in Taiwan. In July 1999, Taiwan’s President Lee Teng Hui proposed that Taiwan and China reconcile their differences regarding Taiwan’s sovereignty using an instrument called the Two State Theory. This would have involved these two countries remaining independent entities. The CCP responded with thinly veiled military threats and a total slap-down of the idea, warning Taiwan not to insert the Two State solution into their constitution. From then onwards, China has retained a hard line on this position. This has exacerbated a split in Taiwanese society whereby some favour unity with China by being absorbed into it as part of that nation, while others favour independence. So, it may well be from this torn nation that AC3 emerges.

Indeed, Antichrists seem to grow up in nations that are being bullied by the country that they eventually become the ruler of many years later. When Napoleon (born in 1769) was growing up, Corsica had just been conquered by France (in 1769). Just before that it had been a proudly independent country, having rebelled against Italian rule in 1729, and having finally achieved sovereignty in 1755. With French annexation, this sovereignty had been lost. Many years later, Napoleon came to rule France. When Hitler (born in 1889) was growing up, Austria had just been defeated by Germany (then called Prussia) in The Battle of Koniggratz in 1866. In this battle, Austria had sought to join Germany in the administration of its vast territories, as part of the German Confederation. After its defeat, Austria was forced to leave the German Confederation, and took no part in German politics until after the First World War. Whereas some Austrians still felt some affection towards Germany during the 1890s when Hitler was a boy, most Austrian people felt mistreated by them. As is well known, many years later, Hitler came to rule Germany.

This consideration of being bullied by the nation they eventually come to rule certainly puts Taiwan and Hong Kong into the picture as possible origin nations for AC3.

A LEFT WING ANTICHRIST

The oscillating cycle of Left Wing and Right Wing will result in the next Antichrist being an extreme Left Wing operative. From the last Left Wing Antichrist, Napoleon, we know that this, in turn, will result in a number of things: (1) he will benefit from big government policies and initiatives, and not so much from a private army or a storm trooper organisation as was the extremist Right Wing pattern of Hitler (e.g. the S.A. and S.S.); (2) he will ensure that most of the world still regards him as at least partly good after he is dead – such will be his manipulation (extremist Leftist Antichrists tend to do this better than Right Wing ones); and (3) he will extend Napoleon’s emphasis on humanistic and ideological attempts to engineer an equal society (such as social engineering and identity politics) to new levels. Just as Napoleon ‘equalised and democratised’ most of Europe by wiping out feudalism, AC3 will extend Napoleon’s work, and accomplish this on a global scale. He will wrest the world from Western colonial domination to make it much more ‘equal’ by creating a large collection of vassal nations that are mainly regulated by a global (read Chinese) government that will claim to provide equality, human rights and a level commercial playing field. However, it will be another example of the Tower of Babel, and will multiply the sin of man accordingly. Hence, this will involve horrible wars and a new infusion of evil values right throughout the world. And yet, once it is done, there are many who will say: “Isn’t the world much better now, thanks to the CCP’s global revolution?” Even after he has died, and even with the benefit of a century’s hindsight, surprisingly few will recognise that he was extremely evil. This has been the case with Napoleon. And, there will be just as much conjecture about its legacy as there always has been about Napoleon. Such is the subtle and manipulative nature of a Left Wing Antichrist.

The third Antichrist will start out as an extremist Left Wing leader, like Napoleon. In effect, he will continue Napoleon’s work and complete The Enlightenment that Napoleon advanced so forcefully. He will accrue many apparently beneficial results, as with the original Enlightenment, such as a leap in equality for black Africans and poor starving Asians, and other significant humanitarian breakthroughs. However, these achievements will be a product of the human spirit, not God’s, so they will ultimately be accompanied by long term evil side effects.

After the world has experienced adverse economic circumstances, he will elevate a disaffected victim class to fight for political and economic dominance, as AC1 and AC2 did. As a Left Wing Antichrist, he will claim to break down the barriers between people, whether they are class barriers, legal barriers or aspirational barriers. However, eventually, new and more exclusionary barriers will be erected by him, as God is forced out of the process and Satan is allowed in. As has already happened in Napoleon’s day, what seems like an enviable degree of freedom of thought and action in modern society will actually turn into a new kind of godlessness. This will cause the fracturing of some of society’s most fundamental values, such that armed criminal and political groups will form around the world and enact lawless violence. This lawlessness will not be able to be contained or controlled, as its adherents will be enabled by law codes that are ever more bizarre and progressive, but that also tolerate violence being meted out against less favoured societal groups. Moreover, all of this will be manifested in the name of freedom of thought. What began as a ‘freedom enhancing’ measure for society will weaken it considerably, for the paradox of freedom is that it can only be found in appropriate restriction. This is why, when the law was given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai in Exodus 33:13, Moses implored God to ‘teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favour with you’, which is echoed in Psalms 119:45, ‘I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts’.

This Left Wing Antichrist will also persecute a relatively powerless class of people using false modes of thought. These modes will include: social engineering, identity politics and tolerance and diversity policies which will be used most forcefully ‘on behalf of unity’, but will actually be deployed to advantage the dominant political group.

WHAT SORT OF A PERSON WILL AC3 BE?

Earlier, I mentioned that both Napoleon and Hitler despised their father and turned against what their father stood for, working hard in life for that cause which was against the cause of their father’s. I mentioned that this stance characterised many of history’s tyrants. This will also be the case for AC3.

Like the last two Antichrists, the next Antichrist will emerge late to rule as an evil man, yet with a clean public image and political veneer.

We know from all of the previous Antichrists that he will harbour a massive victim mentality on behalf of his country. Due to the ascending nature of Antichrists, he will be the most deluded, but also the most deceptive Antichrist yet – a man bound to a bizarre ideology of thought, and possessing the zeal of one who is a zealous religious adherent.

Antichrist 3 will superficially parody the person of Jesus through the ‘community atmosphere’ he creates throughout the world as a kind of worldwide humanist church; with his ‘disciples’ superficially resembling the early Christian ones in their apparent levels of mutual respect and mutual acceptance of each other. Such false compassion is typical of the Connection Movement mentality of a Left Wing Antichrist.

Also, he will claim to be able to reclaim and revive an ancient vision of his nation through the restoration of a past era of pride and power. In this case the vision will come from before the First Opium War of 1839-1842, when China began a long descent into weakness and humiliation. This was the era of the beginning of the silk trade of the Silk Road, the Han Dynasty in 207 BC. It was the golden age in Chinese history, and is still memorialised today by China’s majority ethnic group, the ‘Han Chinese’. It was an era of economic prosperity, successful expansionist military campaigns and significant advances in science and technology. Hence, at this peak of Chinese civilisation, China controlled a large portion of the world’s population and produced political and cultural legacies that endure today. For instance, the Chinese written script is called ‘Han characters’. In fact, this dynasty was so powerful that it has been compared to the Roman Empire in many studies, even though it was smaller. Significantly, China is one of very few countries in the world that has never ever been totally dissolved or occupied by outside powers or any external influence. That may not continue after AC3.

Due to the ascending nature of Antichrists, the next Antichrist will be more successful than Adolph Hitler. He will conquer Eurasia, but not the world. With this level of success in view, let us now look at God’s plan for this tragic man. Cast your mind back to the section on 2 Thessalonians 2.

Whereas this Thessalonians passage refers to the FINAL ANTICHRIST, known as the Man of Lawlessness, these principles are somewhat applicable to the next Antichrist, with whom I am now primarily concerned, and who will not be the FINAL ANTICHRIST. As I mentioned earlier, this chapter is applicable because the nature of biblical prophecy is that it is often repetitive and ascends over time, so that one prophecy can include both near (temporal) fulfilments and far (eschatological) ones. The illustrative example given for this is to picture oneself looking head-on at a mountain range which proceeds away from the onlooker. It peaks and troughs intermittently over distance, as prophecies manifest then fade then manifest again, cyclically over time.

The next Antichrist will embody and display para-Christological humanistic qualities even more than Hitler did. And, once again, each one will be fraudulent.

In the same way that modern Left Wing movements such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement posed as saviours then betrayed their aspirants, AC3 will do the same on a global level.

Like the prophetic account of the leopard of the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation, AC3 will be an extremely secretive and shrouded man, a sensitive and profitably clairvoyant soul with a remarkably humanistic bent. Using the secrecy of a leopard, for quite awhile, the CCP’s push towards world dominance will not be fully perceived by other countries, because China will be piecemeal in its approach, adding just a little bit of power to their base with every new contract and alliance they make. This patient and slow build-up will result in China being like the water that seeps into the stress cracks of a container – subtle but persistent, but, like the leopard, which ambushes its prey. Right up until the last minute, they will seem less dangerous than the Nazis then, once other nations become powerless to influence them, they will suddenly strike and gain world domination. Ambush requires a predictive knowledge of how other nations will act in order to be able to trick them. AC3 will be surprisingly good at this.

Particularly significant will be the deception of Great Britain. Napoleon almost managed it until Edmund Burke corrected the thinking of his fellow parliamentarians; AC3 will actually manage to accomplish this for a time.

He will enter a zeitgeist where the vast majority of the world’s population will ‘refuse to love the truth and so be saved’ (2 Thessalonians 2:10). And, although ‘that day will not come until the rebellion occurs’ (2 Thessalonians 2: 3), a widespread rebellion against the values of God has already begun. People will be full of pride because the world will be seen to have been made more economically and socially equal and scientifically advanced than it is today, and humans will have taken full credit for this. These people will be, as Timothy described the people of the last days in 2 Timothy 3:1-9, ‘…lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud…loaded down with sins and swayed by all kinds of evil desires…’. This description has rung increasingly true down the ages since Christ. Christians will be publicly vilified and abused, and will receive neither protection nor justice. When 2 Thessalonians 2:7 says ‘…but the one who now holds it (the secret power of lawlessness) back will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way’, it refers to a future characterised by a more open opposition to Christianity in traditionally Christian countries than ever before.

Just as it has been mentioned in this book that AC1, Napoleon, conceived evil new forms of statecraft aimed at enforcing his power, similarly, AC3 and the state he comes from, will create many new ingenious but diabolical political instruments of their own. Interestingly, China has already created and instituted a social credit system, debt trap diplomacy, forced technology transfer, the Thousand Talents program and other nefarious schemes.

HUMANISM AND ANTICHRIST 3

Similar to all previous Antichrists, Antichrist 3 will use Humanism to his advantage at all times, but he will do this in a Leftist way, as Napoleon did.

Under AC3, the satanic force of Humanism will continue to attempt to convince people of its merits in 3 key ways:

(1) Pseudo-intellectualism - Humanism will attempt to use the language of the empirical reason and logic revolution of the 1600s and 1700s to convey the impression that it is intellectually superior to any religious faith.

However, the only rationale that Satan, the designer of this creed, seriously intends to advance is a false anti-Christian one. Hence, Humanism will irrationally deny fundamental Christian truths (e.g. the documentary evidence for the life of Jesus Christ) and replace them with spiritual falsehoods (e.g. the chance creation of the universe).

(2) Pseudo-compassion - Humanism will employ Leftist compassionate language in a bid to create the illusion that it is an ideology that cares about the welfare and protection of the weak and helpless in society, and is thus a merciful philosophy.

However, the only people that the designer of this creed, Satan, wants to protect are the oppressors of humanity and, in particular, the oppressors of God’s people. Thus pseudo-compassion will also manifest as a bizarre cult of power, characterised by illogical ideologies and practised with a religious-type fervour that betrays its true identity, which is never stated by its adherents – an alternative religion.

(3) Pseudo-welfare - Humanism will also point to worldwide decreases in poverty, hunger and disease as evidence of its effectiveness in producing a better world via its Leftist welfare agenda. However, the key to the welfare of societies is to allow God to set the macro agenda, such as values, rights and obligations, and broad social policy. This is because only God can perceive a big enough picture, in terms of big chunks of time and large numbers of people, to accurately calculate the incredibly complex problems involved in running a society. Humanism will disallow God’s sovereignty here and bring Satan into the picture.

Eventually the Humanists will join into a type of one-world secular ‘religion’ where all will come together from around the world with remarkably uniform and homogenous views and values, such that they will eventually greatly outnumber all the world’s genuinely religious people. Indeed, even now, many who seem to be religious are really closet Humanists who ‘do’ religion because they feel they have to, or because it advantages them in some way. The modern Islamist revolution was largely started by the violent Egyptian cleric of the sixties Sayyid Qutb, who believed that Islam was on the wane. He used violence and not persuasion by sound argument to regenerate it. Thus, its adherents are often not true believers. Therefore, because this revolution has not fully captured people’s hearts and minds, its numbers will one day decline markedly.

Humanism will come to dominate nations because it will capture their youth, as all other Antichrists have done. Islamist nations such as Iran will only need a partial relaxation of their Islamist rules and many young people there will become Humanists. Also, a humanistic new young Israeli youth will dominate Israel, as politics is thought by most to be a better road to peace than spirituality. It will also capture their intelligentsia. Hitler’s first mass-appeal was manifested amongst University Professors.

At that time, Christianity will be surrounded and persecuted by all of the world’s people, because it will be considered to be the greatest threat of all of the mainstream religions. All Antichrists hate Christianity.

In the meantime, Humanists will increasingly compel the world to obey their doctrine of virtue and community (anti-discrimination, tolerance, etc.), and will win the legal cases required to do so. When this happens, it will be remarkable to observe how many of these reforms increasingly and specifically persecute Christians. The Christian God will be the enemy, the Muslim one, less so, as was the case with the first two Antichrists

SOME OF THE LEFTIST HUMANIST SUB-MOVEMENTS THAT WILL EMPOWER ANTICHRIST 3

I will now detail three of the sub-movements of Leftist Humanism that not only exist today, but are building alongside China as they prepare to support AC3.

(1) WHAT IS THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT?

The next Antichrist’s seductive rhetoric will once again be addressed to the human ego, as all other Antichrists have done. In this respect, he will believe that the more he can restrict Christianity and its ability to win souls, the more souls will be winnable for him. In extremist Leftist fashion, he will sell the idea that all the people of the world (black, white, Asian and African) can become and do whatever they want while possessing protected rights, the power to escape poverty and the means to have ill-health treated. As is already beginning to happen today, all of this will entail an explosion of development in third world countries that will bring them significantly closer to equality with the West. However, the large number of onerous agreements and alliance obligations, and duties required to gain the finance to actualise this, will themselves become oppressive and restrictive to people who will believe that they should be able to do what they want, and so will try to reject those burdens, sometimes with much conflict.

He will even cause many Christian churches to abandon the true faith and side with him. Today, many churches are becoming quite exploitable by Satan, because they refuse to grow spiritually. And, many churches will turn to AC3, as they did to Hitler. For example, during the Nazi reign, to show their support for Hitler, German churches marched in the famous Nazi parades under a banner that displayed exactly the same colour patterns as the banner bearing the swastika (Hitler’s mark of the beast), except depicting a cross of Christ instead. In the worst days of the third Antichrist (in the 2060s) many churches will become deluded and seduced by modern thinking, and will support his satanic ‘thought-putsch’.

Humanistic attacks on Christians will gradually transform from being verbal to physical. In time, physical attacks in public will be commonplace in most countries, even Western ones, with Christians being unassisted by onlookers. All the elements of society, government, law and corporations will unite against and discriminate against Christians without penalty. The Left Wing has already marched through the institutions today. ‘Beautiful, peaceful, inoffensive Humanism’ will have bared its horrible teeth.

Humanists fight to convince the world that there is no such thing as Spirit. Thus, they will wage war on: Christians - as spirit worshippers (labelled troublemakers); men - as spirit prophets (labelled controllers); and the unborn - because they have little but their spirit (labelled valueless).

How ironic it is that Humanists once hated the Nazi holocaust of the Jews, when now they work daily to create a spiritual environment which will facilitate something similar one day, if it hasn’t already - in the form of abortion.

Doing the devil’s work, AC3 will kill Christians and Jews, as well as attack Israel. This aggression echoes a more extreme prophecy of the final days (Revelation 20:9) whereby Christians will be surrounded like Israel is encircled by enemies today, a prophetic symbol for all Christians.

(2) WHAT IS THE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION MOVEMENT?

A central plank of Leftist humanistic society is the notion of anti-discrimination. This will fail as a means of producing a truly peaceful and righteous humanity, because of the overwhelming need of unforgiven people to unload themselves of sin and guilt, thus requiring regular discrimination against a scapegoat class of persons in society. The adherents of this movement will project many of their sins onto scapegoats, but will not reap a harvest of fulfilment or satisfaction, because guilt can only be expunged by God, not by projection onto others.

Leftist humanists insist on a veneer of peace being cast across society using superficial peace initiatives, such as anti-discrimination, access quotas, and severely curbed freedom of speech to avoid even the possibility of hate speech. However, these will never produce real and lasting peace, because the paradox of peace, which Humanists do not understand, is that peace can only be wrought via righteous conflict. For example, it has often been the case that lasting peace has only been won after an argument, a protest, a war, or a round of labour strikes.

The Enlightenment began as an encouragement for people to think and enquire, and eventually evolved into a pseudo-compassionate anti-discrimination movement that claimed to support minorities. Satan’s fingerprints were all over it – a deluded membership who were not notified by Satan of how evil their movement would be, as well as brutality and mercilessness. Ironically, its results were the opposite of its aims, as always happens when a human’s mind is substituted for God’s. An example of this from history is that removing barriers in society causes the fragmenting of society, thus creating new barriers. An example of this from the Bible, in the book of Judges, is that everyone did ‘what was right in his own eyes’. As a result, Jephthah’s aims for peace resulted in great suffering for his own daughter.

Just as Islamism was spread by the point of a sword, and not by its adherents being genuinely persuaded or convinced, so too will Humanism be spread at the point of an exam marker’s pen, with over 90% of university academics being Left Wing Humanists, and by students continually having to fill their essays with Leftist arguments or risk not even passing their subjects. A persistent repetition of this will eventually brainwash most of them.

(3) WHAT IS THE PSEUDO-COMMUNITY MOVEMENT?

One strand of Leftist Humanism is the idea that human beings can alleviate their greatest threats and live together in happiness and harmony if they form into a committed community of co-operating workers who target humanity’s problems. I call this the Pseudo-Community Movement. This false idea conveniently avoids the fact that we are, by our very nature, spiritually treacherous and selfish, as well as mentally weak. In order to encourage this falsehood, Satan will facilitate worldwide victories over disease, over-crowding and starvation. The world hunger problem will be largely solved, and faster than almost anyone thinks possible. As nations discard conflict in favour of treaties and co-operation, there will arise an opportunity, in the relative absence of war, for nations to co-operate in making communities that are more equal and accessible by all, including more attainable and secure employment, and more affordable housing that is available to most of the world’s population.

As has already begun today, a measure of financial equality between nations will evolve faster than almost anyone expects in the forms of infrastructure, services and jobs. Proud Humanists will congratulate both themselves and humanity as the world celebrates globally. However, this global village will mainly have been born to create the pride and atheism that is essential for a zeitgeist-riding Antichrist to find maximum crowd support. We build the new world to be our home today, but our prison tomorrow.

THE FOUR TYPES OF HUMANISTIC LEADERS

Under AC3, the power players of Leftist Humanism will be the same humanist power players who are gaining more and more leverage today. Psychologists will be Humanism’s ‘pastors’ who will care for people by further indoctrinating them into obeying Humanism’s dogma; the entertainment industry will be Humanism’s ‘preachers’ who will charismatically spread the word of Humanism worldwide; academic researchers will be Humanism’s ‘popes’ who will deliver their ‘encyclicals’ as research papers; and the media will be Humanism’s ‘inquisitors’ who will shame, silence and punish ‘troublemakers’ by compelling people to accuse them (which compulsion is the identifying mark of an inquisition).

Even today, Humanists are quite desperate for a philosophical leader and thus cling to so-called experts such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins whose theories have been discredited by the vast majority of serious academics. An effective Satanic ‘leader’, one who can hoodwink the mainstream academia, will finally come at exactly the time when Humanists can be effectively united. They will unite, and then they will sacrifice greatly for that person; AC3.

THE END OF ANTICHRIST 3

If, via alliance, debt traps and cultural and political sabotage, AC3 will be powerfully embedded into the economies and political systems of the countries of the world, such that it cannot be seen how they could overthrow him, how will he ever be defeated?

At Dunkirk in World War 2, the situation for Britain became desperately threatening and dire when she was caught in Hitler’s net with almost her entire army stranded, and the Germans advancing. At this point, Hitler seemed certain to win the war because he had virtually crippled Europe in no time. However after that, the worm began to turn when Germany suffered many setbacks of a seemingly coincidental nature as God’s hand powerfully intervened. Some of these setbacks included: the Pearl Harbour invasion’s ineffectiveness due to nearly all of the aircraft carriers being out of the harbour on an extremely rare training drill when the bombing occurred; the unlucky breaking of the German code when one defeated submarine commander failed to destroy a codebook before he died, and the allies found it in his pocket; and the Germans’ deportation of their top Jewish scientists who later invented the bomb for the allies. This will be how AC3’s forces are turned around – the hand of God will intervene in the conflict to disadvantage him. Only Christians will recognise this action of judgement as having come from Jesus.

However, even though he will one day be defeated, like other Antichrists, AC3 will have a way by which he will seem to live on. Here, it is only possible to induce facts hazily. Antichrist 3 will be another left-wing Antichrist. This means that he will likely make his influence a permanent feature of the world by the hyper-expansion of his ideas and values, as Napoleon did.

THE POSITIVE ASPECTS OF THE LIFE OF ANTICHRIST 3

All Antichrists bring good things as well as bad. It is like the biblical story of the tower of Babel. Although it was bad that the sins of the people were being multiplied by their prideful venture of building a tower to reach to the heavens, nonetheless the achievement of the tower that they built was a substantial one. This was similar to the Napoleonic reforms, which proudly moved the running and organisation of society away from God, but nonetheless produced excellent reforms, such as freedom of speech, a fair judiciary, a merit system for work hiring, and the removal of the serf system of virtual slavery. In other words, people weren’t as trapped anymore by the circumstances of their birth or their times.

Similarly, in the lead-up to and the life of AC3, many social improvements will occur that will liberate people from the circumstances of their birth and their times. From all of the other patterns of Napoleonic reform and other modern movements, these improvements should include the following remedies: better treatment of congenital and hereditary illnesses; more humane systems of justice and dealing with criminal offenders, more flexible education systems, more flexible vocational opportunities for people who cannot fit into traditional work settings, more flexible social options for people who cannot fit into traditional social settings, more options by which to avoid having to work at a job that one hates; economic and social liberation for third world nations, especially from crippling national debt; the means by which farmers won’t need to be at the mercy of fickle weather; real rights for workers in the workplace; means by which cities do not have to be at the mercy of fickle weather in the form of natural disasters; and economic inequality will be greatly reduced.

Many of these things will take quite a few years to roll out to an eleven figure population of over 10 billion people, but they will be established as worldwide realities in time.

