IN HIS YOUTH, Ignatius was a student and traveling companion of the apostle John. Ignatius was appointed bishop of Antioch by the apostle Peter. He led the church in Antioch, Syria, for many years before being arrested by the Roman government.
There is no record of the charges against him, so the reason for his arrest is a mystery. We only know that he was led in chains from Antioch to Rome, where he stood trial. He wrote a number of letters during his journey, and though he suffered harsh treatment from his captors, God gave him the grace to refer to his chains as “my spiritual pearls.”1 After his trial and conviction, Ignatius suffered many horrible tortures from the Romans. Finally, in AD 107, they led him to the Colosseum and threw him to the wild beasts.
In his letter to the Ephesians, shortly before his death, Ignatius wrote, “The Last Days are here. . . . Let our lot be genuine life in Jesus Christ. Do not let anything catch your eye besides Him.”2
That’s good advice: Keep your eyes on Jesus. Don’t be distracted by lesser things. Always be ready for the Lord’s return.
But Ignatius was mistaken in thinking he lived in the Last Days.
The explorer Christopher Columbus was a student of Bible prophecy. He was heavily influenced by the twelfth-century Calabrian abbot Joachim of Fiore. Columbus became obsessed with a prediction supposedly made by Joachim that a “Last World Emperor” would arise in Spain and would lead a war to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims. Columbus believed the world would end in 1656.
When Columbus set sail in 1492, he wanted to open a trade route to India—and he wanted to convert the people of India to Christianity. He believed that gold from those lands would finance a new Crusade to recapture Jerusalem and hasten the Lord’s return.3 His true motive when he set sail was to fulfill Bible prophecy. In 1500, he wrote in a letter, “God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth of which he spoke through St. John in the Apocalypsis [the Book of Revelation].”4
Columbus never reached India. He didn’t know that North and South America blocked his path. He was also wrong about the world ending in 1656.
Jesus warned us not to set dates and times for the fulfillment of prophecy. “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36). We must be vigilant and ready to meet Him at any time—and we should never presume to know the things that God has chosen to conceal.
The Lord also told us to watch for the signs that the end is drawing near. “Watch out that no one deceives you,” He said. “For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many” (Matthew 24:4–5). He said there would be wars and rumors of wars, famines and earthquakes, persecution, apostasy, false teachers, and an increase of sins and wickedness—but these events, Jesus said, are not the actual signs of the Last Days. They are just the “birth pains” (v. 8). The unmistakable sign that the End is near, Jesus said, is this:
So when you see standing in the holy place “the abomination that causes desolation,” spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. . . . For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. (Matthew 24:15–16, 21)
What is “the abomination that causes desolation”? Both Jesus and the prophet Daniel warned about it. In Revelation 13:15, we see that an image of the Antichrist appears to come to life. Everyone in the world is required to worship the image—and all who refuse are killed. This image is almost certainly the “abomination” Jesus and Daniel warned us of. When the “abomination” is set up in the temple in Jerusalem, the Last Days will begin.
Evangelical scholars agree that the arrival of the Antichrist coincides with the beginning of the Great Tribulation. The book of Revelation, however, does not present these events in a step-by-step, chronological order. The cataclysms of the Great Tribulation are presented as a series of themes rather than a sequence of events:
Revelation 6:1 to 8:5 records the opening of the seven seals, which represents a time of global suffering, death, and destruction. There is no mention of the Antichrist in connection with these seals, but the opening of the first six seals unleashes a series of disasters upon the earth—famine, war, economic calamity, persecution, and signs in the heavens. As we will see, most of these disasters are the direct result of the Antichrist’s global dictatorship.
The opening of the seals triggers the Great Tribulation. Just before the opening of the seventh seal, there is silence in heaven for about half an hour. In the seventh seal, seven angels take up seven trumpets, and an eighth angel takes fire from the heavenly altar and casts the fire to earth, producing lightning, thunder, and an earthquake.
In Revelation 8:6 through Revelation 11, John zooms in on the seven trumpets of judgment. We see scene after scene of devastation. When the first trumpet sounds, hail and fire, mingled with blood, burn up a third of the earth’s vegetation. The second trumpet sounds, and an object like a fiery mountain falls into the ocean, killing a third of the sea creatures and destroying a third of the ships at sea. At the third trumpet, a star called Wormwood falls from the heavens and poisons a third of the rivers and springs.
Next, the heavens are shaken. The fourth trumpet spreads darkness over a third of the sun, the moon, and the stars. At the fifth trumpet, a star falls from the sky, and the bottomless pit opens up, disgorging smoke, fire, and flying creatures like locusts with humanlike faces, lions’ teeth, and breastplates of iron—possibly a description of machines of war. At the sixth trumpet, an army of two hundred million rises up to kill a third of the human race with fire and brimstone. At the seventh trumpet, the temple of God opens in heaven, and the ark of God’s covenant becomes visible amid flashes of lightning and a great earthquake.
