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Who is the Antichrist? Could it be Obama? Bush? Clinton? Or some other current world leader? There has been a lot of speculation about whether current political leaders could be “The Antichrist.” Is such speculation founded on what the Prophets have written and spoken concerning Antichrist?

1Jn 2:18 AMP Boys (lads), it is the last time (hour, the end of this age). And as you have heard that the antichrist [he who will oppose Christ in the guise of Christ] is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen, which confirms our belief that it is the final (the end) time.

This is the Apostle and Prophet John who also wrote the book of the Revelations of Jesus Christ, from whom most of the ideas about “Antichrist” originally came. If we want a correct understanding on this subject of what God had shown him and that he shared with the world through Scripture, we should go back to what John actually said about the Antichrist.

In 1 John 2:18 above, we can clearly see that 1. antichrist John is speaking of is spirit or spiritual influence that causes opposition to Christ. 2. antichrist is not one person or even one spirit being but “many.”

Why then do so many look for one man to be “The Antichrist?” For one thing, it has to do with how word spreads. Someone at some point came up with some imaginations of one world leader that would hold sway over all of the nations and oppose Christ and cause the whole world to bow down and worship him instead. Then, these imaginations were spread among communities and from one to another by word of mouth, publications, media, and so forth.  Those who think such sounds reasonable, believe it.

Is there any truth in there being a one world leader who forces the world to worship him in the place of God? Sort of. Let me provide Scripture references first for consideration.

2Th 2:3-4; Dan 7:24-27; Dan 8:23-25; Dan 11:36; Rev 13:1-8

Reading prophetic passages like these can get the human imagination supercharged. We begin to imagine how these things will play out, because of human curiosity to know and understand these things. We make up scenarios in our minds that we think make sense to match what Scripture says will happen.

This is the very reason that the religious Jewish leaders missed Mashiach (Christ) when arriving in their generation in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth, who fulfilled the Messianic prophesies. They were blinded to this at that time because they had misunderstandings of how prophecy was supposed to play out. For example, they were sure that when Christ would come, he would restore the Israelite kingdom and free them from Roman oppression.

Because they interpreted the prophetic passages with their imaginations of what they thought fulfillment would look like in the world, they missed that actual fulfillment right in front of them. Jesus tried to tell them that his Kingdom was not of this world, but is spiritual. He had no intentions of freeing them in the natural from Roman rule and making them an the ruler of all nations at that time. He instead came and established his Kingdom in their midst, for those who would enter. He even told them how to enter his Kingdom.

We tend to rely on own ability with natural minds to understand and interpret Scripture. The problem is, like those 2,000 years ago, the mind that has feasted illegally on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is led to destruction and spiritual death. with many deceptions and misunderstandings.

So, is there going to be a one world leader who overwhelms everyone with great charm and gets everyone but the holy saints of God to bow down to him? I refuse to try to imagine what that will look like and when it will be manifest in the world and if such a leader could be alive today and already be known by us.  There are too many possibilities.  God knows, and I trust God. Trying to figure out on my own how I think the prophecies will be fulfilled is a complete waste of time.

Instead of making the same mistake religious leaders have made in the past, let us focus on what we are supposed to, and be spiritual rather than religious. Let us take a clue from the book of Acts chapter 1 when the disciples of Christ at that time were corrected for looking to the natural instead of the spiritual. They wanted to know when the kingdom of Israel would be established again.

Jesus told them what he wanted them focused on instead; the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven, and being empowered by the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven, so that Kingdom (spiritual one) may come in Earth as it already is in Heaven.

I could make all kinds of guesses as to how those prophetic passages listed above will play out in our current world in this generation. But the truth is, I don’t even know if any such things will literally play out in this generation. I do know from history that there have already been some fulfilled, some fully, others partially. The kings of the nations that God allowed to take the kingdom from Israel back then were worshiped as gods in place of the true God. Their empires were considered worldwide because of the percentage of the known world that was ruled by them and bowed to them. Only a remnant of Israel, the people of God chosen at that time as the holy people (saints), did not worship those god-kings over the nations.

Rather than imagining how any future fulfillment of such will play out in the natural world, which gives me a very high probability of being wrong, I’ll focus instead on the principles of such passages that is always relevant in every generation.