MY ACCOUNTABILITY

Please note that, from the point of view of accountability, it is important for someone who is writing a predictive book to predict at least one major event that will occur in his own lifetime. As AC3 should become visible in the year when he accedes to national leadership, it is helpful that I have calculated this year in Appendix 5 as 2049. As I will be aged 84 in 2049, this means that I will most probably be alive when this happens. Also, many of the cultural, spiritual and economic changes that I predict in this book will start to become apparent in my lifetime. And, this means that I will stand accountable, in 2049, if these things do not eventuate.

MY JOURNEY

Looking forward, I was tentative as I began to speculate about the details of Antichrist four. It seemed that he would arrive so far into the future that nothing that could be at all likely could be said about him. But was I wrong. And what I found surprised me. It reached the very heart of who God is, and what he wants for his kingdom, and I detail that in the next chapter.

ENCOURAGEMENT

JESUS’ SECOND COMING IS CONFIRMED BY HIS FIRST COMING

God’s great in-breakings into history tend to occur in pairs as a confirmation for his people. This confirmation has been used by God both to encourage and to shock his people.

The following are some examples of these pairs. The disciples had the means to be encouraged that they would definitely receive the Spirit if they waited, as Jesus has instructed them to, because of the previous exchange between Elijah and Elisha in 2 Kings 2. Elisha desired Elijah’s spirit and was told he would get it when Elijah ascended to heaven, and he did. Then, when Jesus promised his Spirit to his followers and then ascended to heaven, as only Elijah and no one else ever had in the whole of the Old Testament, the disciples could be sure that the Spirit would be given to them.

Sometimes God uses a pair of events to shock people into hearing an important message, as a confirmation of something. The early Christians could be sure that they would experience serious sin and evil from right within their own church by observing the fate of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). From within the church, which was the Kingdom of God, the new Humanity, they connived to sin against God, were found out and questioned about it. Then, they lied. The result was death. This was a clear repetition of the Original Sin, and it occurred right in front of believers to shock them so that they would accept the seriousness of sin in their midst and not be complacent and ignorant about this important thing that God was confirming.

The greatest signal confirming that the Second Coming will definitely occur is Christ’s First Coming. The Second Coming is the corresponding event in the pair that signifies for us that God will keep his word – because he has performed this deed before.

In the Second Advent, it will be Jesus who will be given the right to enact the final earthly judgement on secular people, and to do this he will easily claim the battle victory that seemed to be in the Antichrist’s hands. Yes! This is good news. It is stated in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, ‘And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming’. Can you imagine a more comprehensive victory than that?

At this time, there will be suffering involved, but God’s judgement event of the Second Coming will be fair and righteous.

As Eugene Peterson says, ‘If what seems like the worst turns out to be God’s judgement, it can be embraced, not denied or avoided, for God is good and intends our salvation. So judgement, while certainly not what we human beings anticipate in our planned future, can never be the worst thing that can happen. It is the best, for it is the work of God to set the world, and us, right'[210].

And God’s judgement was mainly delivered through the Cross.

THE CROSS

In fact, spiritually speaking, everything comes together in the cross. It joins three things. First, it joins the realm of God with the realm of humans, because it represents God having become one with humans when Jesus took our sin upon himself on the cross. Second, it joins the time before the Kingdom of God on earth with the time of the Kingdom of God on earth, because the cross inaugurated the kingdom of God on earth. And third, it joins the physical victory of Christ on the cross with the spiritual victory of the Archangel Michael in heaven.

The cross was also the greatest love event – (1) the suffering of God being the perfect way by which he could convincingly prove his love for us; (2) the ripping of the Temple curtain being the perfect symbol of our newly received closeness to God; (3) the perfect omen of forgiveness (God had always forgiven humans, but humans were only ready to appropriate this at the appointed time, according to 1 Peter 1:20).

Satan tried to make a clown of Jesus on the cross – he made a king. And we know who the real clown is.

IMAGE 12 – EDMUND BURKE

(16) THE FOURTH AND FINAL ANTICHRIST

THE LIFE OF ANTICHRIST 4

WHAT SORT OF PERSON WILL AC4 BE?

According to my calculations in Appendix 5, Antichrist 4 will be born in approximately 2138, will accede to national leadership in about 2173, and will die in about 2191.

The FINAL ANTICHRIST will be particularly magnetic, the most magnetic of any Antichrist, he will be a mesmeriser. Though he will have a powerful military force behind him, his primary strategy will be deception via the offering of the carrot of false justification – an appeal to the ego. This is because if an Antichrist can deceive billions of people he will have the world working for him, and it is easier to take the masses of people that way than by force.

He will be perhaps the most conceited person ever to live. He will create a cult of himself and infiltrate the entire world with it. He will be extremely vain and boastful of tongue. His public image will be very powerful, and it will be indistinguishable from his mission because his public image will be his mission – i.e. he will say something like ‘Come to me and be whole’. He will be the major topic of conversation in society. He will be like Jesus living on earth, but a Jesus who panders to the human ego. Thus, he will be remarkably well known by everyone.

Indeed, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will seem the most similar to Jesus of any of the Antichrists. He will parody the Christ to an extent never before seen. This is why the book of Revelation mentions that the uprooting horn will have eyes like the eyes of a man, Jesus being the man in view here; the uber-human, the Son of Man. He will be able to speak to all of the people of the world as if speaking to them individually. He will seem to do miracles, and this relates to the miraculous ways by which Antichrists gain and hold onto power, but this will be even greater in this Antichrist. Also, when humanistic science seems able to replicate the miracles of Jesus, it will have finally grown into the alternative god it was always going to become.

Here is a table showing how AC4 will parody Jesus.

Table 11 – The Final Antichrist Parodies Jesus

THE FINAL ANTICHRIST	JESUS
Will come from the water to begin his work (Revelation 13:1)	Comes out of baptism water to begin his work (Luke 3:21-23)
Will resemble the dragon (Revelation 12:3; 13:1)	Resembles the Father (John 14:9)
Will have 10 crowns (Revelation 13:1)	Has many crowns (Revelation 19:12)
Will have 10 horns (Revelation 13:1)	Has 7 horns (Revelation 5:6)
Will receive power from the dragon (Revelation 13:2, 4)	Receives power from the Father (Matthew 28:18, Revelation 2:27)
Will be stabbed (Revelation 13:3)	Was stabbed (Revelation 5:6)
Will come back to life (Revelation 13:3)	Was resurrected (Revelation 1:18)
Will receive worship after the fatal wound heals (Revelation 13:3-4, 8)	Receives worship after the resurrection (Matthew 28:17)
Will receive great authority after the fatal wound heals (Revelation 13:7)	Received all authority in heaven and on earth after the resurrection (Matthew 28:18)

The FINAL ANTICHRIST’s spiritual power will be much greater than that of any other Antichrist. He will be so spectacular in his power, and so unlike any man that has ever come before him, that people will ask, “Who could ever be like him?” He will seem to be very philosophically intelligent – a guru, a ‘religious leader’ who will be believed and followed by the masses because they are so starved of the genuine religion that their souls crave. Thus, he will quickly activate a lightning-fast program of worldwide recruitment and mentorship into his movement, the likes of which have never been seen. In doing so, he will intentionally build his own satanic kingdom on earth. In seemingly no time, he will have enlisted almost the entire world.

Unredeemed humanity will joyfully provide the thrust of this movement with more zeal than the Nazis had for Hitler. Just look at the popularity of anti-Christian literature and films today such as ‘The da Vinci Code’ and multiply this fervour by thousands. This new kingdom on earth, however, will not endure after his death, like it did for Jesus. For him, mass discipleship will be much quicker than for Jesus, as his appeal will be much more superficial, and thus require less commitment and sacrifice. Therefore, he will amass a huge following while he is still alive and hold onto it desperately, unwilling to share or relinquish power, or to sacrifice in any way. However, at the end of his life, he will see it all crumble and disappear.

The FINAL ANTICHRIST will hate all organised religions, and the war this time won’t primarily be against Jews, as was the case for the last extremist Right Wing Antichrist (Hitler), but against Christians, as Hitler had intended for the time after he had conquered the world. In fact, Hitler had planned to establish a large capital city of German rulership in every country of the world from which to administer the extermination of all undesirable people groups in each land, a plan that was already substantially underway in Warsaw by 1945 – the actions of AC4 will not be unlike this. By this time, most of the other religions of the world will have receded in power and numbers as a result of being largely discredited. However, Christians will have become even more numerate, even through persecution, so that, by that time, the conflict will primarily pit Humanists against Christians.

AC4 will be furious that God’s people, both Jews and Christians, have always survived no matter what persecution was wrought upon them in history, and he will be absolutely determined to be the first and only person to succeed in finally wiping them out because he, and he alone, should be worshipped.

Looking at the iron-toothed Antichrist described in Daniel and Revelation, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will truly be the Globalist Antichrist of death who will wipe out billions and threaten to see off the end of the world he has conquered. Indeed, he will usher in the only event in human history to kill one billion people, and, judging from Hitler’s Holocaust of the Jews, this will require him to be a genius at corpse disposal in order to avoid a worldwide epidemic of disease. He will be a hyper-expansionist lord of death. I sometimes think of him as the Globalist Antichrist because he will take the world in one movement, and will not have to expand his territory in stages. Then, he will eliminate any elements of any populations that could determinedly oppose him (mainly religious communities) with such incredible thoroughness that virtually not one targeted individual will remain alive. His dominance will be so complete that, at the Parousia, it will be clear that only God could ever defeat him, because by then no one will have challenged his conquest to any the least degree.

The FINAL ANTICHRIST will be a hyper-expansionist who seeks and expects genuine world conquest. He will be a horror of destruction. This implies a beast who is more powerful than artful or noble. He will be characterised by rage, wrath and cruelty, and will be a force that will pedantically and fastidiously demand the absolute and total liquidation of any people group that does not bow down to him. He will execute a Nazi Holocaust style killing spree, but one that stretches across the entire globe and targets anyone at all whom he doesn’t like – including all Christians.

If AC1 was a false liberator, AC2 was a false purifier, and AC3 will be a false equaliser, then AC4 will be a false judge. Just as the two Left Wing Antichrists, AC1 and AC3, have dovetailing sequential missions that build upon the same theme, to liberate then reform for equality, so to do the two Right Wing Antichrists, AC2 and AC4. The mission of AC2 was to purify the world of various people groups, which was an act of judgement on a small scale; whereas the mission of AC4 will be to execute a full blown satanic parody of God’s judgement on the whole world. This will involve a massive purification operation that judges satanically humanistic people as good and God’s people as bad then liquidates them.

THE FUTURE INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT)

Earlier in this book, I talked about the transition of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, known variably as ‘The Roman Revolution’, or ‘The Fall of The Roman Republic’. As I have argued, this transition was essentially a process of devolving a decentralised authority into a centralised authority in a nation that was already very powerful. I said the following: ‘The FINAL ANTICHRIST will come to power by hijacking an institution that was created to be and purports to be relatively equal, with decentralised power – some aspect of the globalised world. This institution will go the way of the Roman Republic and end up becoming dictatorial. What will this institution be? Can you guess? It is the future Internet of Things (IoT). I will talk about this later.’

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects (things) that connect with and exchange data with other devices over the Internet. Today, it is mostly used for devices found in the home and for healthcare devices (eg. appliances, thermostats, security systems and heart monitors). But, what does this have to do with AC4?

Today, the power interests of Big Tech companies, crime cartels and totalitarian governments are casting a shadow over the Internet as they jockey for power – and this observation does not include the Dark Net. However, it didn’t start out that way. When Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet he sought to make it an egalitarian communications pathway and to protect it from power threats, such as governments and companies that might interfere with or spy on Internet traffic and compromise what he called ‘basic human network rights’. From this wish arose the notion of ‘Net Neutrality’. This encompasses the idea that Internet Service Providers should treat all Internet communications equally.

In the future, many more ordinary aspects of life will be piled onto the IoT. The Internet will be much more powerful than it is today. Once the future version of the IoT has evolved to attain its greatest power, various hostile parties will form a coalition and act in their own power-hungry interests to exploit those features of the IoT that are designed to protect the relatively powerless users of it from such powerful entities as large corporations and governments. These features include the policy of Net Neutrality and other practices that safeguard the Internet from becoming just another commercially run, or government run, commodity. (A similar idea is the Permissionless Internet. This is an Internet that is free for all to use without needing the permission of an administrative body.) After this, various diverse and disparate parties will join forces to form another coalition to capitalise on these new weaknesses of the IoT, and devolve power to themselves. Finally, a single actor, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will turn on them all, take all of the power for himself, and begin to enact his own beastly agenda. This exploitation will be similar to when Julius Caesar used his influence to seize power in Rome, defeat all of his enemies and turn the rulership of Rome into a one man dictatorship.

The thing that the FINAL ANTICHRIST rises out of is described as being ten-horned, because ten is the number of vastness. In this case, it is a vast power that has spread all over the earth. The FINAL ANTICHRIST will exploit this superpower such that he completely appropriates it to himself. This will enable the FINAL ANTICHRIST to immediately begin to use this ten-horned superpower for his own ends, and thus his rise to power will be lightning-quick, overpowering, and awe strikingly unopposable. Remember, that appropriation of an existing power is the power strategy that is used by Antichrists. Because an Antichrist must amass such a titanic amount of power, he must rise to occupy a prepared throne, as opposed to generating support from scratch. A prepared throne is a throne that is prepared over centuries such that it is aided by millions of ready-made supporters and adorers who have been conditioned by history into a powerful movement of the masses. He then simply surfs that monster wave.

This is also why the Roman Empire was such a powerful empire. Its first emperors had a massive amount of power from the outset, and thus were very difficult to conquer. It simply appropriated that power. And, the empire of THE FINAL ANTICHRIST will be much more powerful than that.

Extrapolating from the fourth beast of Daniel, the empire of AC4 will be the most widespread and populous movement of world power in all history. It will be so widespread that not a single person on the planet will have managed to escape its influence by the time the FINAL ANTICHRIST rises to power. It will be a worldwide digital network of communication and control that is integrated into the bodies and the possessions of all of the people on the planet. It will be the ultimate prepared throne – a beast that AC4 can join and exploit.

THE ‘NATION’ OF AC4

The fact that the FINAL ANTICHRIST will be much worse than the others indicates that a world-wide alliance, rather than just one country, will effectively be the ‘nation’ of AC4. So, despite possibly having various loci here and there, AC4 will command a worldwide movement because, after AC3’s campaign for world dominance, it will be seen that it is very hard to conquer the world nation by nation. Thus, instead, AC4 will conquer the world individual by individual, using technology that will be hardwired inside people. In this way, he will have direct influence upon human beings. This is why he will be so terrifying and so wide-reaching in his power and expansion. This is yet another way in which he will be different to the other Antichrists. All of the other ones will have built their power in a manner that could be described as gradual and lacking the quality of being impregnable. Whereas they will have been strong, their opponents will have seen ways by which they could be fought and eventually defeated. Not so with AC4. Due to the fact that he will hijack an institution that is already powerful, most probably the IoT of the future, his conquest will materialise into being everywhere in a metaphorical instant, and his power will be so complete that his defeat will be unimaginable.

AC4 won’t be like the former Antichrists, in that people could see them rising politically. He will suddenly arise then people will realise that he had been rising for some time, but that they never saw it. This is because his presence in the background will have been extremely hidden and subtle; not something that was noticed or protested against. This accords with a doctrine of Satan and evil itself which holds that a more hidden and deceptive brand of evil is usually a more destructive brand, when all is said and done. Moreover, this hidden build-up of evil will have been manifesting over thousands of years as a general deception of humanity (which I hope to cover in my next book). So, of course, his rise won’t have actually been instant. But, his build-up will be so subtle and deceptive that, sometime between AC3 and AC4, there will actually be a time that witnesses a last gasp of popular Christianity that is so productive and inspiring that it appears that the coming of the FINAL ANTICHRIST must be a very distant event in the far future. Many incorrect Christians will claim this time to be the first beginnings of the millennium of the reign of God and the saints on earth, and the imprisonment of Satan. How things will turn!!!

Also, at a time when the degree of available connectivity will render the world to be truly one global village of much greater cohesion than what is available today, AC4 will deploy massive hordes of people from all of the world’s nations from the outset of his campaign. Thus, I think of him as the Globalist Antichrist, because he will deploy a digital global network to his cause in a way that makes country borders irrelevant. In fact, as an online presence, his full and true identity may not even be widely known. Operating remotely from his technocratic headquarters, his identity may not even be accurately known. Rather, he may only be known as a publicity construct, an omnipresent projection of personage. The true human behind this personage may be someone who is completely different to what is being projected to the public. In these ways, he will be fundamentally different from the other nationalist Antichrists.

AC4 AND TECHNOLOGY

Therefore, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will not represent one nation, or even a coalition of nations, but a movement spread over the entire world. Consequently, it is not important to identify the country from which he will originate. However, some things can be said about how this Antichrist will come to power. The IoT will be the globalised world of the future which will behave like one nation. It will encompass devices, sites, satellites and even people, because it will control gain of function devices (medical and otherwise) which have been attached to or inserted into people to keep them healthy or alive. This will be an all-pervasive IoT whose tentacles extend to all parts of life and sustain and facilitate all things. It will be the lifeblood of human societies. It will also be an Internet struggling in vain to avoid being hijacked by power interests. This will be an IoT that is in the process of becoming beastly, despite trying its hardest not to.

At this time, Cyber intelligence will drive scientific and technological invention and advancement at a phenomenal pace. AC4 will use superior connective technology to ensure that virtually no one is missed by his holocaust. His reach, in this respect, will be massive. Everyone will be on his database as a kind of Internet of people, so that all will be traceable and surveillable. This will be an upgraded version of the Nazi’s impeccable written record-keeping procedures that made it so hard for their quarry to escape them. Thus, it will seem impossible for anyone to get away. This technology will be inescapable, in that it will be part of each person’s body. With computers and technology being able to talk to both the body and the brain, people will include, on their persons, various forms of connective health and wellness technologies that can regulate and optimise their health. It will be these that AC4 will exploit for the purpose of killing at the push of a button. However, he will first need the support of the masses around the world to do this.

Therefore, FINAL ANTICHRIST will be the most extreme of extremists who has ever held a position of high leadership in the history of the world. As has been mentioned, he will also be the first person in world history to murder a billion people. With invasive body software in the form of bionic implants, Brain Computer Interfaces and other human improving (trans humanist) devices looking to dominate the landscape in the next centuries, it seems almost inevitable that one way by which he will achieve this feat will be to use technology that will be so invasive of the body that people will be unable to escape both its tracking and interventionist capacities if this is externally controlled. He will use this technology with masterful deceit and Machiavellianism.

This future is not so difficult to envisage. As a people, we are becoming more connected online and are increasingly placing our dependence for information, our loyalties and our trust there. If one peers forward to the projected realities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum technology, particle theory and synthetic biology, this technological future becomes quite credible. The extent of AC4’s globalist power is also credible. Even today, national politics are starting to become dominated by pan-national trends, interests, concerns and fears, despite what any particular national political climate may be. For example, the online gay marriage movement managed to convert nation after nation until almost the entire Western world adopted its recommendations. Democracy is being usurped by zeitgeists, nationalism is being usurped by globalism, and the country as the identifying entity for people is being usurped by online special interest websites and their influence.

Additionally, humanity is currently moving towards becoming physically integrated by worldwide communication technology. We are also moving towards integrating technology being implanted into our human bodies. If one extrapolates our society a couple of centuries forward, one can see a world where people contain in their bodies the technology that can be used to track and even destroy them.

None of this implies that the current Internet is necessarily bad. It is not a bad thing. Nor are modern devices intrinsically evil. And, note that machines, in and of themselves, will never be able to form their own decision to hurt people, or do some other thing. Rather, a machine will only ever be able to ‘decide’ to do what a human programmer has decided for it. Nonetheless, Satan plans to rape the Internet. And, by a trillion tiny compromises, we will, in time, allow him to do just that.

The notion of the FINAL ANTICHRIST hijacking an existing power system for his own purposes is not unique, even amongst other major Antichrists. It is merely the last step in a long progression. As Antichrists have become ever more powerful and destructive, they have increasingly adopted this power method. Napoleon capitalised upon the fervour of revolutionary France. After royalist insurgents attacked the French Directory (French Government), he fired on them and saved the government. This gave him the appearance of a particularly loyal and trustworthy revolutionary, whereby he was promoted to a position of high responsibility. From there, he initiated a coup to become ruler of France. Then, he rewrote the constitution, preserving the appearance of a republic, but in reality establishing a dictatorship.

Hitler also hijacked an existing power system for his own purposes. He created a Nazi policy called Heim ins Reich, meaning back home to the Reich. This policy dictated that all ethnic Germans living outside Germany in countries such as Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland should strive to bring these regions ‘home’ into an ideological construct called Greater Germany, or Pan-Germany. This was the idea that Germany had always been part of larger systems of empires or countries, such as the Habsburg Monarchy and the German Empire. By pursuing this policy to the point of conquering and annexing those Pan-German lands, Hitler was attempting to hijack and turn to his own ends an already existing system of power in the form of the pro-German mindsets, histories and loyalties of the people in those nations.

However, that is nothing compared to what the CCP is attempting as I write. As I have already said, they are attempting to take the Permissionless Internet and remodel its protocols so that it can be centrally controlled. This would allow a central controller to censor the Internet and authorise both Internet addresses and the data communicated over the Internet. This would, in turn, allow the nation that is most powerful in this process to gain enormous international commercial and economic advantages (power), and impose their autocratic views on the rest of the world. Additionally, the CCP is also attempting to hijack another existing power system – that of scientific and academic innovation and discovery. In a scheme called the Thousand Talents Plan, the CCP has offered many thousands of leading academics both profitable salaries and additional perks, such as tuition for their children, jobs for spouses, housing subsidiaries and international travel if they patent their inventions in China, giving the CCP control over them. This scheme is similar to Forced Technology transfer where companies working with China must declare the details of all of the workings of their trade technology to the CCP, so that the CCP may then exploit this knowledge if it chooses to.

A DIFFERENT STRATEGY FROM THE OTHER ANTICHRISTS

The existence of the worldwide alliance of the FINAL ANTICHRIST will mean that the ancient vision of greatness that he seeks to actualise in his own time will not be a national one, such as a German Reich or a Chinese Dynasty, but one which represents the vision of all of pagan humanity. It will be the satanic promise that humanity can take the place of God; the promise that has enthralled pagan humanity down the millennia, and towards which they have unceasingly striven. This is the false promise that was given in the Garden of Eden by the serpent (Satan) in Genesis 3:4, just after God had told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or he would definitely die – “You will not definitely die”, the serpent said to the woman, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” According to the language of the original text here, ‘knowing good and evil’ means determining what is good and evil, and thus to have the power of God. And, to ‘be like God’ is to take his place by pushing him out. The zeitgeist of this time will venture further into Humanism than ours does. Instead of asserting that man has no need for God, but rather needs human rights, as Rousseau did, it will assert that man is God because he clearly has the creative power with which to control and manipulate the universe as he chooses. Everything that AC4 does will aim at pushing God out of the sphere of human worship, and himself into it. In standing for what is the essence of all evil, the message of AC4 will be so universal that he will be able to attract millions of followers in every country of the world.