Then, in Revelation 12, we meet the woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head” (v. 1). She is in labor with a male child. A fiery red, seven-headed Dragon sweeps a third of the stars from the sky with his tail and awaits the birth of the woman’s child. The woman gives birth, the child is taken up to God’s throne, and the woman hides in the wilderness for three and a half years. When the Dragon is unable to attack the woman, he takes out his rage against her children, who remain faithful to the Lord.
We find clues to the meaning of these symbols in Genesis 37:9–11. There, Joseph, the son of Jacob, has a dream in which the sun, moon, and eleven stars bow to him. When Joseph tells his dream to his family, they have no trouble interpreting it. Jacob rebukes Joseph and says, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” (v. 10). The sun represents Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel. The moon represents his wife Rachel. The stars represent Joseph’s eleven brothers—and hence, the other eleven tribes of Israel. The sun, moon, and stars bowed to Joseph because he was a symbolic type of Christ.
So the woman who gives birth to a child in Revelation 12 is Israel. The child is Jesus the Messiah. The twelve stars on the woman’s head represent the twelve tribes of Israel. The apostle Paul, in Galatians 6:16, refers to the church of Jesus Christ as “the Israel of God.” In other words, the church is the new Israel, consisting of believers from every tribe and nation. So the church hides in the wilderness for three and a half years, while the Dragon—Satan—rages against her and against her children.
Next, John describes the Dragon, who symbolizes Satan: “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads” (Revelation 12:3).
What do the seven heads and ten horns symbolize? The seven heads speak of the impossibility of killing the Dragon. Satan is immortal—and that’s why he and his followers will spend eternity in the torment of hell. The horns symbolize the Dragon’s superhuman powers. As the apostle Paul told us, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Satan is an immensely powerful spiritual being.
There’s an interesting aside in this passage—what might be called a flashback. John’s vision of the future suddenly flashes back in time to the distant past, when Satan and his angels rebelled against God. John writes:
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (Revelation 12:7–9)
This is the same event the prophet Isaiah described when he wrote:
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God.” (Isaiah 14:12–13)
Many people are confused by this passage. They ask, “Why did John insert a narrative about the distant past into a prophecy about the future?” This is a common feature of prophetic writing. We often find the past, present, and future side by side in the same passage. We saw earlier that Isaiah included messianic prophecies of the Lord’s suffering and death alongside messianic prophecies of his future reign as King of kings.
Satan rebelled against God and attempted to overthrow God. In his rebellion and fall, Satan took one-third of the angelic beings with him (Revelation 12:4). Satan and his angels were thrown out of heaven. These fallen angels are the spirit-beings we know as demons. They are Satan’s foot soldiers, and Satan employs these demons to spread havoc in the world.
Remember: Satan knows the Bible better than you and I do. When Jesus was born, Satan knew all the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah. So he inspired King Herod to commit infanticide, hoping to kill the Messiah. Herod did as Satan suggested, ordering that all baby boys two years old and younger be slain (Matthew 2:16). Satan caused great sorrow and suffering, yet he failed to kill the baby Jesus.
Satan waited for his opportunity to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, and he used Scripture in his attempt to turn Jesus away from His messianic mission—but Jesus was victorious over Satan. Throughout the Lord’s earthly ministry, Satan repeatedly inspired the priests and Pharisees to plot against Him, but to no avail.
Finally, Satan inspired Judas to betray Jesus. The priests arrested Jesus, tried Him, condemned Him to death, and maneuvered the Romans into nailing Him to the cross. Satan rejoiced to see that he had finally won. He had thwarted God’s plan. He had killed the long-awaited Messiah.
Satan’s gloating on Friday turned to shock and awe on Sunday morning. All of Satan’s strategies had played into the hands of Almighty God. The crucifixion of Jesus paid the price for the sins of the human race. The resurrection of Jesus made it possible for us to have eternal life. The empty tomb was God’s secret weapon against Satan.
In Revelation 13, we meet the Beast—also known as the Antichrist. The Antichrist has been a subject of many popular books and films, from The Omen and Rosemary’s Baby to the Left Behind series. All of these popular depictions of the Antichrist fall short of the prophetic reality we find in both the Old and New Testaments.