For example, Paul wrote that the man of perdition is, “taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.” This is always relevant to every human being because it applies to us all, not just some future one world leader fulfillment. Scripture interprets Scripture. In the New Covenant the human being is the Temple of God.

1Co 6:19-20 AMP Do you not know that your body is the temple (the very sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit Who lives within you, Whom you have received [as a Gift] from God? You are not your own, (20) You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body.

Joh 2:19-22 AMP Jesus answered them, Destroy (undo) this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again. (20) Then the Jews replied, It took forty-six years to build this temple (sanctuary), and will You raise it up in three days? (21) But He had spoken of the temple which was His body. (22) When therefore He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this. And so they believed and trusted and relied on the Scripture and the word (message) Jesus had spoken. [Ps. 16:10.]

Paul in his inspired writings makes a difference between the human being and the sin nature of the flesh, which we call the carnal nature, but Paul often just shorted to “the flesh.” This other nature that has attached itself to human beings is described as a parasite that feeds off of and seeks to control the person, causing them to sin and die. If we trace the infection back, to when it came into the human race as we know it now, we go all the way back to the beginning of our species of man when the first man and woman are said to have eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, giving in to the serpent’s temptation to do so.

They were supposed to allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in and upon them, being the Temple of God. However, they listened to the serpent instead, and the seed of the serpent entered the human race. Paul exposed this seed of the serpent as the carnal mind and nature that now corrupts human souls. In other words, this carnal man of perdition has set itself up in us, the Temple of God. People now bow to the desires of this nature and do what it dictates, as their ruler and god.

Christ came to destroy the works of the devil and this is the main work among mankind, causing us to be infiltrated by the seed of the serpent which is now passed from generation to generation and keeps all people of the world in bondage to its rule. This is also why the Antichrist spirit that empowers the carnal nature opposes Christ in the flesh. Christ coming in the flesh, your flesh, saves (delivers) you from the rule of the carnal nature and antichrist spirit you had been blinded by and kept in bondage to.

Thus why religious folk still under the influence of the anticrhrist spirit and nature oppose those who come along manifesting Christ in the flesh in the world. Antichrist spirits are religious spirits. The translator of the Amplified version of Scripture got it right when saying:

1Jn 2:18 AMP Boys (lads), it is the last time (hour, the end of this age). And as you have heard that the antichrist [he who will oppose Christ in the guise of Christ] is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen, which confirms our belief that it is the final (the end) time.

This man of perdition is also known as “the lawless one.”  Ironically, however, this one claims to use the Law of God.  He is not lawless, meaning anarchy.  He is lawless for this reason:

1Ti 1:8 AMP  Now we recognize and know that the Law is good if anyone uses it lawfully [for the purpose for which it was designed],

The Pharisees and Sadducees who claimed to serve God and his Law, but opposed Christ in the flesh in their generation through Jesus of Nazareth, used the law unlawfully, thus making themselves lawless ones.  They thought they were lawful, but ironically they were unlawful.  The primary infraction which led to the deception leading to all others, was trying to use the Law of Moses for Eternal Life.  The Law written on tablets of stone is the ministration of death, not life.

2Co 3:7-8 AMP  Now if the dispensation of death engraved in letters on stone [the ministration of the Law], was inaugurated with such glory and splendor that the Israelites were not able to look steadily at the face of Moses because of its brilliance, [a glory] that was to fade and pass away, [Exod. 34:29-35.]  (8)  Why should not the dispensation of the Spirit [this spiritual ministry whose task it is to cause men to obtain and be governed by the Holy Spirit] be attended with much greater and more splendid glory?

The Law of commandments was never intended to be used as the way of life, aka the Tree of Life.  That is not its purpose.  The religiously minded get it twisted and think it is, and thereby end up using it for the wrong purpose, which is using it unlawfully.  Thus, trying to be lawful, they become lawless ones.  They continue to manifest in the world as sons of perdition influenced by the religious antichrist spirit no matter how much they try white-washing the outer man with religious works.

The Word made flesh (John 1), not the letters engraved on stone, is the ministry of Life and Liberty.  Follow him.

May God’s face shine upon you and the Light of Christ illuminate your path and give true spiritual sight to your eyes!

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