The key to the FINAL ANTICHRIST’s success in dominating the whole world will be his fundamental change in strategy from all the other Antichrists. Previously, all other Antichrists conducted a conquest spree that began with proximate regional conquests, then expanded further and further afield, country by country. Finally, they were stopped by a coalition led by the UK and, in the case of Hitler, also her former colonies of USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – today’s Five Eyes countries.

ELIMINATE THE CHRISTIANS

The five nations above have another critical thing in common – together, they are the world’s major repository of Protestant Christianity. Some evidences of this include the fact that they: (1) have some of the largest numbers of Protestant Christians of any country; (2) have been reasonably stable in their Christian populations for a long time; and (3) they are also the countries that provided the scholars who translated the world’s most used Protestant Christian Bible – the New International Version (N.I.V.).

And, as it turn out, Protestant Christianity will be extremely significant for AC4.

Normally, an Antichrist would attack his neighbouring countries whilst the Protestant Christian countries build up defences, only to be defeated by them later. Instead, knowing that Protestant countries can defeat any nation-by-nation conquest strategy, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will realise that, to obtain global denomination, he must attack the world’s true strength first, by attacking Protestant Christianity itself, everywhere it exists. Other strands of Christianity will, by then, have receded in numbers and will not be such a factor. Therefore, he will marshal an all-out attack on Protestant Christianity right from the outset. This is the neat opposite of Jesus’ plan of expanding and multiplying Christianity. He will do this by discrediting it and pressuring the multitudes to distance themselves from it. At this time, Protestant Christians will already be an oppressed group in nearly every country. This will further weaken them, disconnect them from their communities and marginalise them. Thus, it will fragment this force of God on earth, such that the FINAL ANTICHRIST will be able to eliminate them early in the conflict by mass-murdering most of them. This will be possible because Protestant Christianity will already be extremely unpopular in those countries by then. Once Protestant Christianity has fallen as a spiritual defence by prayer, the rest of the world will tumble as well. This strategy will not be executable until at least a century after AC3, because there will still be too much support for Christianity in the world. However, even today, Christianity is being progressively maligned and oppressed right throughout the world, so that by sometime after 2160 the rest of the world will be ready to turn on it.

By attacking Protestant Christianity, and not countries, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will finally be tapping into the greatest power of any Antichrist, that is, spiritual power not political power. In doing so, he will wage quite a different war from the other Antichrists. Rather than being a regional geographical campaign against national groups for conquest, this campaign will begin as a worldwide assault on one spiritual group of people, Christians. Thus, it will be conducted using technology that can reach all of the world’s people at once. And, it will be a contest against God himself, fought for the cause of the ‘power of humans’ – Humanism.

Having wiped out his enemy, and having exerted a form of cyber control over the rest of the world, all at once, AC4 will bypass the unsuccessful region by region conquest strategy of the previous Antichrists, who will have tried to take the Eurasian landmass from the west, then the centre and then the east, and instead take the entire world in one sweep. Then, there will be no one to fight back. And, if one looks back in history, it becomes evident that Satan has been working towards this strategy for awhile now. Have not AC1 and AC2 been political tsunamis of men who seemed to come from nowhere then instituted lightening fast attacks on the world? They even referred to their military strategies in these terms: Napoleon commenting that warfare should be like lightning to shock the enemy, and Hitler actually calling his military strategy ‘Blitzkrieg’. In AC4, Satan will perfect this strategy and take the world with a speed that will be truly astounding. This will be a parody of Jesus’ Second Coming, when he takes power with a word from his mouth.

However, AC4 will not be able to stop Jesus Christ, and therein will be the root cause of his downfall. His massive program will be successfully destroyed by Jesus’ Second Coming.

VARIOUS BIBLICAL METAPHORS FOR AC4

The effects of the FINAL ANTICHRIST will be like those of the Flood narrative in Genesis – but in reverse. His method of extermination will be so complete that the world will seem to be engulfed in a flood from which no one can escape. But, this time it will be a flood of evil, not good. Thus, his reach will be so great that it will be like the waters of a worldwide flood that can reach through and into anything. However, whereas in the time of Noah almost all of world’s people and animals were killed so that God could purify the world, in this case, untold masses will be killed so that AC4 can conduct his extremist right-wing agenda of a false purification of various religious groups. Also, Noah was given some signs by God to reassure him, so that he continued to obey God, no matter what people thought of him. However, this does not appear to be the likely case for the faithful who hold out for God under AC4. No reassuring signs will be issued at these times. Thus, God will only intervene for them at the very last minute, whereas God intervened for Noah earlier. However, they will have the Word of God and all of its promises, as well as the victory of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and their minds – and this will be enough.

The story of humanity under the FINAL ANTICHRIST will also be like the account of the Tower of Babel in the Bible – except, once again, in reverse. Instead of being dispersed, humanity will come together to multiply their technological capability, but also their pride and sin. AC4 will embed into almost every country in the world a hardwired alliance - one that, by using technology, will infiltrate each citizen’s every communication, every financial transaction, and every aspect of their daily private lives. And, by this, he will demand their loyalty. Technology will be unimaginably advanced as the whole human race comes together in a completely globalised society to co-operate in ventures that would seem by today’s standards to be impossible. Consequently, with this display of human power, widespread human pride will reach an all-time high, resulting in egos destructively crashing against one another. And, unfortunately, the world will be so connected that the most minute and thorough level of every aspect of the lives of ordinary people will be controllable by a team who is headed by one individual.

WILL AC4 ELIMINATE THE JEWS AS HITLER DID?

Although AC4 will destroy the Christians first, he will also attempt to the wipe out the Jews. This order of genocide will provide him with three benefits. First, it will remove the most effective opposition to Antichrists – Christians. Second, it will allow him to avoid the mistake that Hitler made when he became so obsessed with destroying the Jews that it hindered his own military objectives. Third, as his regime will be an extremist right wing one, he is in danger of resembling Adolf Hitler if he goes after the Jews first. This will help him to avoid that, and thus people will not perceive that he is actually aiming to finish the unfinished work of the Nazis.

As, I believe the Jews will be left until the last of God’s people, I believe that Jesus, at his Second Coming, will intervene here and provide them with a way out – but only if they declare their allegiance to him. This can be seen in the last three chapters of Zechariah 12-14. Here, there is a description of Jerusalem under attack in a war, parts of which do not seem to have a parallel in history, according to the commentator Albert Barnes. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the future is in view here. In Zechariah 12, Jerusalem (the Jews) and Judah (all other believers – ie. the Christians) will be besieged by every nation upon the earth, much like the scene in Revelation 20. But God will judge the nations (Zechariah 12:2). He will make Jerusalem an immovable rock, such that all who try to hurt it will be hurt themselves (Zechariah 12:1-6). This will be like the Passover when the Israelites were given an escape option, but only if they voluntarily opted in by smearing sheep’s blood as a sign of belief (Zechariah 14:4-5). As with the Passover, this escape option will also involve some kind of testifying of belief – in Jesus. First, the Jews will see the Christians initially have the strength of the Lord in the battle (Zechariah 12:6), then die with dignity and joy for God, as the centurion saw Jesus die, and be taken up first (Zechariah 12:7). Thus, the Jews will be envious of God’s love for them. Zechariah says that God will take the Christians first so that the Jews will not feel superior to the Christians (Zechariah 12:7). Then, they will see Jesus coming for them, and many of them will be willing to join him.

Another passage that alludes to this is Daniel 3:19. The Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar could also be seen to be representative of AC4. He built an image to himself and demanded that all bow down to it. This image was sixty cubits high, six cubits wide and was accompanied by the music of six different instruments; six, six, six. However, when Daniel’s friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to worship it, they were placed into a fire – but it couldn’t touch them. Thus, the Jews of the final days will also find themselves in the midst of a persecution that will be the fire of God’s judgement, but they will not be touched. The FINAL ANTICHRIST will intend another Holocaust of the Jews, but it won’t happen. God gave the Jews Hitler’s Holocaust to break their pride. The next one, he will give them to save them.

How will this happen? As can be seen in the biblical book of Esther, the very first Holocaust of the Jews was planned and organised by Haman, but not enacted, by Xerxes, King of the Medo-Persian Empire. At first, he was a very suggestible man who was convinced by his high official, Haman, when Haman argued that he should slaughter all of the Jews in the entire Medo-Persian Empire, the known world at that time. Xerxes acceded to Haman’s request, but God protected the Jews from this planned holocaust of them. The second Holocaust of the Jews was enacted by the modern equivalent of Xerxes, Hitler. Just like Xerxes, Hitler was a very suggestible man, and he was taken by the zeitgeist movement of his times. In Hitler’s case this was anti-Semitism. However, the Jews will come, in time, to see that the lesson of the second Holocaust is that they lack the protection of God enjoyed in the time of Xerxes, because they have forsaken Jesus and his shed ‘Passover blood’. God will then raise a righteous generation of Jews who will turn to Jesus at his Second Coming and be miraculously spared from a third Jewish Holocaust, one which will be intended by AC4 to slaughter them all. According to Zechariah, this righteous generation will: realise that they killed the pierced one who is an historical figure who is the Lord’s representative, and then realise that this is like piercing the Lord himself (Zechariah 12:10-14); mourn for the one they pierced as one mourns for an only child (Zechariah 12:10); mourn in a manner that is completely genuine and not like insincere group mourning (Zechariah 12:12-14); thus, the land of Israel will be cleansed from sin, idols and all of the false prophets of anti-Christian Judaism (Zechariah 13:2-6); then Israel will be raised up and turned into a nation that is fruitful for God (Zechariah 14:10-11); and all of this will occur only for a remnant of the Jews who are willing to accept God’s grace (Zechariah 13:7-9). Thus this third holocaust will be the ‘anti-Holocaust’, and, once again, it will occur after the Jews have been concentrated together in one place.

All of this may make God appear to be awfully harsh in his treatment of the Jews. However, it should be borne in mind that Jesus treated Peter quite harshly when he told him, in Matthew 16:23, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ He did so because Peter had a good knowledge of Yahweh and was spiritually aware, and so are the Jews. God will make sure that the generation of Jews that is alive in the last days will be one that can be humbled to accept him. This was not generally the case during Hitler’s Holocaust of the Jews. Though that generation was very vocationally and financially successful, in general they were not a humble people. However, some of them were humble, and they now form part of the general remnant of Jews from throughout history that has accepted Christ.

Additionally, the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis also indicates how it will be that ‘all of Israel’ is saved in the last days. See Chapter 14 for that.

THE DEMISE OF THE FINAL ANTICHRIST

The coalition of England and her former colonies, such as America, Australia and New Zealand, defeated the first two Antichrists, and will defeat AC3. However, this coalition will not survive against the methods of this Antichrist. Indeed, this coalition will only barely hold to defeat AC3, as it is becoming weakened by increasing ungodliness. Therefore, the FINAL ANTICHRIST will not be defeated by this coalition.

He will be defeated by the Second Coming of Jesus, as the Bible makes clear.

However, even before that, he will be weakened by internal disunity. He is the fourth kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue dream that Daniel interpreted in Daniel 2:40 – ‘Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron – for iron breaks and smashes everything – and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others’. This kingdom is represented by the part of the statue where ‘the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron’ (Daniel 2:41). Daniel then comments on the significance of this – ‘… so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with the baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay’ (Daniel 2:41-43). Therefore, because ‘the people will be a mixture’, this broad and diverse kingdom will never properly unite. The FINAL ANTICHRIST will attempt a truly worldwide conquest. However in doing so, he will try to unite too broad a diversity of peoples under the banner of evil. Therefore, even though the FINAL ANTICHRIST will possess an absolutely undefeatable power at the surface level of politics and military might, he will be unable to internally unite his empire in the name of evil. This is because evil is intrinsically incapable of genuine unity with itself. Only love (God) can achieve total internal unity. Thus, the fourth kingdom is contrasted with the rock which ‘was cut out not by human hands’, and that struck the statue on its feet and smashed it, the kingdom that will endure forever – the kingdom of God (Daniel 2:34, 44-45). This rock defeats the fourth kingdom, and all of the other kingdoms. The superior hardness of this rock is a result of its greater internal unity, as rock hardness always is.

Interestingly, the division referred to above also helped to destroy the Empire of Rome in the earlier fulfilment of this prophecy. To understand this, we need to understand the Daniel’s statue. As one moves down statue, one also moves forward in time. When one descends to the legs, the Roman Empire starts, and is strong. However, go down a little further to the toes and it divides, becoming a mixture of naked clay and iron. At this point, the ‘people will be a mixture’ prophecy is fulfilled. According to the famous Bible Commentator Albert Barnes, this literally means that the Roman Empire was much more racially diverse and disunited than the three empires before it, and this weakened it.[211] This is not to say that the Bible is claiming that racial disunity represents an unassailable obstacle to community strength. The idea of racial disunity here is merely a symbol. The emphasis words ‘and will not remain united any more than iron mixes with clay’ in Daniel 2:43 indicate that something greater than mere racial disunity is alluded to. Indeed, there are many instances in history when a people marked by racial disunity have achieved great things. However, what is being described here is an intrinsic and fundamental disunity of purpose – one that cannot be resolved.

The extent of this disunity was later proven by history. Indeed, as history testifies, this kingdom soon divided into smaller kingdoms, and the many later efforts that were made to unite these kingdoms all failed.

This disunity was also seen towards the end of Hitler’s days when he was betrayed by a surrender offer to the enemy by one of his generals. There were also other acts of disobedience, and even multiple assassination plots. A similar thing is also seen in Revelation 17:16, when the beast and the ten horns (the Antichrist) hates the prostitute (his antichristian city) and brings her to ruin. It is also seen in the destruction of Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. Goliath represents AC4 with his six shekels of height, his six hundred shekel spear point, and his six pieces of body armour. He seemed unconquerable. Yet, what was he killed with? His own sword. This symbolises division.

However, after they die, all Antichrists try to live on in some way. AC4 may continue his influence after his death by writing his orders and instructions into the software of machines everywhere so that he actually continues to rule after he has died, thus casting significant doubt upon the fact of his death.

THE POSITIVE ASPECTS OF THE LIFE OF ANTICHRIST 4

Antichrists always bring positive developments as well as the negative ones. In the case of the previous Right Wing Antichrist, Adolf Hitler, he contributed to humanity’s knowledge of how to really quickly recover from an economic depression through building programs and cash stimuli to the economy. This has given governments more competence and confidence in approaching economic recoveries from financial slumps. His methods here were so successful that other nations wanted him to execute Germany’s program in their countries. Also, there were a tremendous number of things invented by the Nazis in the Second World War.

Similarly, in the case of AC4, there will be many things invented during his reign. The technology invented during this time will be mind-bogglingly spectacular. It will render the final war mainly a technological one, and will help AC4 appear to appear to do miracles. Imagine routine travel to the far reaches of the solar system, the depths of the oceans, the top of Mount Everest, and the ends of massive cave systems. Imagine spectacular entertainment forms. Just before the final wars, the world may seem to be a wonderful place, where man’s problems have been solved. Humans will have seemed to have reached their full potential, and will appear to be a most miraculous and wonderful creation of God. However, all of that will only manifest on the outside. Inside the heart of people, the attitudes and the spirits of individuals will only have become more and more proud. And, once the rebellion of 2 Thessalonians 2 has manifested, God will allow the final wars of AC4 in one last ditch effort to save as many souls as possible.

MY JOURNEY

I found the details of AC4 to be somewhat bleak. I needed to examine the triumph of Christ and his people – the end of this world. Once again, extraordinary patterns and insights sprang from the text of the Bible, and I found that, even here, detailed predictions were possible if I measured their validity according to the standard of the Kingdom of God and its values.

ENCOURAGEMENT

GOD ALLOWS EVIL TO PROVOKE HOLY REPENTANCE TO CHRIST

The clown Antichrist may try to rule the world. However, the Bible says of God, ‘…You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you’ (2 Chronicles 20:6).

In the days of AC4, Humanism will seem to have eradicated wars, hunger, discrimination and disease. Revelation 13:13 says that he will ‘cause fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men’, thus referencing the time that Elijah did this to convince people that Yahweh was the victorious and triumphant way (1 Kings 18:38). This indicates a time when the FINAL ANTICHRIST is so deceptively persuasive that it will be impossible to distinguish the authentic God from the false god merely by sight. Rather, it will require a life of obedience to Jesus Christ. However, eventually, those very humanist reforms that are designed to end wars, hunger, discrimination and disease will suddenly produce all of these to an even worse degree. God’s way will be seen, even by many Humanists, to be far safer and better – the way of Jesus.

When God seems to allow Humanists a free reign in the destructive and evil powers they are given in the areas of science and tolerance, remember that, like any good father, God must allow them to make mistakes so that they might repent and come back to Him. And God is very forgiving when people do this. His standard for forgiveness is that one should forgive one’s enemies 77 times, in other words whenever they confess (Matthew 18:22). This is even more than would normally be considered a complete number of times by most people. God knows that we cannot practice this. However, he does practice it.

In 2 Thessalonians 2: 10-12 it may not seem that God has repentance in mind. Here it says that the Antichrist will deceive sinners who are already perishing anyway, and that God will allow this so that those who do not believe will be condemned. However, it does not say that all will fail to believe. In the future, some will repent out of disgust at what they see happening around them, and their part in it. God’s testing is like a ridge that no one can permanently straddle. It’s like trying to stand on the very point of an Egyptian pyramid for a year. All will either fall down God’s side or Satan’s side. In the last days, it will like be God is shaking his orange tree for the last time to try to wrest his fruit from it. If he only has one more chance to shake it, he will shake it very hard indeed in order to obtain from it every orange he possibly can. So, as Christians, we evangelise today to those who are losing faith in this present evil world.

So, if the world should endure a lengthy period everything just seems to just be getting worse and worse, realise that things were in fact at their worse before that period began. Then, there were so many non-Christians with no thought whatsoever of repentance to God. Now, through the present trouble, God is provoking some of them to think about this.

However, one may wonder why God would engineer situations designed to provoke repentance for those he already foreknows will never repent. Isn’t that pointless, as they will just end up in hell anyway? However, in hell they will be all the more convinced of the justice and the mercy of God, and hence the justice of their consignment in hell, because they will know that he gave them real chances to repent, and they refused to take those chances.

And, this provocation of repentance by God is completely justified. For, imagine what the world would become like if God never acted to provoke repentance from those who will repent. Therefore, consider what humanity could become like if Antichrists are not allowed to start major wars. With the continuance of a toxic status quo would come the steady growth and expansion of the mould of sin, as it targets the conquest of everyone. Therefore, as destructive as major wars are in so many ways, they are necessary.

IMAGE 13 – DIETRICH ECKART

CONCLUSION

THE END OF THIS WORLD

As has been mentioned, the earth as we know it will be transformed by Jesus at his Second Coming. It will be replaced by a new earth, and we will be given new bodies.

When Jesus was born, the background was a story about a mother and her baby. So too will it be when this era ends. For, then, the last baby will be born who can ever be born. For all individual humans are an expression of one single aspect of God’s total personality, and God will have fully expressed himself the birth of the final human. For, just as any person’s body is capable of creating a finite number of new cells to replace the old cells, so too will humanity be allowed a finite number of human births. At this time, Jesus will bring to an end this era with a word from his mouth, “It is finished”, as he spoke on the cross. However, this time the sentence will be uttered in an opposite set of circumstances. Jesus will come in power, and the mother of the last baby will be the opposite of Mary, by being destined to be unknown in this world’s history, and by bearing not the child of God, but just a normal child. However, her life will still be a sacrifice of a sort, because her baby will not be permitted to live for any significant amount of time because this world will be destroyed.

Some believe that humanity will be wiped out by Climate Change in the next few years. If you carefully read any academic paper written on Climate Change it will usually stress that climate study involves a large number of variable factors, any one of which can skew research results. Therefore, papers are littered with academic non-indemnity clauses such as, ‘the following results only suggest…’, or ‘these results have been obtained from a limited model only’. However, many read these results as certain truths. In fact, God has made the future behaviour of the climate as hard to predict as meteorites and super-volcanoes, and as hard to understand as the beginning and the end of this world. And, He meant to. All of these events are phenomena that God alone controls and understands. Hence, their sheer size dwarfs our ability to comprehend and predict them. They are God’s, not ours. Any certain knowledge of the future of these things is only derivable from the subject of theology, not science. Just as science will never lead us to understand how the world was created, so it cannot tell us how it will end. Scientific knowledge often seems to run perpendicular to theological knowledge, such that one will never truly inform the other.

That having been said, Climate Change is still a warning from God. It is a warning against allowing our love of money and power to cause us to forget about our solemn responsibility to steward the environment.

THE RETURN OF CHRIST

The nature of Jesus’ Second Coming is that it will: (1) be universally manifest (Daniel 7:13), (2) end the history of all peoples (1 Corinthians 15:24), and (3) be unexpected (Matthew 24:37-44). So, how will this occur?

The war of the FINAL ANTICHRIST will be the only truly whole-of-the-world war because, by that time, all nations will have access to weapons of mass destruction and the whole world will genuinely be in target range – and so the whole world will be fiercely fought over. This will be the war that everybody takes part in and sees. The FINAL ANTICHRIST will seem to be completely undefeatable and will have held the world in a dark and hopeless subjection for many years, one from which it appears that there can be no escape. God will allow this to occur as the hardest form of testing that the world has ever seen; the godly will be sanctified by it, and the recalcitrant will need the harsh shake-up of a testing this strong to have any chance of turning back to God. There will seem to be no possible way to escape AC4. Unexpectedly, Jesus will come and, in view of all, slay AC4 and allow all nations’ history to end with himself clearly in charge. Daniel 7:21 – ‘As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgement in favour of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom’.

In defeating the FINAL ANTICHRIST, Jesus will capitalise on the internal division within the realm of AC4. This is the same type of division that occurred in the feet of iron and clay on Daniel’s statue, with the rebellious forces of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and also in the last weeks of Hitler’s life, which saw an open rebellion against him, even from his previously ardent supporters. The inherent weakness that is always present in evil is that it cannot internally cohere in the way that the force of good can.

Jesus’ Second Coming will be the opposite of the cross in many ways, this time Christians will rejoice and pagans will weep. The Christians will be released by being taken up before the final transformation of the world into the new earth. Thus, this will also be the opposite of the cross, as this time the living will rise, not the dead. Then, whereas the cross was Jesus’ judgement against the Israelites, his Second Coming will see the salvation of many Israelites. And with the ending of this era, rather than an agonised Jesus being watched by a humanity who has been given power over him, and who could help him but does not, an agonised humanity bound in its sufferings will be watched by a powerful Jesus, who could release them but does not. Various natural phenomena will occur that will be God-caused. At the time of the cross there was an earthquake and a solar eclipse. This time, there will be an astronomical event that will be seen by all (Rev 6:12-17, Matt 28:29, 2 Peter 3:10). Finally, this Coming of Jesus will occur in plain sight for all people to see at once, as opposed to Jesus first coming which had to be told to people individual by individual; this will be yet another opposite.