It might surprise you that the first place in Scripture the Antichrist is mentioned is not in Revelation, but in Daniel. The prophet Daniel does not use the words “Beast” or “Antichrist” in his prophecy. In fact, he does not use a name for this individual—Daniel simply uses the pronouns “he” or “him.” But there is no question that Daniel is speaking of the Antichrist. He writes:
He will confirm a covenant with many for one “seven.” In the middle of the “seven” he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. (Daniel 9:27)
The “seven” refers to the seven-year period of the Great Tribulation. Daniel’s description of the Tribulation is completely consistent with the description in Revelation. Daniel set down his prophecy in the sixth century BC, yet God inspired him to write about events that still await fulfillment in our own future.
The man Daniel speaks of is the same individual John calls “the Beast” and the same person Jesus speaks about in Matthew 24. Daniel tells us that the Antichrist will make a formal covenant with Israel, and the term of that covenant will be seven years. The Antichrist will permit Israel to restore the temple that was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. The covenant will allow Israel to revive the old traditions of Judaism, including animal sacrifices.
But halfway through that seven-year period, the Antichrist will display his treachery and abrogate the covenant, calling an immediate halt to the Jewish religious practices. At the altar where the Jewish priests make sacrifices to the Lord, the Antichrist will set up “an abomination that causes desolation” and defile the temple. The apostle Paul talks about this event, referring to the Antichrist as “the man of lawlessness”:
Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 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. . . .
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. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 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. (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4, 7–9)
Revelation tells us that the seven-year period of the Antichrist’s reign begins with the opening of the first four seals (Revelation 6:1–8). Those first four seals unleash war, global economic collapse, hunger, and widespread death. It will be a global catastrophe, and the entire human race will be caught up in it.
The first four seals are represented by four riders on horseback. The first rider is on a white horse, symbolizing the false promise of peace. The Antichrist will pose as a champion of peace, a master diplomat, and a broker of peace treaties. For his efforts as a peacemaker, he may win the Nobel Peace Prize. He will be Satan’s counterfeit of Jesus, the true Prince of Peace. The apostle Paul wrote, “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” (1 Thessalonians 5:2–3).
The second rider comes astride a fiery red horse, and he unleashes war like the world has never seen before.
The third rider is on a black horse, and he brings economic collapse, joblessness, scarcity, skyrocketing inflation, famine, riots, and panic. As we read in Lamentations, “Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field” (4:9).
The fourth rider is on a pale horse, the color of a corpse. As we would expect, war and economic collapse bring death.
But don’t lose hope. None of these things—not even the threat of nuclear war—can separate us from God’s love and His plan for our lives. As Paul reminds us:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35–39)
No matter how the ground may shake beneath your feet, no matter how the world may crumble and fall all around us, God holds us securely in His strong hands. And He will not let go.
Next, notice the strong family resemblance between Satan and the Antichrist. The Antichrist is Satan’s most impressive and frightening creation. John calls him “the Beast” and describes him in symbolic terms:
The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. (Revelation 13:1)
Does this description of the Beast seem familiar? Notice how it resonates with the description of the Dragon in Revelation 12:
Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. (v. 3)
Both the Dragon and the Beast are described as having seven heads and ten horns. Clearly, the Dragon has fashioned the Beast in his own image. The Beast has his father’s distinctive traits, but he will not be an immortal being like the Dragon. He will seem to be immortal and all-powerful—and that appearance of supernatural power will deceive the world and cause millions to worship him. John continues:
The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. (Revelation 13:2–3)
The Antichrist’s power and authority will come straight from Satan himself. And Satan will even perform a false miracle. The Beast will suffer a seemingly fatal wound, but the wound will be healed, and the Antichrist will be restored to life. It will be Satan’s ultimate counterfeit—the “resurrection” of the Antichrist. The whole world will witness this apparent miracle, and people around the world will worship the false messiah.
Satan will pour all his deceptive power into the Antichrist, and this great human leader will become the most charming and persuasive human being on earth. Even Christians may be deceived at first. The Antichrist will be so persuasive that he will convince the masses to worship the Dragon—Satan himself. John writes:
People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?” (Revelation 13:4)
Both Daniel and the Lord Jesus speak of the Antichrist as setting up an abomination in the temple in Jerusalem. The Antichrist will be a paragon of peace for a time—then he will turn on Israel, demand to be worshipped instead of God, and impose a reign of violence and fear that will make ISIS seem tame by comparison.
Just as Jesus is the full expression of God the Father in human form, the Antichrist will be the full expression of Satan in human form. The contrast between the Lord Jesus and the Antichrist is instructive: Jesus is the Holy One of God; the Antichrist is the lawless one of Satan. Jesus is the Son of God; the Antichrist is the son of perdition. Jesus is the man of sorrows; the Antichrist is the man of sin. Jesus came in the name of the Father; the Antichrist came to magnify his own name. Jesus came as a servant; the Antichrist will come to be worshipped. The world rejected Jesus; the world will worship the Antichrist.