The word spoken by Jesus to end the era, by taking up all pagans and destroying all that is on the earth, will come just as the FINAL ANTICHRIST seems to be about to destroy humanity. However, victory will be snatched from him, just as it was from Satan who could not keep hold of Jesus’ death after the cross; and God will win. Indeed, in Daniel 8:25, which describes the tyranny of an Antichrist-type character, it says, ‘Yet he will be destroyed (defeated), but not by human power’. How will this happen? The answer has to do with the fact that the Spirit was given at Pentecost using powerful wind and fire as symbols (not the genuine articles) - forces that can be used for creation or destruction (eg. Zechariah 2:5 where God is a protective wall of fire). In his first bodily incarnation, Jesus sent his Spirit from above to a concentrated area of the world in one room, as a symbol of the destructive physical forces of wind and fire, which were at that time inverted to build up his faithful people in an act of creation, along with edifying words of encouragement. However, in his second bodily incarnation, Jesus will send his Spirit from this earth to a wide area that is the whole world, as an actual destructive force, now used to destroy an unfaithful people and all that is on the world, accompanied by terrifying words of judgement. This represents many more opposites between the first and second comings of Christ. It also portends an astronomical end to this world, as is suggested by the following verses: Matthew 24:29; Revelation 6:12-17; 8:10, 9:1; 20:11 and 21:1; and 2 Peter 3:10. After Jesus has taken up the Christians, he will come to the newly converted Jews, where he can give encouragement, and take them up. Then, with the breath (Spirit) of his mouth (2 Thessalonians 2:8), he will complete this era. Jesus will not perish when he destroys this world because, having been glorified by the Father, he will come in strength and be immortal.

To summarise some of this, there is a table below comparing the two advents of Christ.

Table 12 – The Two Advents of Christ

ASPECT NUMBER	1ST COMING OF CHRIST (the Cross and Pentecost)	2^ND COMING OF CHRIST (the Parousia)
1	The unsaved rejoiced	The unsaved will weep
2	The Christians wept	The Christians will rejoice
3	The dead rose	The living will rise
4	God judged the Israelites	God will save the Israelites
5	Jesus was agonised	Jesus will be joyful
6	Jesus was powerless	Jesus will be powerful
7	The unsaved were empowered	The unsaved will be powerless
8	The unsaved did not render assistance to Jesus	Jesus will not render assistance to the unsaved
9	There was an earthquake and a solar eclipse	There will be a different astronomical event, perhaps a meteorite
10	Jesus appeared to a single people group, and the rest of the world had to be told about him	Jesus will appear in plain sight for all to see at once
11	Jesus sent his Spirit down from above to this earth	Jesus will stand upon this earth and send his Spirit out to the astronomical universe
12	Jesus sent his Spirit to a small area – one room	Jesus will send his Spirit out to the whole world in one go
13	Jesus sent his Spirit as a symbol of destructive forces – wind and fire	Jesus will send his Spirit as an actual destructive force
14	This symbolism was inverted to manifest a creation act	This symbolism will remain non-inverted to manifest as a destructive act
15	The Spirit was broadcast to deliver salvation to a faithful people	The Spirit will be broadcast to condemn and unfaithful people
16	The Spirit was accompanied by edifying words of encouragement	The Spirit will be accompanied by terrifying words of judgement

HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH

HOW WILL THE NEW EARTH COME ABOUT?

The new earth will not be a recreation of the old one, but a transformation of it. Riddlebarger says that the Bible indicates that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will be the time of cosmic renewal when every trace of sin is removed from all creation.[212]

God’s first act in creating the glorious new age was the triumph of Christ on the cross, which won the victory of the regeneration of human hearts and minds. The physical regeneration of both human bodies and the natural world, to create a new earth, will be the second and final phase of this undertaking. After all, why should God completely make the earth again if he did it perfectly the first time? This world will not be completely destroyed, rather, this world in its present form is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31). Thus, Revelation 20:11 states that the evil creation, faced with the purity of God, ‘fled from his presence and there was no place for them’ (i.e. it was rid of sin, and thus destroyed in its present form). This is consistent with 2 Peter 3:10 which notes that when Jesus comes again ‘The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare’.

As the creation account is about love and righteousness, so is this other apocalyptic account - the formation of the new earth. It will be similar to our human conversion. In our human conversion, our old heart (the centre of our will) was rid of sin and, in that way, the old one was destroyed and a new one was born. Therefore, in Ezekiel 36:26-27 it says, ‘… I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (relationship)). And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and keep my laws’. Our new heart wants to obey God, and this is the start of our journey of sanctification. From this new heart, we can one day transform into someone who is completely sinless under God, in living on the new earth. So also, one day, will the old evil earth be rid of all sin and in that way destroyed, and a new one will be born to be progressively built upwards and outwards from the surface by the saints into a world of marvellous cities. This is a transformation of something that is evil into something that is sinless.

And, just as a person cannot reach purity by spiritual evolution (the gradual reformation of what exists now), only by revolution (a total metamorphoses from the inside travelling outwards), so the formation of the new earth will be the same. The earth’s purification, via the removal of all sin, will not be an evolution. God’s transforming of the old earth into the new earth will be like his transforming of a pagan into a Christian, and then into a member of God’s community in heaven. Rather than turn the earth into something completely different, God will turn it into the earth it was always created to be – its best and most unsullied self. It is interesting that, in the description of the city of God, there is not one line that could not apply to the kingdom in this world (Revelation 21:9-22:5), so it will not be totally recreated, but partially recreated and transformed. It will be like the earth has been beautifully dressed. We see this in Revelation 21:2-4 which gives a comforting description of the new earth: … coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. … “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them … He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”.

Additionally, the fact that the new earth starts more or less immediately after the old one has been completely destroyed suggests transformation not recreation, otherwise, if the earth was recreated, there would be no reason why the new earth could not commence before the old one was completely destroyed.

This notion of transformation is consistent not only with scripture, but God’s pattern of acting transformationally right through the Bible.

Here are some examples of this:

1) Jesus came INTO the world from outside to transform it;

2) Jesus’ miracles were transformations of physical things;

3) Jesus and the Spirit enters pagans to transform them into Christians as they must be born again because they cannot be fixed (John 3:5);

4) God enters historical situations and transforms them (Genesis 50:20); and

5) Jesus resurrection body is new but it also contains some continuity with our present existence, suggesting a transformation, not a total recreation.

THE FEATURES OF HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH

Heaven and the new earth will be all that an Antichrist is not. It will have the following four main features:

(1) LOVE (INTEGRATION)

The nature of God is love, and the nature of love is integration, which is really the same thing. God is perfectly integrated so that all of the parts of him are one unified whole, at the same time as being different from one another, as are the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. This perfect integration allows God to both contain varied parts and be one homogenous whole at the same time. This explains the nature of the Trinity.

Love is integration because love draws the right things together in true unity; all that God intended to be joined by his creation will be joined by love. In heaven, God and humans will be drawn together in perfect unity, as will all that surrounds them, in what will amount to the total manifestation of the God who is both love and integration. He will be all in all.

(2) ABSOLUTE GOOD

Because all will be integrated, nothing will be separated by evil. Therefore, there will be only good. This is called absolute good. This absolute will be extreme and eternal.

(3) ACCESS TO GOD

Therefore, with no separating powers of evil, Christians’ access to God and each other will be complete. Just as Pentecost implanted the Holy Spirit inside humans to grant them a new level of access to God, so too will this dawning of yet another new era accordingly bring humans another step closer to God once again. Thus, everything God that has will be ours also.

(4) RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

With our access to God being complete, God will have created humans FROM and OF and BY and WITH and FOR and TO relationship with himself, right from the start. Heaven and the new earth will reflect these creation purposes of God.

WHAT WILL BE THE PLACE OF JESUS’ IN ALL OF THIS?

All things will be given to Christ by God:

‘For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross’ (Colossians 1:16-20).

MY JOURNEY

Well there it is! What a place to end!

At the beginning of this book I said that the aim of this book is to discover the meaning of these strange times and beyond by tracing God’s grand historic plan for humanity from the Bible. I had determined in the introduction that the best way to do this is to unravel the most difficult mystery of all regarding God’s plan, the antichrist of the Bible.

In the introduction, I made this statement: ‘My hypothesis is that the Bible supports an ascending four-Antichrist theory. This working theory forms the hub of a wheel of many areas of investigation and thought.’

I hope that the many strands of substantiating patterns, the spokes of the wheel of my argument, have been sound enough and convincing enough to support my theory, the hub of my argument. For me, it has been. However, the one thing that may finally prove my antichrist theory is the body of predictions contained in it as, one by one, they become fulfilled. This would finally constitute the sort of hard evidence that would be very difficult to disagree with.

I also said this: ‘The main purpose of this document is not simply to understand prophecy and the future. The purpose of this document is the central purpose of Christianity - to further the Great Commission.’ I hope that your outworking of the Great Commission in your own life is assisted in some way by this book.

Thank you for taking this journey with me. I can only say that it seems that it was meant to be. At all points I was walking through this jungle blindfolded. I did not know what was around each corner. However, by taking the kingdom of God approach that God had provoked me to take, God was able to lead me into truth at each point. And what is that truth? It is that God is in control and the Antichrist is a clown. Yes, I was nervous that I would hit dead-ends. But I never did! The discoveries just kept coming. I was also nervous that I would find truths that contradicted what I had already asserted. That never happened. When I look back, I don’t think that I ever could have so beautifully harmonised history and the Bible with any other theory. Had I simply made my own autonomous investigation, I would have ended up with shards of disconnected facts, and no harmonising idea. I would have tried multiple angles of enquiry and been unable to link what I was establishing. God, however, had the plan from the start, because he could see everything from the start. Thank you God for leading me through this horrifically difficult, and seeming interminable and unintelligible, maze of a puzzle with both grace and patience.

Our God is great!

AFTERWORD

So there it is, a coherent prediction founded on biblical scripture that fills in the gaps that exist inside of the boundaries of that scripture.

In the introduction, I wrote, ‘The main question I wish to answer is: Regarding the event of the political reign of the antichrist, when will it happen, what will it look like, and what should our response be?’ As you can see, I have answered this.

As I write, the Chinese-born COVID-19 virus infects the world. In the context of the predictions of this book, it is a likely prophetic sign of China’s future destructive infiltration of the world’s countries. Also, in 2020, it has been 75 years since the world was embroiled in a World War. Born in the mid-sixties in the West, my generation has not been required to fight in a large-scale military conflict. In fact, virtually none of us have even seen one first hand. This cannot continue forever in this evil, sinful world. However, even though words such as these tend to trigger an instant anxiety response in most people, there really is no need to worry. If our God of love allows you to experience suffering, you can count on the following four assurances which emanate from his power: (1) I am capable of enduring it and growing spiritually as a result of it, or God would not be subjecting me to it; (2) I need it, or God would not be allowing me to experience it; (3) therefore, if I did not experience it, I would be worse off in the future; and (4) this suffering will prepare me for the blessings God wants to give me which will be very good, therefore enduring it will make the suffering worthwhile.

This is why we should do our best to work through issues of anxiety when God changes our circumstances, even though that can be extremely difficult to do. In 1 Peter 1:7, Peter says: Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

John 1:5 – ‘The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.’

Finally, Paul says the following in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10: ‘We do not want you to be uniformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hopes, that he will continue to deliver us…’.

May, 2020.

Copyright Simon Tonkin

IMAGE 14 – JESUS CHRIST

APPENDIX 1 – A CRITIQUE OF PREMILLENNIALISM AND POSTMILLENNIALISM

A CRITIQUE OF PREMILLENNIALISM AND POSTMILLENNIALISM

Regarding the millennium, the Bible refers to both a millennial period of Antichrist imprisonment, and a millennial period of the reign of God on earth. Both will last a symbolic thousand years - in other words, a millennium. As I have shown, they are just two sides of the same coin – the same event viewed from two different ‘camera angles’. As God applies his spiritual power to stop Satan from deceiving the nations into wiping out the church, another way to say this is that God imprisons Satan, thus nullifying his influence in this area.

The most credible theories with which to explain how all of this will work are: Postmillennialism, Premillennialism and Amillennialism. The ‘millennialism’ part refers to Christ’s one thousand year reign. The ‘post’ and ‘pre’ parts refer to the time of Christ’s Second Coming relative to the millennium reign, which will occur at the same time as the imprisonment of Satan. Postmillennialism means that Christ will come after the 1000 year reign of God and imprisonment of Satan; and Premillennialism means that Christ will come before the 1000 year reign of God and imprisonment of Satan. Amillennialism holds that Christ will come after the 1000 year reign of God and imprisonment of Satan, but asserts that there will not be a reign of exactly 1000 years, but rather one that lasts for God’s perfect amount of time.

Today, most Christians adhere to Amillennialism.

This critique will show why I dismiss both Premillennialism and Postmillennialism, and hence tend to favour Amillennialism.

PREMILLENNIALISM

Premillennialism holds that Christ will return to earth, slay the Antichrist, remove the devil and all the evil forces from earth, and then reign on earth for a literal 1000 years with the saints, most probably from Jerusalem. The evil on earth, though still present, will largely be restrained. Towards the end, Satan will be freed to gather his forces for a final conflict against the saints. He will be defeated, the dead will rise, the judgement will be executed and the eternal age begun.[213]

However, Premillennialism contradicts the Bible in a number of ways. I will look at four.

First, Premillennialism holds that, after Christ’s return in glory, sin and evil will continue, and in fact build to their climactic manifestation. However, the Bible states that the final judgement will occur at the same time as Christ’s Second Coming, and not some time after that. In Matthew 16:27 it says, ‘For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done’. Also, 1 Corinthians 3:13 states, ‘…his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light’. This indicates that the judgement of Christ will occur on the day of the Second Coming. Also, in Revelation 22:12 Christ says, “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done”. If Christ brings his reward with him at his Second Coming, this means that he judges the world then. Finally, in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7, Paul states, ‘God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels’.

Second, Premillennialism contradicts the Bible in another way. It does this by saying that history on this earth will continue at all after Christ’s Second Coming. In commenting on the transformation of this earth to the new earth, Peter says, 2 Peter 3:10: ‘But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire…’. Also in Hebrews 12 the writer first talks about Jesus warning people of judgement when he was on earth (verse 25). Then, in Hebrews 12:26-27, he states that, ‘At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain’. This passage indicates that when Jesus comes to earth once more he will remove all created things.

Third, Premillennialism asserts that Christ will reign with the saints on earth in a world where sin and wicked people have been largely subjugated. However, the Bible also states that the wicked will always oppress the saints (Genesis 3:15; Matthew 5:11: Romans 8:36; John 16:33 and 2 Timothy 3:12 – ‘In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Jesus Christ will be persecuted, while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.’. It also states that the only hope for the full deliverance for the church in the world is the Second Coming and the full judgement. Thus, the beast and the false prophet will be alive on earth immediately before the Second Coming so that Jesus can deal with them personally (Revelation 19 and 2 Thessalonians 2:8 – ‘And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming’.

Fourth, by arguing for a millennium of exactly 1000 years, Premillennialism reads symbolic books of the Bible as if they were written in a literal genre. Many who hold to Premillennialism also hold to Dispensationalism. This is a view which argues that there is a fundamental theological distinction between ethnic Israel and the church, such that the church is like an interlude in the progress of ethnic Israel’s prophesied history. Thus, the prophesied period of Israel’s 1,000 year reign of Christ is interpreted using literal grammatical-historical interpretation, and not prophetic symbolic interpretation, to mean that the reign of God with the saints will be a literal theocratic one located in Jerusalem, and not one experienced through salvation and located in heaven. However, this method of literal grammatical-historical interpretation of prophecy is applied to a genre of writing which is clearly apocalyptic and full of symbolic references. To take the symbols of Daniel or Revelation as literal descriptions not only produces some bizarre results (as you can imagine), but ignores the Bible’s own clear indications regarding how it should be read.

POSTMILLENNIALISM

Postmillennialism, on the other hand, holds that Christ will come after a literal or non-literal period of 1000 years, which is characterised by the universal acknowledgement of Christ by all, via successful evangelism, causing Satan to have no power over the earth and evil political regimes to collapse. Christ will not, however, be physically present on the earth. After this, there will be a short time of apostasy, then Christ will come and judge the world.[214]

However, Postmillennialism contradicts the Bible in a number of ways. I will look at four.

First, Postmillennialism implies that the time of the coming of Christ will be more or less predictable; it will occur just after the literal 1000 year reign. However, Jesus stresses the unexpectedness of his return in Matthew 24:36 – ‘No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’. He describes it as being completely unpredictable in Matthew 24:39, where he says that it will be like the days before the flood when people ‘knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away’. Also 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3 states: ‘for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety”, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labour pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape’.

Second, Postmillennialism also implies that the Gospel will be dominant and prevalent among people on earth at the coming of Christ. However, 2 Thessalonians 2 contradicts this. Just before the coming of Christ (in verse 8), it paints a picture of a widespread evil spiritual rebellion in verses 3, 7 and 10. Postmillennialism anticipates a future golden age for Christ’s kingdom in which the nations are effectively Christianised, resulting in economic, cultural and religious advances unsurpassed in human history. However, the Bible provides no suggestion that this will be the case.

Third, there are also problems with the use of a literal 1000 years. First, Paul never uses it in 2 Thessalonians 2. Second, after Chapter Three, Revelation is an apocalyptic book of symbolic and not literal numbers. Therefore, it is very hard to believe that a literal 1000 years would have been intended by God in Revelation 20.

Fourth, Postmillennialism can provide no date for the beginning of the millennium. Thus it cannot even say whether we are in the millennium now or not.

In the 1940s, the Holy Office of the Catholic Church condemned the doctrine of Postmillennialism as being ‘no longer safe to teach’. Today, relatively few adhere to it.

SOME ARGUMENTS FOR AMILLENNIALISM

In attempting to justify my selection of Amillennialism as the best theory of the three, I wish to answer the arguments most consistently used to try to rebut it. The following are the main questions, concerns and objections that are usually aimed at the theory of Amillennialism:

1) Is Amillennialism supported by the text of Revelation 19 and 20?

2) Is Amillennialism consistent with Jesus’ Tribulation prophecy?

3) Does Amillennialism facilitate the fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel?

(1) IS AMILLENNIALISM SUPPORTED BY THE TEXT OF REVELATION 19 AND 20?

THE TEXT

I will start with Revelation 20:2-10. This states that:

An angel of God has bound the devil for a thousand years (verse 2);

to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years are ended (verse 3);

after that, he must be set free for a short time (verse 3);

those who had been given authority to judge and the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years (verse 5);

the second death has no power over them (verse 6);

when the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison (verse 7);

he will go out and deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth – Gog and Magog – to gather them for battle (verse 8);

they surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves (verse 9);

but fire came down from heaven and devoured them (verse 9);

and the devil who deceived them was thrown in the lake of burning sulphur (hell) where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown (verse 10).

Excessive attention should not be paid to the tense of the statements. In a vision, it is normal for the tense to change many times.

Revelation 20:7 tells us why and how the Antichrist came when he did. It refers to the same happening as 2 Thessalonians 2:7:

a) 2 Thessalonians 2:7 - ‘For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now holds it back [God’s angels] will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way [by God]. And then the lawless one [the Antichrist] will be revealed…’

b) Revelation 20:7 - ‘When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth…’

Satan was deprived of much of his power and symbolically locked away after the war in heaven, which was won by the Cross of Christ (Revelation 12:1-9, 20:2 – He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.). Then he was ‘released from his prison after (the symbolic duration of) 1,000 years to deceive the nations’ (Revelation 20:7).

Satan’s release from prison in Revelation 20:7, which was prophesied to occur by an angel of God in the last days, represents his reissuance of power.

AN APPARENT CONTRADICTION

In Revelation 20, Satan is imprisoned for 1000 years, and we know that this happened straight after the cross of Christ. However, this chapter seems to contradict the previous passage Revelation 12:9-12. This passage indicates that, straight after the cross of Christ, Satan was liberated on the earth to cause all sorts of destruction. In this verse, Satan is said to be ‘cast out of heaven, where he may no longer accuse the saints before God, to the earth, where his war against the saints intensifies, because his time is short’.

Now, if Satan is liberated on the earth, how can he also be locked up in prison at the same time?

This is resolvable by remembering that much of the book of Revelation is written in a symbolic and not a literal genre. Thus, in Revelation 12:9-12, at the cross of Jesus, Satan was hurled down to earth, having been abolished from God’s inner heavenly court (cast out of heaven) so that he could no longer accuse Christians to God, and thus have them condemned by God. This was accomplished by Jesus taking the place of Christians and paying their debt on the cross so that they would be ‘not under the law’ (Romans 6:14). This means that Satan no longer has any valid accusation to make against Christians because they are not liable under the law any more. This is stated by Jesus in John 12:31 when he speaks about his death on the cross, saying that the prince of this world will be ‘driven out’ now. In that sense also Satan is cast out of God’s court as our accuser to God. Satan had accused Christians to God many times in the Bible. For example, in Job 1:11, he said that if God strikes down everything that Job has, Job will ‘curse you to your face’. Despite the illegitimacy of any accusation that Satan might make against Christians, he still lies to Christians that he can validly accuse them to God, and tries to put guilt and fear into their hearts as a result.

After Satan was abolished from the heavenly court, he was placed in a relatively earthly domain, a position of restriction from where he can agitate for his evil angels to cause destruction at an earthly level, but not in God’s celestial court to God’s people; and he did this with vigour because he knew that his days were numbered. Simultaneously, he was also imprisoned for a symbolic thousand years, where he was restricted with regard to his power to deceive pagans into persecuting God’s people. This resolves the contradiction.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Revelation 20 tells us that, after Satan is released to go out and deceive the nations, he will gather many from the four corners of the earth to surround the city that God loves. This is a symbolic way of saying that he will attack the reign of God in the world, and Christians. In describing the nations of the four corners of the earth, John uses the names Gog and Magog. This reference comes from Ezekiel’s prophecy of the invasion of Israel from the north by Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39. It describes a situation for Israel just after the exile, and for the people of God in the last days, when massive forces of evil are ranged against them such that their odds of survival would seem insurmountable, and yet God protected his people and the enemy was routed.

The reign of God that is mentioned above is being executed with those who had been given authority to judge and the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus (Revelation 20:4). This is simply the dead in Christ (Daniel 7:9-14, 27; Revelation 5:9-20 and Revelation 19:7) who, for the encouragement of John’s readers, are symbolised by the martyrs. They are alive in a disembodied and glorified form as souls in heaven. Thus, they will not be damned at the end of this world.

After Satan has been defeated, he will be thrown into hell with his accomplices.

BUT HASN’T SATAN ALREADY BEEN THROWN INTO HELL?

However, this ill-fated venture of Satan’s would seem to be impossible on the strength of the verses in Revelation 19. Revelation 19:19 describes a war between the beast, the kings of the earth and their armies on one side, and the rider on the horse and his army on the other side. Revelation 19:20 then states, ‘But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet … The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur’.

If the beast, the Antichrist, has already been thrown into hell, how can he be chained then set free for a time in the following chapter?

In his book, ‘A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times’, Senior Reformed Pastor Kim Riddelbarger provides an excellent answer.[215] It has to do with the concept of recapitulation. In the book of Revelation, the period between the days of the apostles and the final end times is covered in the chapters of Revelation 6 to 16. They describe the last days in terms of three sets of seven – the seven Seals (Revelation 6:1-8:5), the seven Trumpets (Revelation 8:2-11:19) and the seven Bowls (Revelation 15:1-16:21). However, they don’t describe them in chronological order. Rather, they all say the same things in a different way – from a different camera angle, if you will. This is the concept of recapitulation, and it is the pattern of the book of Revelation.

Riddlebarger argues that the two battles in Revelation 19 and 20 are the same battle, and that the two judgements of Satan and his cohorts are the same judgement. It’s a case of recapitulation. He argues two points with respect to this. First, the battles described in the two chapters are very similar as they both allude to the Ezekiel 38 and 39 battle previously described. In Revelation 19:18, John describes an angel exhorting the birds of the air to ‘eat the flesh’ of God’s enemies. In Ezekiel 39:17-20, wild animals and birds are summoned to feast on the remains of God’s defeated enemy, Gog. Also, in Revelation 20:8, the rebels are referred to as Gog and Magog, further tying together the two events. Also, in both accounts the forces of evil are nullified by burning sulphur. Finally, in Revelation 15:1-8 we are told that seven plagues will be sent to complete God’s wrath on earth. Revelation 19 is the seventh bowl. Therefore, if Revelation 19 and 20 depict different battles, why hasn’t the seventh bowl fulfilled God’s wrath against his enemies? So, they must depict the same battle.

His second argument has to do with the two judgements upon the nations mentioned in Revelation 19 and then Revelation 20. If Satan has been divinely judged in chapter 19, why does chapter 20 tell us that he was bound to stop him from deceiving the nations? He would have had no nations to deceive as he would have already been eternally judged. Thus, again, chapter 19 and 20 must describe the same event.

Finally, a portion of verses four and five regarding the saints reigning with Christ (v. 7) needs some explanation: ‘… And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received his mark [note that this is symbolic] on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years: (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended). This is the first resurrection.’ Firstly, though this verse only mentions the martyrs as reigning with Christ, it is considered by most commentators that all of the dead saints will reign with Christ because of verses such as: Luke 20:37: But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’; 2 Corinthians 5:8: We are confident I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord; and 1 Thessalonians 4:15: …we who are still alive…will certainly nor precede those who have fallen asleep. The martyrs are mentioned here to both exemplify them and encourage the present believers to whom John’s letter was written. Therefore, all Christians will be raised, right through this present age, to reign with Christ.

The picture here is of disembodied souls who are conscious not unconscious, due to verses such as these: (1) Job 19:26-27: And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I and not another. How my heart yearns within me! ; and (2) Luke 23:43: Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise”.

As for the section ‘the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended’, this refers to those who are not redeemed by Christ. They will not come to life at the end of the millennium, but later at the judgement. As Barnes says, the language here merely says that up until the end of the millennium they would not live, in order to affirm by contrast that the dead in Christ will live. It is not affirmed that they will live immediately after the millennium; a long interval may elapse before that occurs.[216]

Therefore, you can see, from all of these examples, that Amillennialism is well supported by the text of Revelation 19 and 20.

(2) IS AMILLENNIALISM CONSISTENT WITH JESUS’ OLIVET DISCOURSE?

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE

In Matthew 24 and Mark 13, Jesus utters a long prophecy. This prophecy is called the Olivet Discourse, because it arose out of a conversation that occurred on the Mount of Olives. Taking Matthew’s gospel as the authority here, world renowned commentator Richard France asserts that Matthew 24:4-35 speaks in highly figurative terms about the destruction of the Temple. After that, Matthew 24:36-51 answers the disciple’s question in Matthew 24:3 - “…what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

However, even when Jesus speaks about the destruction of the Temple, many of the predictions he gives there are subject to double fulfilment, such that they also apply to the end times. I have decided to include my complete argument about how Amillennialism is consistent with the Olivet Discourse as a double-fulfilment prophecy as an appendix: APPENDIX 2 - JESUS’ OLIVET DISCOURSE.

One of the things that the Olivet Discourse does establish for me is the great significance of the year AD 70 as the turning point marking the beginning of the new era, the age of evangelism, the millennium. But, even that doesn’t directly impinge on the subject of the Antichrist to any great extent. Therefore, I have included that as an appendix as well: APPENDIX 3 – THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AD 70.

(3) DOES AMILLENNIALISM FACILITATE THE FULFILMENT OF GOD’S PROMISES TO ISRAEL?

Please see the section ‘Jewish Persecution’ under the heading ‘Today’s Particularly Bad Worldwide Mass Deception’ for my treatment of this topic.

APPENDIX 2 – JESUS’ OLIVET DISCOURSE

When I refer to the Olivet Discourse, I will restrict myself to dealing with Matthew 24:4-35, which is the part of that exchange that scholars have found difficult. In this exchange with his disciples, Jesus answers two questions: ‘When will the Temple be destroyed?’ And ‘What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ He does this by pronouncing a prophecy that will have a double-fulfilment – in AD 70, and at the end of the age.

There are some who say that this passage in Matthew can only refer to the events of AD 70. They are called Preterists. However, I disagree with this conclusion because too much of what Jesus says clearly also refers to the end of the age. There are some who say that it can only refer to the end of the age, and not AD 70, due to the use of apocalyptic language, and they are called Futurists. As I shall show, I also disagree with this position. I believe that it refers equally to AD 70 and the end of the age.

THE TIME OF AD 70

Let me now examine this passage in terms of its reference to the events of AD 70. For some of my arguments, I will be assisted by the ideas of commentator Richard France, from his commentary ‘Matthew’, by R.T. France, TNTC, IVP, 1985[217].

In Matthew 24:4-35, Jesus describes the horror of the approach to, and the execution of, the total destruction and over-running of Jerusalem in 70 AD. He begins the passage by saying that the Temple will be destroyed, and ends it by stating that all of this will happen before this present generation dies out. Throughout, Jesus tries to prevent his disciples’ premature excitement about the Parousia, indicating that it will not happen during the time of this generation.

Verses 4-13 describe a number of calamities both inside and outside of Israel, all of which occurred in the time between the cross and the destruction of the Temple. Verse 14 states that ‘this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come’. The word ‘world’, as it pertains to the spread of the gospel of the kingdom, means the limited geography of the known world in Colossians 1:6 and 23, and Romans 10:18 and 16:26. Also, the phrase ‘all nations’, or ‘oikoumene’ in Greek, means the same thing in Luke 2:1 and Acts 11:28. Therefore, when historians say that by AD 70 the gospel had been preached to the whole of the known world at that time, they mean the Mediterranean area. The significance of this spread of the gospel of the kingdom is that by AD 70 the end of the old order could now come, because Christianity had been sufficiently established on earth for the old order to depart in favour of the new order – see ‘The Significance of AD 70’, Appendix 3. So, this passage is about the coming of a new order.

The horrors of the siege of AD 70 are then predicted in verses 15-22. These actually happened in history. Verse 21 predicts levels of distress for the Jews that are unequalled at any time in human history. That is because their religious system was destroyed forever and will never be resurrected, see earlier in this book, ‘Will the Jews Regain Their Temple?” in ‘Today’s Particularly Bad Worldwide Mass Deception’. Losing their entire religious system was for them an unequalled distress. The event of verse 22, wherein the days will be cut short to protect the elect, was enacted by God concerning the AD 70 destruction of the Temple. Verses 26-28 contrast those times with the Parousia, an event which will be denoted by its suddenness and unexpectedness. Then, verse 29 starts with the phrase ‘immediately after the distress of those days’, indicating that the same time period is being referred to.

Now comes the difficult part. There is a section of apocalyptic literature from verses 29-31 which does not only refer to the Second Coming, nor does it even explicitly mention it (unlike the next passage where it is prominent). The language used sounds like it is only describing the last days. However, that can be eliminated as a possibility in verses 26-28 which state that this event is not only the Parousia. Therefore, it also describes the fall of Jerusalem. And, in doing so, it references Old Testament prophecy

Verse 29 refers to the sun and the moon being darkened, the stars falling from the sky and heavenly bodies being shaken. This is drawn from many Old Testament prophecies and refers to the political fall of pagan nations via God’s judgement upon them. Let me look at some of them. In Isaiah 13, Babylon is judged and falls to the Medes. In Isaiah 34, Edom is judged and then falls. And, in Ezekiel 32, Egypt is judged and will fall. Here, Jesus is giving the shocking prediction that in AD 70 Israel will be judged and also fall, just like the pagan nations were judged and fell. This continues the same theme of God aggressively rejecting Israel that Jesus pursued in Matthew 21 and 22 when he withered the fig tree (Matthew 21:19), and told the Chief Priests that prostitutes would get to heaven ahead of them (Matthew 21:32), the kingdom of God would be taken away from Israel (Matthew 21:43) and they would go to hell (Matthew 22:13). Remember, Jesus is talking here about the final judgement on Israel as the chosen nation to whom the sacrificial system will never be returned, and from whom only a remnant will enter heaven. For the Jews, this is the first of two final judgements of God, the second being the final judgement of the world, so it is not surprising that this first one is spoken of as such a distressing thing – a final judgement usually is. After all, it is the worst thing that will ever happen to the Jews, worse even than the Nazi Holocaust. Before the advent of speculative exegesis, most biblical commentators understood the collapsing universal language of the sun and the moon being darkened, the stars falling from the sky and heavenly bodies being shaken in verse 29 to mean the destruction of the religious and civil state of the Jewish nation.[218] An example of this occurs in Genesis 37:9 when Joseph had a dream wherein the sun, moon and stars were bowing down to him. In that historical episode, the sun, moon and stars mean the governing authorities of the land. In 1847, John Forster wrote that the prophets frequently employed the Eastern mode of writing that used ancient hieroglyphic symbols. Using this system, the sun, the moon and the stars represented empires and states with their sovereigns and nobility. The darkening of the sun and moon represented an eclipse which signalled the entire overthrow of a state.[219] In 1832, Thomas Scott wrote that the darkening and shaking of the heavenly bodies symbolises the extinction of the light of prosperity and privilege from the Jewish nation, the unhinging of the authority of their rulers and priests, the abject misery of their people and especially their VIPs, and the moral and religious darkness they were consigned to.[220] Finally, in 1859, John Lightfoot wrote that the sun is the religion of the Jewish church, the moon is the government of the Jewish state and the stars are the judges of both.[221]

In verse 30, the language describing the Son of Man coming on the clouds is drawn from Daniel 7:13-14 and refers to the vindication and enthronement of Jesus and not solely the Parousia. ‘The coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven’ is a symbol for a mighty reversal of fortunes within history and at a national level. The sign of the Son of Man is best translated ‘banner’ and, along with the trumpet, is a military image for the victory of the Son of Man. The section ‘All the nations of the earth are said to mourn at this’, however this is better translated as ‘all the tribes of the land [of Palestine] are said to mourn at this’. The picture here is one of Israel mourning tribe by tribe over the one they have wrongly pierced.

In verse 31, it then says that ‘he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather the elect from the four winds’. This description is based on three passages that describe Israel’s return from exile (Isaiah 27:13, Deuteronomy 30:4 and Zechariah 9:14) and points to the Son of Man gathering his new people from all of the earth. So, this mode of apocalyptic expression has been invoked by Jesus to describe the indescribable – the cosmic and massive historical changes that were to occur when Jesus took authority in heaven and instituted the new age of church growth and kingdom expansion, with Satan chained up. This lines up well with the theory of Amillennialism and underlines the extent of the blessings felt by all in the period of God’s reign on earth.

Finally, in verse 34 Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened”. This indicates that all that he has said in the discourse so far refers to the AD 70 destruction of the Temple and not only to the end of the age.

However, there are still many who say that this passage only talks about the Parousia, and not the Temple. If that is true, those people must answer the following unanswerable questions:

1) If all of the four time references of this prophetic passage, point to it being fulfilled in AD 70: (1) ‘at that time’ (v. 23), (2) ‘immediately after’ (v. 29), (3) ‘right at the door’ (v. 33) and (4) ‘all these things will have happened before this generation passes away’ (v. 34). Why then do commentators interpret this passage as being fulfilled only at the Parousia?

2) How can the end of the age be the only time in view here when Jesus said, in verses 32 and 33, that the disciples can recognise the clues pointing to when the destruction of the Temple will happen, but not know when the end of the age will be?

3) If the disciples’ questions imply that they believed the Temple would be destroyed at the end of the age, is it not then likely that in verse 34 Jesus is emphasising that this will not be the case, and that this verse thus also refers to the destruction of the Temple?

4) Why would Jesus quote a passage that describes the vindication and enthronement of Christ (Daniel 7:13-14) to exclusively denote his Parousia, which is quite a different event?

5) Is it not unusual that, in supposedly exclusively talking about the Parousia in verses 22-35, Jesus never mentions the word Parousia?

6) For those who say that this passage cannot refer to AD 70 because of its use of apocalyptic language, if, according to Amillennialism, Jesus is about to reign with his disciples just as Satan is being chained up, is it not reasonable to say that the apocalyptic language of cosmic triumph and conquest in verses 29-31 is therefore totally appropriate?

Therefore, from beginning to end, the Olivet Discourse definitely speaks of the events of AD 70.

THE GREAT TRIBULATION

However, when it comes to the question of whether the Great Tribulation will occur throughout the church age between the two advents of Christ, or only at the release of Satan, I believe the answer is the second one. Some amillennialists hold that this tribulation is spread evenly throughout all the time of the church age, anytime Christians are persecuted or wars and disasters occur. However, many scholars, including Dr Kim Riddlebarger in his book, ‘A Case for Amillennialism’, persuasively argue that this prophecy of Jesus predicts that a particularly great Tribulation will occur as a double fulfilment, at both AD 70 and the end of the age.

This tribulation will be at its worst after Satan is released. I say this because, in Matthew 24:8 Jesus describes the signs of wars, famines and earthquakes as ‘the beginning on birth pains’. This implies that these signs will intermittently recur as worse and worse disasters over time. Therefore, there will be a tribulation that runs right throughout the church age. However, regarding the Great Tribulation, the one about which Jesus said in Matthew 24:21-22 ‘For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equalled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened’, that Great Tribulation will only come after Satan is released.

If one was to read back through the prophecy of Matthew 24:4-35, one would see many references to tribulations to be suffered just before the Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, there is substantial double fulfilment, such that this prophecy also shines a light on the nature of the Great Tribulation in the last days. Thus it joins the group of biblical passages that indicate a tribulation to be suffered by God’s people just before the Second Coming (2 Thessalonians 2, Ezekiel 38, 2 Timothy 3 and Revelation 20). In verses 4-35, Jesus prophesies a Tribulation for God’s people.

Also, regarding nature of this tribulation, it is interesting to look at the pattern of tribulation and liberation that is in the Bible.

Table 13 – The Pattern of Tribulation and Liberation of God’s People in the Bible

A LEADER OF GOD’S PEOPLE EMERGES	ESCALATING TRIBULATION	LIBERATION EVENT
Abraham Consents to Sacrifice Isaac	Slavery in Egypt	The Exodus
Moses Confronts Pharaoh	The Desert Ordeal	Taking the Promised Land
Samuel Resists an Israelite Monarchy	The Exile	Cyrus the Great Conquers the Babylonians
Jesus Endures the Cross	The Great Tribulation at the Release of Satan	The Second Coming

Each time a leader of God’s people emerges from a trial of some kind God’s people must endure a gradual and escalating tribulation over time, before a liberation event, which takes the form of a victory in a conflict, is sent by God to free his people once more.

Regarding the sufferings that Christians must endure in the Great Tribulation, the Bible tells us that Christians will be ushering in the kingdom of God itself by completing the sufferings of Christ on the cross and thereby gradually consummating the kingdom. This message is given in Colossians 1:24 – ‘Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church’. This is good news.

THE PAROUSIA AND THE END OF THE AGE

Let me now examine this passage in terms of its reference to the events of the end of the age. For some of my arguments, I will be assisted by the ideas of commentator John Piper[222].

In verses 4-14, Jesus describes a tribulation that spans the church age. However, as the book of Revelation shows that the spiralling of evil in this time is an ascending one, these tribulations, in their severest form, also describe the end of the age.

I will now show how the Olivet Discourse describes the end of the age and the Parousia, by comparing it with a passage that definitely does do this, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 the Man of Lawlessness, and showing that these two are roughly parallel passages.

Table 14 – The Man of Lawlessness and the Olivet Discourse

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12	Matthew 24:4-35
VERSE 3 - Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way …	VERSE 4 - Watch that no one deceives you …
VERSE 3 - for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the Man of Lawlessness is revealed.	VERSE 6 - Such things must happen but the end is still to come.
VERSE 4 – He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s Temple, proclaiming himself to be God.	VERSE 15 – So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand …
VERSE 8 – And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming.	VERSE 30 – At that time the Son of Man will appear in the sky… They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
VERSE 9 – The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders …	VERSE 24 – For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect - if that were possible.
VERSE 10 – They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.	VERSE 10 – At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
VERSE 12 - … and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.	VERSE 13 - … but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

It’s not hard to see where Paul is getting his ideas from. And so it can be seen that Matthew 24:4-35 definitely applies to the Parousia and end of the age, as well as AD 70.

APPENDIX 3 – THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AD 70

The year AD 70 marks the end of the old order and the beginning of the new order. This new order is one of the things that Jesus was referring to when he said on the cross in John 19:30, ‘It is finished’. The ‘it’ here could be his earthly life, his earthly ministry that God gave him to do, his ordeal of sacrifice, the high position and relative freedom of Satan, the world’s debt, and the many unfulfilled prophecies relating to Jesus. It can also mean the Old Covenant, or the Old Order of the Old Testament that is now finished to make way for the New Covenant or New Order, which is a covenant made in Jesus blood by his death on the cross. However, like with many prophecies for which I have demonstrated this, earthly changes don’t always instantly follow divine changes. There can be a lag time, which represents the time it takes for divine changes to manifest on earth across both history and geographical space. Hence, it took until AD 70 for the Old Order to completely end. This makes the siege of AD 70 both a theological and an historical event of very great importance and significance. In general, the church has underestimated the importance of AD 70, but it marks many turning points.

The following things happened by or during AD 70:

1) The Holy Spirit had spread widely and, with that, the New Order now had the necessary platform to succeed – this was part of the process of finishing the Old Order;

2) The New Testament, minus the books of John, had been completed – this was part of the process of finishing the Old Order;

3) The Temple, and therefore the Jewish sacrificial system, were destroyed – this was part of the process of finishing the Old Order;

4) The Christian Diaspora began when Jerusalem was destroyed – this was part of the process of establishing the New Order;

5) The community of the people of God changed, with the beginning of the Christian Diaspora, from being a convergent community to a divergent community – this was part of the process of establishing the New Order;

6) The people of God changed from being a people of large miracles to being a people of small miracles – and this was part of the process of establishing the New Order.

Let’s look at these one by one.

FIRST, the Holy Spirit had spread widely.

The Holy Spirit had now spread enough for Christ’s power to be seen widely, and for the Church to be strong enough to expand. The gospel now had a footing in some of the surrounding nations, and many people had a Christian church to attend. This meant that both of these were prevalent enough now for the New Order to be established, and the Old Order could be destroyed.

SECOND, the New Testament was completed, minus the books of John.

When it comes to dating New Testament books, there is very little certainty, and one could write dozens of pages arguing for this or that date. Therefore, the following is merely what I believe to be true. The two principles of inclusion for New Testament books at the Council of Rome in 382 AD were: 1) the author’s access to the earthly mission of Christ and 2) the proximity of the time of the writing of the book to the earthly mission of Christ. Regarding the second criteria, an effort was made to include works written no later than 70 AD. However, the testimony of many ancient writers indicates that John’s books were written later, mostly in the reign of Emperor Domitian. Even though they were written later, these books still had to be accepted into the Bible, as his connection to Christ was outstanding because he had been in the inner circle of just three of his disciples – Peter, James and John.

One attempted rebuttal of this theory is that John nominates Emperor Nero as the persecutor of Christians at the time of the writing of Revelation, which would date the book at before 70 AD. He does that in the following way. The name ‘Nero Caesar’ transliterated from Hebrew into Greek yields the Revelation 13 number of the beast, 666. If it is transliterated into Hebrew from Latin it gives 616, which is the number that appears in some early manuscripts of Revelation. This would seem to be fairly conclusive evidence that the beast referred to here is Nero. Interestingly, he was a man who claimed for himself divinity but fell short of the number of divine perfection, 777. Also, the name ‘Jesus’, in Greek, totals 888.

However, there was a myth at the time that Nero had come back to life as Emperor Domitian (the Nero Redivivus myth), so that Domitian was seen as the second Nero. This was aided by the fact that Domitian was quite similar to Nero in his rule; he was a populist and he persecuted Christians. Also, Domitian persecuted Christians with his imperial cult throughout Asian minor, where the book of Revelation places the Christian persecution, much more than in Rome, where Nero conducted his persecutions. And finally, he commonly exiled his enemies, as John had been exiled, whereas Nero did not. Therefore, the persecuting beast referred to in the book of Revelation would appear to be Domitian, and by double fulfilment the FINAL ANTICHRIST.

Some say that John would have been too old to have written Revelation at the time of Domitian. However, John most probably used a scribe to write his books. If his birth is placed at about 5 AD[223] and his final book, Revelation, was written in about 94 AD, he was about 89 at the time of writing. This would not have been too great an age for John to have dictated his vision of Revelation to a scribe.

Therefore, having dealt with the exception of the later writing of John’s books, I believe that the New Testament was written by AD 70. This represents the cessation of another part of the Old Order, the writing of the inspired word of God.

THIRD, the Temple and therefore the Jewish sacrificial system were destroyed.

The Jewish sacrificial system ceased in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple. This is the cessation of another part of the Old Order.

FOURTH, the Christian Diaspora began when Jerusalem was destroyed.

As a result of the destruction of Jerusalem, the Christian community was largely forced out of Israel. whence began a great period of outreach evangelism which has not ended to this day: the new era of evangelism and gospel expansion. For a further explanation of this point using Matthew 24:30-31, please see ‘Appendix 2 – Is Amillennialism Consistent with Jesus’ Olivet Discourse?’, where Jesus announces that he will gather his elect from the four corners of the earth. In the initial fulfilment of this prophecy, this represents the progressive establishment of the New Order, and refers to evangelism in all of the then known world, not all of the known world today.

FIFTH, the community of the people of God changed, with the beginning of the Christian Diaspora, from being a convergent community to a divergent community.

AND CORRESPONDINGLY…

SIXTH, the people of God changed from being a people of large miracles to being a people of small miracles.

In the Old Testament, the people of God were a convergent community. The Israelites had a permanent connection with the Spirit, in as much as it constantly passed through them like the air in one’s lungs, as opposed to residing in them in a fixed manner. This was derived communally through their shared life, shared laws, shared worship and shared identification as God’s chosen people, and was symbolised by the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle/Temple, which were always meant to be with God’s people. Hence, the extremely communal life they led. However, whereas the Spirit often guided them, they simply weren’t ready to have the Spirit reside in them permanently as a fixed presence. So, they had to stay together as one large group of people in order to live the communal life of the Spirit. They needed to live under one enforceable law, and they needed to do life together as a nation. This was the case because they needed to be led by God like a child is supervised by a Nanny, and the law was used to do this, as Galatians 3:23-25 explains: Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So, the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.

The other guide that Israel had was scripture, the Old Testament. This scripture was gradually being added to. As God accomplished mighty acts through his people, they could see his love and power clearly. These acts were often notable enough to be recorded as Scripture. They then served to instruct this whole people in the ways and heart of God, because these great acts were such that even if future generations did not witness them they could nonetheless convince future generations as significant and important scriptural stories even hundreds of years after they happened. It was important that this people stayed together so that God could do great acts for them which they could all witness, and so that they would have the Scriptures to teach them of God as they were read to them as a united people. Clearly, great miracles are needed for these kinds of scriptural stories to be generated. These large scale miracles were still being done by Christians at the end of the New Testament, which is just prior to AD 70. In the very last chapter of Acts, Acts 28, Paul healed a man by praying for him and placing his hands on him. Not only was this man healed but Paul also healed all of the rest of the sick people on that island (Acts 28:9). That is a big miracle. However, there is nowhere near as much evidence of them being done after that and, but for a small number of them, they ceased.

Today, however, we Christians are a divergent community. The emphasis may be on church unity but it is not on Christians all banding together as one country-sized group with one national law of God, one history, and scripture-sized mighty miracles being performed. Rather, the emphasis now is on going out to the nations to make disciples of as many as we can, and using small-scale spiritual gift miracles to assist in this. Today, with the Spirit living inside us, we can venture out into hostile territory knowing that God and his power are right there with us. And, this is what Christians have done from the Diaspora onwards in the New Order. For such a people, only small and more personal miracles are needed.

Thus, the importance and significance of the siege of AD 70, both as a theological and an historical event, can be seen.

APPENDIX 4 – GOD’S PROTECTION OF THE SOULS OF CHRISTIANS

In the Bible, Paul says that the cross of Christ ‘set his seal of ownership on us’ (2 Corinthians 1:22), which is ‘a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession’ (Ephesians 1:13). This seal, the Holy Spirit inside us, protects the souls of true believers forever.

(1) How Does This Protection Work In Practise?

Scripturally, this is how Revelation 12:10 will help Christians:

Romans 8:1 - Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Satan can try to trick us into falsely believing his condemnation, but the word of God says that we are never legitimately condemned as Christians, so we won’t believe him, and thus Satan can erect no barrier to our relationship with God.

Romans 6:14 - For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Satan cannot rule us because we are not subject to the Law anymore.

Romans 8:38-39 - For I am convinced that … [nothing] in all creation will be able separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, fellowship with God is always available to us.

Philippians 4:13 - I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Therefore, our circumstances cannot break our relationship with God.

Matthew 18:18 - I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Also, the actions of God in heaven will back us up by helping us to do his will on earth.

Romans 8:37 - No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Therefore, we can be spiritually victorious in this life and the next one.

These verses have enormous implications for us today. They even help to define what the Kingdom of God is. Why? Because while ever we are under Jesus we will not be condemned by God, and we cannot come under law. Rather, we will be able to overcome the condemnation of sin and be internally triumphant so that we will be able to face any situation with a victorious and healthy spirit, as we are backed up by the heavenly powers every step of the way. The importance of this cannot possibly be over-emphasised. If we hold onto this victory in our spirit, we can never be persuaded to give up on God. As Paul said, ‘Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day’ (2 Corinthians 4:16). In other words, as long as we hold onto God, though we may face trials and troubles, our salvation is bullet proof against Satan’s dishonest accusations, scheming servants and trying circumstances: ‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed’ (2 Corinthians 4:8, 9). Thus, our salvation cannot be threatened. So, with death and destruction all around, we are as spiritually safe as the Israelites of the Passover night were physically safe via the blood they placed on the sides and tops of the doorframes of their houses, which acted as a shield against Satan. This gives the cross incredible power. Another metaphor is the ark of Noah. This ark did not remove the danger to God’s people, of the water, but rather shielded them from it and lifted them above it. Similarly, the millennial reign of Christ does not remove sin from the world, but protects God’s people from it, in a watertight manner, by God’s power and love. This is the pattern of God’s actions. His plan is not to remove all sin from the world, but to reign amongst it through the Kingdom of God, and thus continue to allow sinners to repent at the same time.

This reminds me of the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament messianic prophecy of the Kingdom of God. They believed that the Messiah would come as a conquering king, because they thought that the reign of God required that he must have the political power to remove the outward manifestations of sin and evil from the earth. What actually happened was that Jesus came as a humble and sacrificial teacher who offered power and peace to his followers by defeating the sin inside them. Why? Because it is our personal sin, and not the world’s sin, that stops us from enjoying the blessings and power of God. Christ defeated this by giving us salvation from sin, a power that Satan cannot defeat in any genuine follower of Jesus.

This undefeatable quality of the salvation of a genuine Christian contains the same unchallengeable power of God that is in: the cherubim and flaming sword at the east side of Eden, the gulf between heaven and hell, the action of raising Christ from the dead, and the confiscation by God of the Jewish Temple at the hands of the pagan gentiles. If Satan ever tries to fight God’s decisive actions, he will lose.

Thus, the essential battle has been won, such that it cannot be lost. With all of this unstoppable victory, it is as if God’s salvation stands on a hilltop so that it cannot be defeated in battle, and will ensure many more victories in lives of believers. And that is exactly the situation. This idea of a seminal victory I call ‘The Hilltop Principle’.

(2) The Hilltop Principle

In the 12 principles of God that I mentioned in the introduction, number 12 was: ‘When God completes a major conquest he tends to first win the seminal victory then takes the rest of the territory later’. In ancient times, armies used to aim to take the hilltops as the seminal victory that ensured a total military victory later on. This was because the hilltops were the easiest to defend and the hardest to take back. Once the hilltops were taken, an army could usually take its time conquering the lowlands bit by bit. So, the hilltops are the critical strategic areas, the most difficult battles, the centre and essence of power from which all other blessings flow, like from a wellspring.

Scripture describes many ways in which God has applied this principle:

a) When Israel was taking the Promised Land, she gained control of the Bethel, Gibeon and the Upper Beth Horon region, so that she dominated the centre of the North-South Palestinian ridge – the hilltops. Subsequently she was able to break the power of the allied urban centres in separate campaigns North and South at lower altitudes;

b) Jesus’ victory on the cross was the difficult hilltop conquest that later flowed down to person after person;

c) When God converts an individual to Christianity, he wins the central battle for that person’s heart, then spends much longer progressively sanctifying them over the years, as that individual’s spiritual victory spills out into their behaviour, their lives and their world. As a result of this spiritual victory that keeps us joined with God if we hold onto it, we have a strong relationship with God. This new closer and indestructible relationship we have with God gives us the full rights of sons.

(3) The Full Rights of Sons

The Spirit gives us a God-consciousness and a willingness to obey God that is described as ‘sonship’ in the New Testament. We now have a closer relationship with God, as is detailed by the sonship passage Galatians 4:1-7.

Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. So, in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So, you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

This sonship passage corresponds to the creation of a new heart within us which is detailed in Ezekiel 36:26, 27:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Both passages make it clear that we now have a more advanced maturity in our relationship with God (Jeremiah 31:31; 1 John 2:27), in that we can know the heart of God without needing mediators, as the Israelites did in the Old Testament. This is a result of God’s people possessing the Spirit. All, and not just some, of God’s people have the Spirit, and they have it all the time, and not just for temporary periods of time (Romans 8:9-11; Ephesians 3:17).

(4) More Examples of our Reign on Earth

This closeness with God makes us stronger, more at peace, more joyful, more discerning and more victorious. Thus, at this time, when God reigns on earth from heaven, we experience the benefits of a victory that is ever-expanding as it rules more of us and the world. Here are five more examples of our spiritual reign on earth:

a) We reign with God by administering (running the KOG on earth), and judging (our evangelism, which will be used by God in his judgement of people).

b) In Matthew 11:11, the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than anyone born up until John the Baptist, because they reign.

c) Our spiritual power as people who reign with God is very great: kill us and we go to paradise; torture us and we become heroes of the kingdom. This is a no-lose situation. Over the millennia, since the cross, the people of God have improved the world with medicine, education, law and health initiatives.

d) John 14:14 - ‘You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it’. All our requests in Christ’s name are granted on the spot (though they may take longer than that to materialise). Therefore we don’t have to wait to find out if we will get what we ask for in Christ, we find out now. The pattern on earth is that we normally have to wait to find out if we will get what we wish for, because of the natural barriers of time and circumstance. However prayer is spiritual, so it transcends time and circumstance. This is how it will be in heaven. This is what it is like to reign with God.

Thus, in one sense, we already have the first instalment of the new earth, right now, and it is a spiritual victory that is certainly all that we need to deal with the problems of any Antichrist. It’s an incredible time to be alive. Many Christians just don’t know how blessed they really are, thanks to the cross of Christ.

HALLELUJAH!!!

APPENDIX 5 – THE DATES AND DURATIONS OF THE ANTICHRISTS

If you don’t like number and mathematics feel free to skip this appendix and simply take my word for all the calculated number in the main text of the book.

The following is not some kind of delusional crystal ball gazing charlatanism whereby I really believe that I can calculate exact dates and time durations and thrill the world. No. Instead, I merely seek to obtain a rough idea and some kind of general picture of the dates and durations of the Antichrist. Therefore, all of the solutions to these calculations are, strictly speaking, approximates only. Each calculation pertains to a topic covered in the main text of this book.

When it comes to calculations regarding AC4, such as the birth year, death year and national leadership accession year of AC4, as well as the duration of the last days when Satan is out of prison, the answers that I have given are based upon what I call the Simplistic Model – the situation whereby the arrival of AC4 will match the pattern of all the other major Antichrists. This may well not be the case. Instead, it is possible that the arrival of AC4 may be preceded by an interval of indeterminable length that satanically parodies the 400 years of prophetic silence that preceded Jesus. If this is the case, it would push back all of the calculation answers to longer durations and later dates (but not later than the answer to calculation 15). Also, my date for the death of AC4 may be too late, as it may not coincide with the end of this world. He may die sooner than this. On the other hand, my date may be too early if, by this time period, it transpires that the average person lives for significantly longer than people live today.

THE NUMERICAL CALCULATIONS

(1) THE DURATION OF THE MILTARY BUILD-UP OF AC1

Regarding Napoleon, his build-up of power started with the Revolutionary War in 1789 and ended at the fateful Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

1815 - 1789 = 26 years.

(2) THE DURATION OF THE MILITARY BUILD-UP OF AC2

For Hitler, his build-up of power also started before Hitler took power, with Satan’s preparation for his rule. It started in 1907 when Germany came to feel threatened by the triple entente (union) between France, Britain and Russia, in response to Germany’s 1881 alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. Thus, Germany began to look for ways to start a European war. This build-up finished in 1945.

1945 - 1881 = 38 years.

(3) THE DURATION OF THE MILITARY BUILD-UP OF AC3

The build-up for the next Antichrist nation, China, appears to have begun with the initiation of island building in the South China Sea in 2013, which was the beginning of its military expansion into recognised international territory. This will continue until the death of AC3 in about 2067 (see calculation 8).

2067 – 2013 = 54 years.

(4) THE DURATION OF THE MILITARY BUILD-UP OF AC4

The duration of the military build-up for AC4 cannot be calculated in the same way as for the other Antichrists, because I have no start date. Therefore, I will use a different calculation method. As it appears that each successive build-up will be longer than the one before it, I will simply extrapolate this trend by calculating the average extrapolation factor as the average proportionate increase each time. Then, I will apply that as the increase from AC3 to AC4.

The successive military build-ups: AC1 = 26 years, AC2 = 38 years, AC3 = 54 years.

The average extrapolation factor: 38/26 = 1.46, 54/38 = 1.42. (1.46 + 1.42) / 2 = 1.44.

Extrapolating from AC3 to AC4: 54 X 1.44 = 77.7 years.

(Note, this means that a build-up of power and aggression for AC4 may begin in about the year 2113 which will be about 46 years after the death of AC3 in 2067 [see calculation 8]. This build-up will proceed for about 77.7 years to AC4’s death in 2191 [see calculation 10]).

(5) THE TIME DURATION BETWEEN ANY TWO MODERN ANTICHRISTS

There are four modern Antichrists, but how far apart in time will they be? Because of the probability of pattern variation along this proposed sequence of four Antichrists, I believe it would be safest to take, as a very rough time difference between Antichrists, the average (which is also the median) of the two possible calculations of the time difference between any two modern Antichrists.

These two calculations are: (1) the difference between Napoleon and Hitler’s birthdates, and (2) the time difference between the major life turning points for Napoleon and Hitler.

The first method - birthdates: Napoleon was born in 1769, and Hitler was born in 1889

1889 – 1769 = 120 years.

The second method – major turning points: According to the table in Chapter 5 – ‘Napoleon and Hitler Compared’, this time difference is 129 years.

The Average: (120 + 129)/2 = 124.5 years.

(6) THE MIDPOINT OF THE ERA OF AC3

The era of AC3 (the current Antichrist era) can be defined the time span that begins at the end of the era of AC2, and ends at the end of the era of AC3. To find this, I must identify the year of the endpoint of the era of AC3. To find the midpoint of this era, I simply locate the midpoint of this time span. If one takes, from calculation number four, the number 124.5 to be the approximate amount of years that separate Antichrists, the length of an Antichrist era, and 1945 as the end of the era of AC2, the midpoint between these two eras can be calculated.

1945 + (124.5/2) = the year 2007.

(7) THE BIRTH YEAR OF AC3

I calculate the birth year of AC3 by taking, from calculation number four, the number of years between Antichrists as approximately 124.5 years, and adding this to Hitler’s birth year of 1889.

1889 + 124.5 = the year 2013.5.

(8) THE DEATH YEAR OF AC3

To find the approximate death year of AC3, I add to his birth year (2013.5) the average lifespan of the two Antichrists who have already lived, Napoleon (51 years) and Hitler (56 years).

The average lifespan of AC1 and AC2:

(51 + 56 years)/2 = 53.5 years.

The birth year of AC3 = 2013.5.

2013.5 + 53.5 = the year 2067.

(9) THE BIRTH YEAR OF AC4

The birth year of AC4 can be calculated by adding the average separation time between Antichrists (from calculation 4) of 124.5 years to the approximate birth year of AC3 (from calculation 6) of 2013.5.

2013.5 + 124.5 = the year 2138.

(10) THE DEATH YEAR OF AC4

To find the approximate death year of AC4, I add to his birth year (2138) the average lifespan of the two Antichrists who have already lived, Napoleon and Hitler (from calculation 7) – 53.5 years.

2138 + 53.5 = the year 2191.5.

(11) THE DURATION OF THE LAST DAYS WHEN SATAN IS OUT OF PRISON

To calculate the approximate duration of the Last Days, I calculate the time from the release of Satan, the Dechristianisation of France (1789), to the death of AC4 (2191.5).

2191.5 - 1789 = 402.5 years.

(12) THE YEAR IN WHICH AC3 WILL ACCEDE TO NATIONAL LEADERSHIP

There are two way to calculate this. Therefore, I will use both of them, then calculate the average of the two answers to obtain my final figure.

METHOD 1

To calculate this, I simply add the time difference between any two modern Antichrists (from calculation 5), 124.5 years, twice over, to the year of the formal accession to ultimate national power of Napoleon (1799).

1799 + 124.5 + 124.5 = the year 2048.

(Note that this is approximately 28 years from the current 2020 date of the writing of this book, and would make AC3 34.5 years old when he accedes to national leadership).

METHOD 2

There is also another way to calculate this. I simply take the average age of the formal accession to ultimate national power of Napoleon and Hitler (1933) and add it to the birth year of AC3 (2013.5).

Ages when ACs took power: Napoleon: 1799 – 1769 = 30 years. Hitler: (January) 1933 – 1889 = 43 years.

Average age when they took power: (30 + 43)/2 = 36.5 years.

2013.5 + 36.5 = the year 2050.

(Note that this is approximately 30 years from the current 2020 date of the writing of this book, and would make AC3 36.5 years old when he accedes to national leadership).

THE AVERAGE OF THE ABOVE TWO: (2048 + 2050)/2 = the year 2049.

This figure of 2049 is significant because it is the year by which the CCP vowed to make China the premier power in the world.

(Note that this is approximately 29 years from the current 2020 date of the writing of this book, and would make AC3 35.5 years old when he accedes to national leadership).

(13) THE YEAR IN WHICH AC4 WILL ACCEDE TO NATIONAL LEADERSHIP

METHOD 1

To calculate this, I simply add the time difference between any two modern Antichrists (from calculation 5), 124.5 years, three times over, to the year of the formal accession to ultimate national power of Napoleon (1799).

1799 + 124.5 + 124.5 + 124.5 = the year 2172.5.

METHOD 2

There is also another way to calculate this. I simply take the average age of the formal accession to ultimate national power of Napoleon and Hitler (1933) and add it to the birth year of AC4 (2138).

Ages when ACs took power: Napoleon: 1799 – 1769 = 30 years. Hitler: (January) 1933 – 1889 = 43 years.

Average age when they took power: (30 + 43)/2 = 36.5 years.

2138 + 36.5 = the year 2174.5.

THE AVERAGE OF THE ABOVE TWO: (2172.5 + 2174.5)/2 = the year 2173.5.

(14) THE LENGTH OF THE MILLENNIUM OF SATAN’S IMPRISONMENT

This can be calculated by taking the year of Jesus’ death on the cross (33) and subtracting it from the date of the end of the millennium, the Dechristianisation of France in 1789.

1789 – 33 = 1756 years.

(15) THE LATEST APPROXIMATE YEAR DURING WHICH THE WORLD COULD END

Note that this isn’t the year when the world will end. As I have already mentioned, exactly when God will execute Jesus’ Second Coming is a mystery. If anyone says they know, they don’t. God will not reveal it. It is important that it remain a mystery. If the date of the Second Coming were known, people would be tempted to try to manipulate God by carousing in sin until just before the Parousia (return of Christ), and then ‘repenting’. Considering that I don’t know the date of the birth of AC4, nor do I know how long he will live, nor do I know how long people will live at that time, nor do I know if there will be a gap between the Parousia and the end of this world, I am dealing with an unknown upon an unknown upon an unknown upon an unknown. So, you can see that I have no clear idea when either the Parousia or the end of this world will be. Remember, my purpose for this book is not to nail down the dates or the exact individuals of the future. It is to gain a ballpark understanding of a huge portion of the Bible – prophecy.

This approximate figure can be calculated by starting with the year of the Cross (33 AD) and adding to this the length of the millennium (1756 years), and then adding the longest time that could represent Revelation 20:3 (‘… Satan must be set free for a short time.’). What length of time is this? As renowned commentator Albert Barnes noted, the phrase ‘short time’ means a short time relative to the length of the millennium. I notionally define this time period as any duration that is less than half the length of the millennium. Therefore, I define the maximum length of this short time as half the length of the millennium minus one.

33 + 1756 + (1756/2 – 1 = 877) = approximately the year 2666.

INDEX AND SCRIPTURE INDEX

1 Corinthians 1:20....................................................................................................................... 43

1 Corinthians 1:20-24.................................................................................................................. 43

1 Corinthians 1:23-24.................................................................................................................. 43

1 Corinthians 14:24-25.................................................................................................................. 7

1 Corinthians 14:3....................................................................................................................... 19

1 Corinthians 15:24................................................................................................................... 243

1 Corinthians 15:25..................................................................................................................... 34

1 Corinthians 2:12....................................................................................................................... 43

1 Corinthians 2:4......................................................................................................................... 13

1 Corinthians 3:13..................................................................................................................... 251

1 Corinthians 5:5................................................................................................................... 14, 25

1 Corinthians 6:2....................................................................................................................... 122

1 Corinthians 7:31..................................................................................................................... 246

1 John 2:18............................................................................................................................ 23, 98

1 John 2:19................................................................................................................................. 23

1 John 2:2................................................................................................................................. 203

1 John 2:22................................................................................................................................. 23

1 John 4:18................................................................................................................................... 6

1 Kings 18:38............................................................................................................................. 240

1 Kings 9:6-7............................................................................................................................. 202

1 Peter 1:19.............................................................................................................................. 141

1 Peter 1:20.............................................................................................................................. 226

1 Peter 1:7......................................................................................................................... 122, 249

1 Samuel 17.............................................................................................................................. 239

1 Thessalonians 4:15................................................................................................................. 256

1 Thessalonians 5:18................................................................................................................. 182

1 Timothy 2:4...................................................................................................................... 40, 122

1 Timothy 4:1............................................................................................................................ 196

1 Timothy 6:19............................................................................................................................ 39

2 Corinthians 1:22..................................................................................................................... 267

2 Corinthians 1:8-10.................................................................................................................. 249

2 Corinthians 3:14....................................................................................................................... 14

2 Corinthians 4:16..................................................................................................................... 267

2 Corinthians 4:17....................................................................................................................... 30

2 Corinthians 4:8, 9................................................................................................................... 267

2 Corinthians 5:8....................................................................................................................... 256

2 Kings 2................................................................................................................................... 225

2 Peter 1:9................................................................................................................................ 182

2 Peter 3:10............................................................................................................... 244, 246, 252

2 Samuel 22:2-3.......................................................................................................................... 95

2 Samuel 7:16............................................................................................................................. 73

2 Thessalonians 2........................................................ 24, 27, 28, 29, 49, 72, 218, 219, 225, 240, 254

2 Thessalonians 2:3..................................................................................................................... 69

2 Thessalonians 2:7............................................................................................................ 166, 196

2 Thessalonians 2:8............................................................................................................ 245, 252

2 Timothy 3:12.......................................................................................................................... 252

2 Timothy 3:1-9......................................................................................................................... 219

Acts 1:7................................................................................................................................... 8, 10

Acts 2:24.................................................................................................................................... 74

Acts 2:47................................................................................................................................... 137

Acts 28:9................................................................................................................................... 265

Acts 5....................................................................................................................................... 225

Ahnenerbe................................................................................................................................. 76

Al Bakr...................................................................................................................................... 213

Alan Turing................................................................................................................................. 68

Albert Barnes...................................................................................................... 104, 157, 161, 238

Albumasar.................................................................................................................................. 94

Alexander the Great.................................................................................................................. 105

Alois Hitler.................................................................................................................................. 73

American Revolution................................................................................................................. 174

Amillennialism................................................................................................. 31, 37, 251, 253, 256

Amos 7:2-6................................................................................................................................. 16

Antiochus Epiphanes........................................................................................................ 28, 68, 69

Anti-Semitism...................................................................................................................... 75, 201

Aquinas...................................................................................................................................... 46

Arab Spring........................................................................................................................ 176, 219

Aristotle..................................................................................................................................... 44

Augustine................................................................................................................................... 32

Babel............................................................................................ 48, 50, 53, 55, 159, 160, 208, 236

Babylon................................................................................................... 26, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 100

Babylonian Empire.................................................................................................................... 148

Barabbas................................................................................................................................... 213

Barack Obama........................................................................................................................... 175

Baron D’Holbach.................................................................................................................. 46, 158

Battle of the Bulge...................................................................................................................... 63

Battle of Waterloo............................................................................................................. 152, 271

Beast......................................................................................................................... 25, 26, 94, 95

Beer Hall............................................................................................................................. 63, 171

Beer Hall Putsch.......................................................................................................................... 63

Belt and Road............................................................................................................................ 185

Benjamin Disraeli...................................................................................................................... 201

Benjamin Franklin..................................................................................................................... 174

Bernie Sanders............................................................................................................................. 6

Billy Graham............................................................................................................................. 170

Blitzkrieg............................................................................................................................. 62, 235

Bodmer Papyri.......................................................................................................................... 162

Bolt Report............................................................................................................................... 180

Bourbon Restoration................................................................................................................. 154

Brexit................................................................................................................................ 177, 186

Brown Shirts............................................................................................................................... 77

Caesar...................................................................................................................... 65, 77, 80, 289

Carl Jung.................................................................................................................... 71, 74, 76, 77

Carl Zuckmayer........................................................................................................................... 74

Charles Darwin...................................................................................................................... 46, 47

Chronicles 20:6......................................................................................................................... 240

Claude Helvetius.................................................................................................................. 46, 158

Climate Change.................................................................................................................. 177, 243

Colossians 1:20-21...................................................................................................................... 16

Colossians 1:24......................................................................................................................... 261

Colossians 2:15........................................................................................................................... 32

Community Movement.............................................................................................................. 222

Connection Movement.............................................................................................................. 208

Constantine.............................................................................................................................. 261

Cult of Reason........................................................................................................................... 145

cyber attacks..................................................................................................................... 101, 150

Da Vinci Code............................................................................................................................ 229

Daniel 11:20-23........................................................................................................................... 30

Daniel 11:36.............................................................................................................................. 112

Daniel 11:36 – 12:3, 12:7............................................................................................................. 27

Daniel 11:44............................................................................................................................... 63

Daniel 12:11............................................................................................................................... 30

Daniel 2:21............................................................................................................................... 103

Daniel 2:34, 44-45..................................................................................................................... 238

Daniel 2:40............................................................................................................................... 238

Daniel 2:41............................................................................................................................... 238

Daniel 2:41-43........................................................................................................................... 238

Daniel 2:43............................................................................................................................... 238

Daniel 3:19............................................................................................................................... 237

Daniel 7............................................................................... 69, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 116, 122, 243

Daniel 7:10................................................................................................................................. 99

Daniel 7:13............................................................................................................................... 243

Daniel 7:13-14........................................................................................................................... 259

Daniel 7:17............................................................................................................................... 104

Daniel 7:18............................................................................................................................... 122

Daniel 7:2................................................................................................................................... 69

Daniel 7:21................................................................................................................. 104, 139, 244

Daniel 7:21-22........................................................................................................................... 103

Daniel 7:25.......................................................................................................................... 68, 104

Daniel 7:25-27........................................................................................................................... 103

Daniel 7:28............................................................................................................................... 108

Daniel 7:4-6......................................................................................................................... 98, 116

Daniel 7:7................................................................................................................................. 107

Daniel 7:9-14, 27....................................................................................................................... 255

Daniel 8:20............................................................................................................................... 106

Daniel 8:23................................................................................................................................. 62

Daniel 8:23-24............................................................................................................................ 69

Daniel 8:25............................................................................................................................... 244

Daniel 8:9-14............................................................................................................................. 112

Daniel 9:24-27........................................................................................................................... 203

Dark Ages................................................................................................................................... 35

David Andress........................................................................................................................... 133

David Hume................................................................................................................................ 46

debt trap diplomacy........................................................................................................... 150, 219

debt-trap diplomacy.................................................................................................................. 101

Deism................................................................................................................................... 45, 46

Democritus................................................................................................................................. 44

Denis Diderot...................................................................................................................... 46, 158

Destroyer................................................................................................................................... 95

Deuteronomy 30:4............................................................................................................... 35, 260

Dietrich Bonheoffer............................................................................................................. 78, 212

Dietrich Eckart............................................................................................................................ 75

dispensationalism...................................................................................................................... 252

Dome of the Rock...................................................................................................................... 202

Duke Charles Maurice de Thalleyrand-Perigord............................................................................. 80

Dunkirk..................................................................................................................................... 223

Edmund Burke........................................................................................................ 47, 90, 177, 289

Egypt............................................................................................................................... 43, 50, 83

Elam......................................................................................................................................... 117

Elijah Parish................................................................................................................................ 95

Enlightenment.......... 46, 47, 48, 79, 87, 89, 90, 145, 146, 157, 170, 171, 174, 175, 181, 197, 217, 222

Enoch......................................................................................................................................... 50

Ephesians 1:13.......................................................................................................................... 267

Ephesians 2:1-2........................................................................................................................... 14

Ephesians 2:2.............................................................................................................................. 36

Ephesians 5:20.......................................................................................................................... 182

Ephesians 6:10-20....................................................................................................................... 96

Eric Kurlander............................................................................................................................. 75

Ethan Smith................................................................................................................................ 95

Eugene Peterson....................................................................................................................... 225

Eugenics..................................................................................................................... 147, 167, 178

Eurasia................................................................................................................................ 68, 218

Eurasian land mass...................................................................................................................... 63

Eva Braun................................................................................................................................... 67

Exodus 33:13............................................................................................................................ 217

Extinction Rebellion................................................................................................................... 177

Extreme Left Wing............................................................................................................. 143, 217

Extremist Feminism............................................................................................................ 153, 210

Ezekiel 1:4-21............................................................................................................................ 117

Ezekiel 1:5-21............................................................................................................................ 117

Ezekiel 10:2............................................................................................................................... 117

Ezekiel 13:5.................................................................................................................................. 9

Ezekiel 22:18............................................................................................................................. 117

Ezekiel 22:30............................................................................................................................... 16

Ezekiel 36:26, 27.................................................................................................................. 14, 269

Ezekiel 36:26-27........................................................................................................................ 246

Ezekiel 38.................................................................................................................................. 140

Ezekiel 38 and 39....................................................................................................................... 255

Ezekiel 38:11............................................................................................................................. 140

Ezekiel 38:18-23........................................................................................................................ 140

Ezekiel 38:23............................................................................................................................... 14

Ezekiel 38-39............................................................................................................................. 126

Ezekiel 39:17-20........................................................................................................................ 256

Ezekiel 8:14................................................................................................................................ 67

Ezekiel chapters 1 and 10........................................................................................................... 116

Fascism..................................................................................................................................... 130

First World War................................................................................................................... 70, 100

forced technology transfer.......................................................................................... 101, 150, 219

Forms......................................................................................................................................... 44

Francis Galton................................................................................................ 47, 147, 167, 171, 178

French Materialist philosopher.................................................................................................... 46

French Revolution................................................................................................. 94, 145, 174, 177

Friedrich Nietzsche................................................................................... 47, 73, 147, 167, 171, 178

Fu Ying...................................................................................................................................... 190

Gaius Gracchus.......................................................................................................................... 107

Galatians 1:4............................................................................................................................... 36

Galatians 2:20........................................................................................................................... 154

Galatians 3:23-25...................................................................................................................... 265

Galatians 4:1-7.......................................................................................................................... 269

Galatians 4:24............................................................................................................................. 16

Galatians 4:5............................................................................................................................... 33

Galatians 4:5-7............................................................................................................................ 11

Genesis 11:4.......................................................................................................................... 48, 53

Genesis 12:3............................................................................................................................. 203

Genesis 16....................................................................................................................... 50, 51, 52

Genesis 16 and 17:20-21............................................................................................................. 50

Genesis 16: 6.............................................................................................................................. 51

Genesis 16: 9.............................................................................................................................. 51

Genesis 16:1............................................................................................................................... 51

Genesis 16:12........................................................................................................................... 204

Genesis 17:20........................................................................................................................... 204

Genesis 17:20-21........................................................................................................................ 51

Genesis 3:15............................................................................................................................. 126

Genesis 3:4.......................................................................................................................... 53, 234

Genesis 37:9............................................................................................................................. 259

Genesis 4.................................................................................................................................... 50

Genesis 4: 19.............................................................................................................................. 51

Genesis 4:17............................................................................................................................... 51

Genesis 50:20.................................................................................................................... 194, 247

Genesis 6:5................................................................................................................................. 50

Genesis 6-9................................................................................................................................. 12

Genesis 7.................................................................................................................................... 50

Genesis 8:21............................................................................................................................... 50

Genesis 8:22............................................................................................................................... 16

genetic modification.................................................................................................................. 160

Georg Lengerke......................................................................................................................... 100

George Steiner.......................................................................................................................... 133

German Worker’s Party............................................................................................................... 75

Global Financial Crisis................................................................................................................ 151

Globalisation............................................................................................................................. 208

Greatest Generation.................................................................................................................. 176

Greek Empire............................................................................................................................ 148

Habakkuk 1:8............................................................................................................................ 101

Hagar.............................................................................................................................. 50, 51, 52

Han Dynasty.............................................................................................................................. 218

Hannah Arendt.................................................................................................................... 87, 133

Hans Frank.................................................................................................................................. 75

Hebrews 10:22.......................................................................................................................... 182

Hebrews 10:24-25....................................................................................................................... 40

Hebrews 11:3............................................................................................................................. 34

Hebrews 12:26-27..................................................................................................................... 252

Hebrews 12:7, 10-11................................................................................................................... 40

Hebrews 13: 5-6........................................................................................................................... 6

Hebrews 5:8-9........................................................................................................................... 154

Heinrich Heine.......................................................................................................................... 133

Heinrich Hess....................................................................................................................... 75, 167

Heinrich Himmler.................................................................................................... 75, 76, 167, 191

Heinz Linge.......................................................................................................................... 67, 289

Herbert Marcuse....................................................................................................................... 211

Hermann Goerring............................................................................................................... 75, 167

Hester Piozzi............................................................................................................................... 95

Holocaust of the Jews................................................................................................................ 237

Homogeneity............................................................................................................................ 102

Hosea 13:7................................................................................................................................ 100

Hugo Grotius............................................................................................................................. 101

Hundred – Year Marathon......................................................................................................... 189

Hyper-Democracy.............................................................................................................. 146, 210

Immanuel Kant........................................................................................................................... 46

intellectual property theft.................................................................................................. 101, 150

International Manifesto of Humanism.......................................................................................... 48

IoT............................................................................................................................. 230, 231, 232

Isaac Newton.............................................................................................................................. 45

Isaiah 11:9.................................................................................................................................. 34

Isaiah 24:21, 22........................................................................................................................... 30

Isaiah 27:13......................................................................................................................... 35, 260

Isaiah 38:17.............................................................................................................................. 122

Isaiah 46:11................................................................................................................................ 40

Isaiah 53................................................................................................................................... 191

Isaiah 53:10.............................................................................................................................. 126

Isaiah 53:11.............................................................................................................................. 126

Ishmael........................................................................................................................... 50, 51, 52

IVF............................................................................................................................................ 160

J. David Markham....................................................................................................................... 88

Jabal........................................................................................................................................... 51

Jacobinism................................................................................................................................ 145

Jacques-Andre Naigeon........................................................................................................ 46, 158

James 1:2-4............................................................................................................................... 181

James 1:3-4................................................................................................................................ 15

James Cook............................................................................................................................... 198

Jean-Jacques Rousseau................................................................................................. 46, 137, 158

Jeremiah 49:36.......................................................................................................................... 117

Jeremiah 5:6............................................................................................................................. 100

Jeremiah 51:7........................................................................................................................... 113

Jerome..................................................................................................................................... 100

Job 1:11............................................................................................................................. 112, 255

Job 1:12.............................................................................................................................. 24, 112

Job 19:26-27............................................................................................................................. 257

Job 40......................................................................................................................................... 26

Job 41......................................................................................................................................... 26

Johann Georg Hiedler.................................................................................................................. 73

Johannes Gutenberg................................................................................................................... 35

John 1:5.................................................................................................................................... 249

John 10:18.................................................................................................................................. 40

John 12:31................................................................................................................................ 255

John 12:32.................................................................................................................................. 40

John 14:12.................................................................................................................................. 33

John 14:14................................................................................................................ 9, 16, 113, 270

John 14:9.................................................................................................................................. 228

John 15:15.................................................................................................................................. 11

John 16:10................................................................................................................................ 182

John 18:36.................................................................................................................................. 34

John 19:30................................................................................................................................ 263

John 2:18.................................................................................................................................. 115

John 3:16.................................................................................................................................... 73

John 3:5.................................................................................................................................... 246

John 4:24.................................................................................................................................... 34

John 7:18.................................................................................................................................... 13

John Howard............................................................................................................................. 143

John the Baptist........................................................................................................................ 144

Joseph Fouche............................................................................................................................ 62

Joseph Goebbels............................................................................................................ 75, 76, 167

Joseph Kennedy.......................................................................................................................... 78

Josephine.................................................................................................................................. 289

Julien La Mettrie.................................................................................................................. 46, 158

Julius Caesar...................................................................................................................... 105, 231

Karl Maria Wiligut....................................................................................................................... 76

Karl Marx.............................................................................................................................. 46, 47

King David.................................................................................................................................. 73

King of the North................................................................................................................... 29, 67

Konstantin Chernenko............................................................................................................... 192

Korean War............................................................................................................................... 189

Law Code................................................................................................................ 87, 89, 169, 178

Law Codes................................................................................................................................. 217

Lee Teng Hui............................................................................................................................. 216

Leni Riefenstahl.......................................................................................................................... 76

Leon Trotsky............................................................................................................................. 133

Li Xiaobo................................................................................................................................... 190

Li Zhaoxing................................................................................................................................ 190

Liberal Party.............................................................................................................................. 143

Licinius Crassus......................................................................................................................... 107

Liu Mingfu................................................................................................................................. 189

LLSAH......................................................................................................................................... 77

Longqing Emporer..................................................................................................................... 191

Lucien Bonaparte........................................................................................................................ 68

Luke 20:37................................................................................................................................ 256

Luke 21:24......................................................................................................................... 202, 203

Luke 22:29-30........................................................................................................................... 122

Luke 23:43................................................................................................................................ 257

Luke 3:21-23............................................................................................................................. 228

Mao Zedong........................................................................................................................ 54, 189

Mark 10:29............................................................................................................................... 141

Mark 8:21..................................................................................................................................... 9

Mark 9:40................................................................................................................................. 122

Matt 28:29................................................................................................................................ 244

Matthew 11:27........................................................................................................................... 56

Matthew 12:30......................................................................................................................... 122

Matthew 12:39........................................................................................................................... 10

Matthew 15:11............................................................................................................................. 9

Matthew 16:18...................................................................................................................... 33, 35

Matthew 16:23......................................................................................................................... 237

Matthew 16:27......................................................................................................................... 251

Matthew 18:17........................................................................................................................... 14

Matthew 18:18......................................................................................................................... 267

Matthew 18:22......................................................................................................................... 240

Matthew 19:28......................................................................................................................... 122

Matthew 21:19......................................................................................................................... 259

Matthew 21:32......................................................................................................................... 259

Matthew 21:43.................................................................................................................. 202, 259

Matthew 22:13......................................................................................................................... 259

Matthew 23:39......................................................................................................................... 202

Matthew 24: 13.......................................................................................................................... 25

Matthew 24: 31......................................................................................................................... 125

Matthew 24:10-12...................................................................................................... 158, 167, 196

Matthew 24:12......................................................................................................................... 161

Matthew 24:16......................................................................................................................... 202

Matthew 24:16-18..................................................................................................................... 139

Matthew 24:19-20..................................................................................................................... 139

Matthew 24:2........................................................................................................................... 202

Matthew 24:21.................................................................................................................. 139, 202

Matthew 24:21-22..................................................................................................................... 261

Matthew 24:24......................................................................................................................... 138

Matthew 24:29......................................................................................................................... 244

Matthew 24:3............................................................................................................................. 10

Matthew 24:30-31...................................................................................................................... 34

Matthew 24:36.................................................................................................................... 11, 161

Matthew 24:36-51..................................................................................................................... 257

Matthew 24:37-39...................................................................................................................... 11

Matthew 24:37-44..................................................................................................................... 243

Matthew 24:39......................................................................................................................... 253

Matthew 24:42........................................................................................................................... 10

Matthew 24:4-35............................................................................................................... 140, 257

Matthew 24:45-51...................................................................................................................... 10

Matthew 24:8........................................................................................................................... 261

Matthew 28:17......................................................................................................................... 228

Matthew 28:18.................................................................................................................... 34, 228

Matthew 28:20........................................................................................................................... 33

Matthew 4:3............................................................................................................................... 83

Matthew 4:5-6............................................................................................................................ 83

Matthew 4:8............................................................................................................................... 83

Matthew 5:11-12...................................................................................................................... 212

Matthew 7:13-14...................................................................................................................... 112

Max Amann................................................................................................................................ 74

Medo-Persian Empire................................................................................................................ 148

Mein Kampf.......................................................................................................................... 75, 76

Metoo...................................................................................................................................... 176

Middle Ages................................................................................................................................ 44

Middle Knowledge.................................................................................................................... 113

Mikhail Gorbachev.................................................................................................................... 192

Millennials................................................................................................................................ 175

Ming Dynasty............................................................................................................................ 190

Muhammad.......................................................................................................................... 50, 77

Net Neutrality........................................................................................................................... 230

Net Neutrality’.......................................................................................................................... 230

Numbers 14:21........................................................................................................................... 34

Occupy Movement............................................................................................................. 177, 219

Passover................................................................................................................................... 237

Peter the Great......................................................................................................................... 128

Philippians 2:7........................................................................................................................... 154

Philippians 4:12-13...................................................................................................................... 55

Philippians 4:13......................................................................................................................... 267

Philippians 4:6........................................................................................................................... 113

Philippians 4:8............................................................................................................................ 10

Phillip the Second of Macedon................................................................................................... 105

Pierre Cabanis..................................................................................................................... 46, 158

Pieter Geyl.................................................................................................................................. 87

Plato.......................................................................................................................................... 44

Pompeius Magnus..................................................................................................................... 107

Praetorian Guard........................................................................................................................ 77

Premillennialism........................................................................................................................ 251

Psalm 22..................................................................................................................................... 55

Psalm 27:4-6............................................................................................................................... 56

Psalm 72..................................................................................................................................... 34

Psalms 104:14-27........................................................................................................................ 16

Psalms 119:45........................................................................................................................... 218

Psalms 18:2................................................................................................................................ 95

Psalms 2:8.................................................................................................................................. 34

Queen Elizabeth........................................................................................................................ 176

Radiesthesia........................................................................................................................ 75, 167

Renaissance Humanism............................................................................................................. 130

Rene Descartes........................................................................................................................... 45

Rev 6:12-17............................................................................................................................... 244

Revelation 1:18......................................................................................................................... 228

Revelation 1:4............................................................................................................................. 72

Revelation 1:8............................................................................................................................. 72

Revelation 11:13....................................................................................................................... 203

Revelation 11:2........................................................................................................................... 69

Revelation 12:10................................................................................................................... 33, 36

Revelation 12:1-9, 20:2.............................................................................................................. 254

Revelation 12:3; 13:1................................................................................................................. 228

Revelation 12:6........................................................................................................................... 27

Revelation 12:8-10.................................................................................................................... 136

Revelation 12:9-12.................................................................................................................... 254

Revelation 13......................................................................................... 25, 82, 94, 95, 99, 116, 193

Revelation 13:1.............................................................................................................. 94, 95, 228

Revelation 13:1, 2.............................................................................................................. 115, 116

Revelation 13:1-2................................................................................................................. 99, 116

Revelation 13:13................................................................................................................ 193, 240

Revelation 13:13-14.................................................................................................................... 25

Revelation 13:14......................................................................................................................... 82

Revelation 13:15......................................................................................................................... 26

Revelation 13:16......................................................................................................................... 94

Revelation 13:17......................................................................................................................... 94

Revelation 13:18......................................................................................................................... 94

Revelation 13:2, 4).................................................................................................................... 228

Revelation 13:3.................................................................................................................... 82, 228

Revelation 13:3-4, 8................................................................................................................... 228

Revelation 13:4........................................................................................................................... 82

Revelation 13:7..................................................................................................... 94, 138, 139, 228

Revelation 13:7-8........................................................................................................................ 25

Revelation 14:8........................................................................................................................... 49

Revelation 16:14....................................................................................................................... 157

Revelation 17.............................................................................................................................. 26

Revelation 17:16................................................................................................................ 193, 239

Revelation 17:17....................................................................................................................... 113

Revelation 17:5................................................................................................................ 26, 49, 53

Revelation 17:6........................................................................................................................... 26

Revelation 17:8................................................................................................................ 26, 72, 82

Revelation 18:22......................................................................................................................... 51

Revelation 19 - 20..................................................................................................................... 126

Revelation 19:12....................................................................................................................... 228

Revelation 19:18....................................................................................................................... 256

Revelation 19:19................................................................................................................ 157, 255

Revelation 19:20.................................................................................................................. 26, 256

Revelation 19:3........................................................................................................................... 95

Revelation 19:7......................................................................................................................... 255

Revelation 2:27......................................................................................................................... 228

Revelation 20..................................................................................................................... 118, 255

Revelation 20: 4, 5...................................................................................................................... 31

Revelation 20:11................................................................................................................ 137, 246

Revelation 20:3............................................................................................................ 24, 136, 161

Revelation 20:4........................................................................................................................... 32

Revelation 20:7............................................................................................... 30, 32, 125, 127, 254

Revelation 20:7-8........................................................................................................................ 24

Revelation 20:7-9........................................................................................................................ 78

Revelation 20:8......................................................................................................................... 138

Revelation 20:9.......................................................................................................... 125, 140, 222

Revelation 21:22....................................................................................................................... 202

Revelation 21:2-4...................................................................................................................... 246

Revelation 21:27....................................................................................................................... 141

Revelation 21:9-22:5................................................................................................................. 246

Revelation 22:12....................................................................................................................... 251

Revelation 22:18......................................................................................................................... 13

Revelation 4.............................................................................................................................. 117

Revelation 4:6.................................................................................................................... 116, 117

Revelation 5: 6.......................................................................................................................... 117

Revelation 5:6........................................................................................................................... 228

Revelation 5:9-20...................................................................................................................... 255

Revelation 6.............................................................................................................................. 116

Revelation 6 - 16....................................................................................................................... 126

Revelation 6 to 16....................................................................................................................... 18

Revelation 6:12-17; 8:10, 9:1; 20:11 and 21:1............................................................................. 244

Revelation 6:16......................................................................................................................... 181

Revelation 7.............................................................................................................................. 117

Revelation 7:3............................................................................................................................. 24

Revelation 9:11........................................................................................................................... 95

Revelation17:10.......................................................................................................................... 26

Revelations 20:8........................................................................................................................ 196

Richard Wagner........................................................................................................................ 147

Rights of Man............................................................................................................................ 174

Robespierre.............................................................................................................................. 168

Roman Empire.......................................................................................................................... 148

Romans 11:23........................................................................................................................... 203

Romans 11:25.................................................................................................................... 203, 204

Romans 11:26............................................................................................................ 122, 158, 203

Romans 11:36............................................................................................................................. 16

Romans 16:20........................................................................................................................... 126

Romans 2:1................................................................................................................................. 19

Romans 6:14................................................................................................................ 33, 255, 267

Romans 8:1................................................................................................................................. 33

Romans 8:28-30.......................................................................................................................... 39

Romans 8:29............................................................................................................................. 123

Romans 8:37............................................................................................................................. 267

Romans 8:38-39........................................................................................................... 36, 154, 267

Romans 8:39............................................................................................................................... 33

Romans 8:5............................................................................................................................... 182

Romans 9................................................................................................................................... 13

Rudi Dutschke........................................................................................................................... 211

Samuel Bochart......................................................................................................................... 101

Sayyid Qutb.............................................................................................................................. 220

Second Treaty of Paris............................................................................................................... 154

stem cell therapy....................................................................................................................... 160

Steven Englund........................................................................................................................... 87

Table 1 – Antiochus Epiphanes and the Man of Lawlessness.......................................................... 29

Table 11 – The Final Antichrist Parodies Jesus............................................................................. 228

Table 11 – The Humanist Cohort................................................................................................ 211

Table 12 – The Pattern of Tribulation and Liberation of God’s People in the Bible......................... 245

Table 13 – The Pattern of Tribulation and Liberation of God’s People........................................... 261

Table 14 – The Man of Lawlessness and the Olivet Discourse....................................................... 262

Table 2 – The Humanist and Islamist ‘nations’............................................................................... 50

Table 3 - Lamech’s Sons............................................................................................................... 52

Table 4 – Islamism and Humanism............................................................................................... 52

Table 5 – Napoleon and Hitler...................................................................................................... 60

Table 6 - Daniel’s Beasts Prophecy.............................................................................................. 109

Table 7 – The Journey of the Jews and the Christians................................................................... 111

Table 8 - The Four Antichrist Types............................................................................................. 119

Table 9 – The millennium........................................................................................................... 135

Temple Mount................................................................................................................... 202, 205

Thales of Miletus......................................................................................................................... 43

The Fall of The Roman Republic.................................................................................................. 107

The Fall of The Roman Republic’......................................................................................... 188, 230

The Great Leap Forward.............................................................................................................. 54

The Roman Revolution’............................................................................................... 107, 188, 230

The Second Enlightenment........................................................................................................ 175

Thierry Lentz............................................................................................................................... 87

Thomas Aquinas.......................................................................................................................... 45

Thomas Hobbes.......................................................................................................................... 91

Thomas Paine............................................................................................................................ 174

Thule Society....................................................................................................................... 75, 145

Tianxia...................................................................................................................................... 190

Tim Berners-Lee........................................................................................................................ 230

Titus 2:11-12............................................................................................................................. 182

Tower of Babel.......................................................................................................................... 208

transhumanism......................................................................................................................... 160

tribulation.................................................................................................................. 139, 260, 261

Triumph of the Will..................................................................................................................... 76

Vladimir Putin.................................................................................................................... 110, 192

Volkisch................................................................................................. 75, 145, 171, 180, 189, 190

Voltaire...................................................................................................................................... 46

Wang Yiwei........................................................................................................................ 180, 190

Wild Bunch........................................................................................................................ 171, 192

William F Buckley Jnr................................................................................................................. 133

Winston Churchill........................................................................................................................ 87

World Ice Theory................................................................................................................. 75, 167

Xerxes....................................................................................................................................... 148

X-Generation............................................................................................................................ 175

Xi Jinping.................................................................................................................................. 191

Zecharaiah................................................................................................................................ 236

Zechariah 1:7-17....................................................................................................................... 117

Zechariah 12:10........................................................................................................................ 237

Zechariah 12:10-14.................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 12:12-14.................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 12:1-6....................................................................................................................... 236

Zechariah 12:6.......................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 12:7.......................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 13:2-6....................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 13:7-9....................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 14:10-11.................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 14:4-5....................................................................................................................... 237

Zechariah 2:5............................................................................................................................ 244

Zechariah 6:2-6......................................................................................................................... 116

Zechariah 9:10............................................................................................................................ 34

Zechariah 9:14..................................................................................................................... 35, 260

NOTES

[1] Robert McLeod, God’s Purpose for Bible Prophecy, WestBow Press, 2013.

[2] Unless indicated otherwise, all biblical commentary uses either: 1) The New Bible Commentary, edited by D.A. Carson, D Guthrie., J.A. Motyer and R.T. France, Inter-varsity Press, 1994; or 2) The N.I.V Study Bible, edited by Kenneth Barker, Zondervan, 1984.

[3] Sinclair B Ferguson, The Preacher’s Commentary – Vol. 21: Daniel, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004, p. 1443.

[4] Kim Riddlebarger, A Case For Amillennialism: Understanding The End Times, Baker Books, 2013.

[5] Ibid, Ferguson.

[6] Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief, Inter-Varsity Press, 1982.

[7] John Carroll, The Australian Newspaper, The Bard’s Big Q and A, 2/11/2018.

[8] For all of the following analysis of philosophers I have used the following three sources: (1) Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Philosophy Classics, Nicholas Brealey, 2017; (2) James Garvey, The Story of Philosophy, Quercus, 2012; (3) Philosophy: the Illustrated Guide to understanding and Using Philosophy Today, Edited by David Papineau, Dunan Baird, 2004.

[9] Kurt Mahlburg, Cross and Culture: Can Jesus Save the West?, Australian Heart Publishing, 2020.

[10] John Carroll, The Australian Newspaper, The Five Planks of Conservatism, 1/9/2018.

[11] Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790.

[12] Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly.

[13] americanhumanist.org/what is-humanism/manifesto2/

[14] Television show, The Outsiders, Rowan Dean, Sky Channel.

[15] Charles Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History 1803-1815, Viking, 2008.

[16] m.ereublik.com/en/article/two-tyrant-hitler-and-napoleon-and-their-mystical-coincidence-in-numbers—2311713/1/20 – Two Tyrant[S] – Hitler and Napoleon, and their mystical coincidence in numbers, Caesar Taras.

[17] Unless otherwise indicated the source of this list is: DVD – Napoleon, David Grubin, SBS, 2000; or historum.com/threads/similarities-between-naopleon-and-hitler.34512/ - Similarities between Napoleon and Hitler, Sayid Gishta.

[18] Desmond Seward, Napoleon and Hitler, Viking Penguin, New York, p. 14.

[19] Ibid, Seward, p. 11.

[20] Ibid, Seward, p. 22.

[21] Claude Ribbe, Napoleon’s Crimes: A Blueprint for Hitler, Oneworld Publications, 2007.

[22] Ibid, Claude Ribbe.

[23] Frank McLynne, Napoleon: A Biography, Arcade, 1997.

[24] Ibid, Grubin.

[25] The Hitler and Mannerheim Recording in Finland, June 4, 1942, Youtube.com/watch?v=oET1WaG5sFk.

[26] Laurens Van Der Post, Jung and the story of our time, Penguin Books, 1978, p. 24.

[27] Heinz Linge, With Hitler to the End: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler’s Valet, Skyhorse, 2014.

[28] DVD - Hitler’s Secrets, Arrow Media, 2016.

[29] Ibid, Seward.

[30] Recueil general des lois et des arrets, volume 38, Bureaux de l’Administration du recueil, 1859, p.76.

[31] Ibid, Grubin.

[32] www.quora.com/Did-Napoleon-love-Josephine, Ludivine Reynaud, 2018

[33] James Arnold, Napoleon Conquers Austria, Greenwood Publishing, 1995, p.194.

[34] Joseph Pronechen, ‘Fulton Sheen’s Clear Warning about the Anti-Christ’, National Catholic Register, Alabama, website, 2019.

[35] Neil Gregor, How To Read Hitler, Granta, 2005.

[36] Laurens Van Der Post, Jung and the story of our time, Penguin, 1976, p.22.

[37] Dorothy Thompson, I Saw Hitler, Farrar and Rinehart, 1932.

[38] Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, W. W. Norton and Co, 2000.

[39] Ibid, Johnson.

[40] Ibid, Seward.

[41] www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/born.htm - The History Place: The Rise of Adolf Hitler – Hitler is Born.

[42] DVD - Hitler’s Secrets, Arrow Media, 2016.

[43] Hitler’s Forgotten Library, The Atlantic Magazine, website, May 2003, by Timothy W Ryback.

[44] Ibid, Seward.

[45] Peter Longerich, Hitler: A Life, Oxford University Press, p. 76.

[46] Ibid, Longerich, p. 108.

[47] The Collected Works of Carl Jung, volume 18, p. 1229.

[48] Ibid, volume 10, p. 719.

[49] Peter Range, 1924: The Year that Made Hitler, Black Bay Books, 2016, p.52.

[50] Alice Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierachy, Lucis, 2015.

[51] Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality, Harper and Brothers, 1950.

[52] Eric Kurlander, Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich, Yale University Press, 2017.

[53] Kelly, J. H., ‘New translation of German book Links Hitler to Satanism’ (press release). PRLog, May 17, 2009.

[54] Ibid, Kurlander.

[55] Ibid, Kershaw.

[56]Michael Greer, The New Encyclopedia of the Occult, Llewellyn Publications, 2003.

[57] Ibid, Kershaw.

[58] Ibid, Kershaw.

[59] DVD – True Evil: The Making of a Nazi, Episode one – Joseph Goebbels, Wag TV, 2019.

[60] Ibid, True Evil.

[61] Frank Dikuter, How To Be A Dictator: The Cult of Personality In The Twentieth Century, Bloomsbury Press, 2019.

[62] DVD – Hitler: Power and Paranoia in the Third Reich, RMC Decouverte, 2018.

[63] Ibid, RMC Decouverte.

[64] Ibid, Arrow Media.

[65] DVD – Hitler: Power and Paranoia in the Third Reich, RMC Decouverte, 2018.

[66] DVD - Hitler’s Secrets, Arrow Media, 2016.

[67] Richard Wolin, The Seduction of Unreason, 2004, p.75.

[68] Website: Carl Jung Depth Psychology – There is no question but that Hitler belongs in the category of the truly mystic medicine man.

[69] Paula E. Hyman, The Jews of Modern France, University of California Press, 1998.

[70] Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, 2005.

[71] TS Allen – The National Interest; Napoleon Chronicles of Caesar, Arshan Barzani.

[72] Arshan Barzani (Translator) Napoleon: Chronicles of Caesar’s Wars, Independently Published, 2018.

[73] Ibid, Grubin.

[74] Ibid, Seward.

[75] Shannonselin.com/2015/11/was-napoleon-superstitious/ - Was Napoleon Superstitious? By Shannon Selin.

[76] Ibid, Grubin.

[77] Ibid, McLynne.

[78] Ibid, Johnson.

[79] Ibid, Grubin.

[80] DVD – Hitler: Power and Paranoia in the Third Reich, RMC Decouverte, 2018.

[81] DVD – Napoleon, David Grubin, SBS, 2000.

[82] Rein Taagepera, Size and Duration of Empires, 1979.

[83] John Durand, Historical Estimates of World Population, 1977.

[84] www.quora.com. Which countries did Napoleon conquer?

[85] Ibid, quora.

[86] Ibid, quora.

[87] Michael Leggiere, The fall of Napoleon, vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

[88] Soldaten Atlas, 1941.

[89] www.businessinsider.com.au. The ten greatest empires in the history of the world.

[90] Thierry Lentz, Napoleon and Hitler, the Improbable Comparison.

[91] Napoleon and Hitler, Journal of the Historical Society, vol. 6, issue 1, by Steven Englund.

[92] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill 1939-1941, p. 844.

[93] Pieter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against.

[94] Ibid, Seward.

[95] Ibid, Lentz.

[96] Pieter Geyl, Napoleon For and Against, 1982.

[97] Max Hastings, ‘Everything is Owed to Glory’, The Wall Street Journal, 13/11/2014.

[98] Ibid, Johnson, (Large Print) pp. 265-267; 11.

[99] Ibid, Seward, p. 90.

[100] Ibid, Burke.

[101] Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p.59; F P Lock, Edmund Burke, Vol 2: 1784-1797, Clarendon Press, 1999.

[102] Ibid, Burke.

[103] John Carroll, The Australian Newspaper, The Five Planks of Conservatism, 1/9/2018.

[104] Ibid, John Carroll, The Australian Newspaper, The Five Planks of Conservatism, 1/9/2018.

[105] Ibid, Burke.

[106] Ibid, Burke.

[107] John Carroll, the Australian Newspaper, Sinning Against Nature Now the New Religion, 4/7/2020.

[108] Ibid, Esdaile.

[109] www.dailymail.co.uk, Saturday, May 6th 2017, ‘The French Fuhrer: Genocidal Napoleon was as barbaric as Hitler, historian claims’, By Christopher Hudson (my passage is largely sourced from this text).

[110]Ibid, Seward.

[111] Ibid, Seward.

[112] Barnes’ Notes on the Bible in www.biblehub.com

[113] Unless otherwise indicated the source of the Daniel 7 observations will be Biblehub.com/commentaries/Daniel/7-6.htm - Barnes Notes on the Bible.

[114] Biblehub.com/commentaries/Daniel/7-6.htm - The Benson Commentary.

[115] Zara Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark (2011), and The Lights that Failed (2007).

[116] Ibid, Barnes.

[117] Ibid, Barnes.

[118] Ibid, Barnes.

[119] Ibid, Barnes.

[120] Ibid, Barnes.

[121] Ibid, Barnes.

[122] Ibid, Barnes.

[123] Deng Xiaoping, from the essay ‘Hide Our Capabilities and Bide Our Time, Make Some Contributions’, 2010.

[124] www.Andrew Hastie.com.au. What is to be Done?

[125] www.henryjacksonsociety.org/Breaking the China Supply Chain, by James Rogers, Dr Andrew Foxall, Matthew Henderson, and Sam Armstrong, May 2020.

[126] Ibid, Barnes.

[127] Thomas R Martin, Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric To Hellenistic Times (2nd ed.), Yale University Press, 2013.

[128] www.History.com, ‘After World War One, Hundreds of Politicians Were Murdered in Germany’, by Erin Blakemore

[129] www.web.ics.purdue.edu/~rauhn/fall_of_republic.htm

[130] Kim Riddlebarger, The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth About the Antichrist, Baker Books, 2006.

[131] www.hebrew4christians.com. The Letter Dalet.

[132] Ibid, Mahlburg.

[133] Max Blechman, Revolutionary Romanticism: A Drunken Boat Anthology, City Lights Books, pp 84-85.

[134] The website of the Institute of World Politics, The Dechristianisation of France During the French Revolution

[135] J. J. Spielvogel, Western Civilisation, 2006.

[136] www.wikipedia.org/Dechristianisation of France During the French Revolution

[137] Ibid, Collins.

[138] Robert Gildea, Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799-1914, Penguin, 2008.

[139] A Latreille, French Revolution, New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2002.

[140] www.psource.sitehost.iu.edu – Secularizing the Sacred: The Effort to Dechristianize France in the French Revolution, by Justin Dunn

[141] George Steiner from William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2001.

[142] Heinrich Heine, from Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, Harper Perennial, 1998.

[143] David Andress, The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

[144] William F. Buckley Jnr., Preface to Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism Revisited: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot, Regnery Gateway, 1993.

[145] Hannah Arrendt, On Revolution, Collins, 1973.

[146] Adolf Hitler from Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Liberty or Equality, Christendom Press, 1993, p. 247.

[147] Leon Trotsky from Norman Lebrecht, Genius and Anxiety, London, OneWorld books, 2019.

[148] Douglas John Hall, The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity, Wipf and Stock, 2002.

[149] Ibid, Pronechen.

[150] Kristofer Widholm Cabinet and Bernard McGinn, ‘Antichrist: An Interview with Bernard McGinn’, Cabinet Magazine, Issue 5, 2019.

[151] www.Opendoors.com

[152] Ibid, Range.

[153] Ibid, Seward, p.42.

[154] Ibid, Seward, p. 15.

[155] Napoleon’s Failures and Weaknesses, www.thehistoryofnapoleon.blogspot.com

[156] Marissa Linton, ‘How Napoleon Almost Destroyed the French Revolution’, History Magazine, April 2022, pp. 41-46.

[157] www.Andrew Hastie.com.au. What is to be Done?

[158] Barnes’ Notes on the Bible in www.biblehub.com.

[159] americanhumanist.org/what is-humanism/manifesto2/

[160] Ibid, Barnes.

[161] Kevin Simmington, Making Sense of the Bible, ark House Press, 2019.

[162] George Modelski, Long Cycles in World Politics, University of Washington Press, 1987.

[163] Kate Summerscale, The Haunting Of Alma Fielding, Bloomsbury Circus, 2020.

[164] Michael Collins, The Story of Christianity, 1999.

[165] Voltaire, Selections from the Philosophical Dictionary.

[166] Ibid, McLynne.

[167] Napoleon’s Failures and Weaknesses, www.thehistoryofnapoleon.blogspot.com

[168] Ibid, Johnson

[169] Ibid, Seward, p. 15

[170] Ibid, Esdaile.

[171] Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, 2005.

[172] Ibid, Hyman.

[173] John Carroll, The Australian Newspaper, Anguish Is Exquisite for Wielders of 18C, 2017.

[174] Shortt, R, Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack, Ebury Publishing, 2012.

[175] The Australian newspaper 18-19/01/2020 – Owners Put Brake on Wealth of Nations.

[176] Extinction Rebellion leader Gail Bradbrook speaking about the Extinction Rebellion, 2019.

[177] John C Rolland, Lebanon: Current Issues and Background, Nova Publishers, 2003.

[178] Clive Hamilton and Marieke Ohlberg, Hidden Hand: Exposing how the Chinese Communist Party Is Reshaping The World, Hardy Grant Books, 2020.

[179] Graham Allison, Destined For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides’ Trap?, Scribe, 2019.

[180] Salvatore Babones, Big Brother with Chinese Characteristics in www.quadrant.org.au, 29/10/2020.

[181] WTO Accessions: China, www.wto.org Retrieved 6/8/2018.

[182] A. Zafar, The growing relationship between China and sub-Saharan Africa: Macroeconimic trade, investment, and aid links. The World Bank Research Observer, 22(1), 103-130.

[183] www.newvision.co.ug. Newvision editorial, 2012, 265 Chinese investments in Uganda.

[184] The Rise of China, Television Program.

[185] Myanniu.com, 5/10/2017.

[186] Catalin Cimpanu for ‘Zero Day’, 23/4/20.

[187] Ryan Kilpatrick, National Humiliation in China, e-International Relations, retrieved April 3, 2012.

[188] Graham Allison, Destined For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides’ Trap?, Scribe, 2019.

[189] Ibid, Seward.

[190] Ibid, Seward.

[191] Edward Luttwak, The Australian Newspaper, Coronavirus: China’s Chernobyl Effect Turns Elite against Xi Jinping, 27/5/2020.

[192] Pewforum: Christianity (2010) (PDF). Archived from the original PDF on 9th September 2013.

[193] Paul Silas Peterson, The Decline of Established Christianity in the Western World, 22/9/2017.

[194] U.S. Decline of Christianity Continues at a Rapid Pace, Church and State, 9/2/2020.

[195] As Churches Close in Minnesota a Way of Life Fades, Star Tribune, 30/7/2018.

[196] Ibid, Star.

[197] Falling from grace – the Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church, Culture Witness. Retrieved 30/7/2018.

[198] Dan Bilefsky, Where Churches Have Become Temples of Cheese, Fitness and Eroticism, The New York Times, ISSN 0362-4331, Retrieved 30/7/2018.

[199] Conor Gallagher Glenties, Some Church Teachings Have as Much Validity as Danny Healy Rae’s Views on Climate Change, The Irish Times, Retrieved 30/7/2018.

[200] www.numberofabortions.com – Number of Abortions – Abortion Counters.

[201] www.amp.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/15/anti-Semitism-rising-sharply-across-Europe-latest-figures- show

[202] Ibid Guardian.

[203] www.Washington Post.com – Acts of anti-Semitism are on the rise in New York and elsewhere, leaving Jewish community rattled.

[204] Avraham Sela, Arab-Israeli Conflict. The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Continuum, 2002.

[205] Ibid, Shortt.

[206] Ibid, Shortt.

[207] Voice of the Martyrs, personal conversation.

[208] Journal, Voice of the Martyrs Australia, edited by Tony Benjamin, 2019.

[209] Ibid, Voice of the Martyrs Australia.

[210] Eugene Peterson, The Message Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language, NavPress, 2003.

[211] Ibid, Barnes.

[212] Kim Riddlebarger, A Case For Amillennialism: Understanding The End Times, Baker Books, 2013.

[213] Ibid, Milne.

[214] Ibid, Milne.

[215] Kim Riddlebarger, A Case For Amillennialism: Understanding The End Times, Baker Books, 2013.

[216] Ibid, Barnes.

[217] Matthew, by R.T. France, TNTC, IVP, 1985.

[218] Gary De Mar, Last Days Madness, Wolgemuth And Hyatt, 1999.

[219] John Forster, The Gospel Narrative, 1847.

[220] Thomas Scott, The Holy Bible With Explanatory Notes, 1832.

[221] John Lightfoot, A Commentary On The New Testament From The Talmud And The Hebraica, 1859.

[222] John Piper, The Second Coming: Not Before the ‘Man of Lawlessness’, Youtube video.

[223] Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem [c. 600 AD], The Life Of The Evangelist John, Chrysostom Press, 2007.

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The Antichrist Theory

THE MEANING OF THESE STRANGE TIMES AND BEYOND: PLOTTING WHERE WE ARE HEADED IN THE GRAND TIME PLAN OF THE BIBLE THROUGH A STUDY OF THE ANTICHRIST

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE – MY JOURNEY OF ENQUIRY

(1) WHAT WAS MY JOURNEY OF ENQUIRY?

(2) PORTRAYALS OF THE ANTICHRIST IN THE BIBLE

(3) WILL THE ANTICHRIST BE A HUMANIST OR AN ISLAMIST?

PART TWO – MY JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY

(4) WHAT WAS MY JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY?

(5) NAPOLEON AND HITLER COMPARED

(6) MORE ABOUT NAPOLEON AND HITLER

(7) DANIEL’S FOUR BEASTS

(8) EXACTLY HOW MANY MAJOR ANTICHRISTS WILL THERE BE?

(9) HEY PRESTO?

(10) THE COUNTRY OF THE THIRD ANTICHRIST

(11) WHEN WILL THE ANTICHRISTS LIVE?

(12) THE TIMING OF THE THIRD AND FOURTH ANTICHRISTS

(13) THE TIMING OF CHINA’S BUILD-UP

(14) TODAY’S PARTICULARLY BAD WORLDWIDE MASS DECEPTION.

(15) THE IMMINENT ANTICHRIST - ANTICHRIST THREE

(16) THE FOURTH AND FINAL ANTICHRIST

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX 1 – A CRITIQUE OF PREMILLENNIALISM AND POSTMILLENNIALISM

APPENDIX 2 – JESUS’ OLIVET DISCOURSE

APPENDIX 3 – THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AD 70

APPENDIX 4 – GOD’S PROTECTION OF THE SOULS OF CHRISTIANS

APPENDIX 5 – THE DATES AND DURATIONS OF THE ANTICHRISTS

INDEX AND SCRIPTURE INDEX

NOTES

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