Revelation 13:2 describes the Antichrist this way: “The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion.” The symbolic imagery of the Bible is intended to convey an important truth. God does not waste His words. The claws of a bear, the teeth of a lion, and the power of a leopard portray the brutality, savagery, and ruthlessness of the Antichrist.
Satan will give his power, throne, and authority to the Antichrist. The Antichrist will perform counterfeit miracles and will openly blaspheme God. He will make war against God’s people. All those whose names are not written in the book of life will worship the Beast.
So we need to examine ourselves and make sure that our names are written in that book. If there is any question in your mind, I encourage you to put a bookmark right here and finish this chapter later. Turn to chapter 10. Don’t hesitate; don’t procrastinate. Don’t risk your eternal destiny for even a second.
Settle the matter of your salvation now, then come back and finish reading this chapter.
John makes a statement in Revelation 13 that many students of the Bible find puzzling. He writes:
Whoever has ears, let them hear.
“If anyone is to go into captivity,
into captivity they will go.
If anyone is to be killed with the sword,
with the sword they will be killed.”
This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people. (vv. 9–10)
To me, these words are some of the most precious jewels God has tucked into His Word. God is saying, “Believers in that day will face persecution with faithfulness and courage. They will say, ‘I am not afraid of captivity. I am not afraid of the sword. The Antichrist may kill my body, but he can never separate me from the love of God.’” They will follow the example of Jesus, who told Pontius Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above” (John 19:11).
You may not believe you could face persecution and death for the sake of Jesus Christ. But if you live each day filled with the Holy Spirit, feeding your soul on His Word, living in prayerful communion with Christ, then the Spirit of God will be with you when you need Him. He will give you the courage and the words to speak.
For centuries, Satan has been preparing the world for the coming of the Antichrist. He is persuading masses of people—including many Christians—that all religions ought to cooperate with one another. I sometimes hear people in the church say, “Why can’t all religions unite and work together for the same goals? All religions worship the same God, and all religions are equal in God’s eyes.”
That sentiment sounds reasonable according to worldly wisdom, but it does not come from God’s Word. It comes from Satan. I once sat in a church and heard a minister declare from the pulpit, “The one whom Christians will know as Christ is known to the Jews as the Messiah, to the Buddhists as the fifth Buddha, to the Muslims as Imam Mahdi, and to the Hindus as Krishna. All these names speak of the same person. All of these religions lead to the same destination.” Then he recommended that people visit the website of the New Age guru Deepak Chopra.
Let me be clear: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose again on the third day, is not the fifth Buddha. He is not the Imam Mahdi. He is not the immoral god of love Krishna. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the pure, sinless Son of God, and when He returns, the world will mourn for having rejected Him. The teaching that all faiths are equal, that the fifth Buddha and the Mahdi and Krishna are no different from Jesus Christ, is satanically designed to deceive the world and prepare the way for the Antichrist.
The Antichrist will preach a message of peace and tolerance and coexistence. Our culture is already being conditioned to accept the Antichrist’s message. Take, for example, the “Coexist” bumper sticker that we see all around. The C forms the Islamic crescent. The O is the symbol of the secular peace movement. The E combines the male and female symbols as an expression of equality. The X is represented by the Jewish Star of David. The letter I is dotted by the pentacle of witchcraft or pagan religions. The S is the yin and yang symbol of Taoism. And the T is for the cross of Christ.
People say, “What could be more wonderful than that we all coexist, in spite of our differences? If we could only be less judgmental and more tolerant of each other’s beliefs, we would have a utopia, a paradise on earth!”
Please understand, when we practice the pure, loving gospel that Jesus died to bring us, we Christians are authentically the most loving and tolerant people on the planet. Jesus taught us to hate the sin and love the sinner. In fact, we hate the sin because we love the sinner. Sin destroys lives; Jesus saves.
We can preach against drug abuse while loving the addict. We can preach against divorce while loving divorced people and their children. We can preach against sexual sin, both heterosexual and homosexual, precisely because we have such a deep compassion for those who are trapped in sin. We can preach against abortion while caring for women who have been wounded by abortionists. We can preach against spiritual pride and arrogance while loving self-righteous snobs.
The world thinks that the only way to love people is to tolerate and approve of their sinful, self-destructive lifestyles. We Christians know better. We have seen in the Gospels that Jesus was a friend of sinners, yet He never approved of their sin. Jesus was a friend to the woman caught in adultery, but He told her to go and leave her life of sin (John 8:11). Jesus was a friend to Zacchaeus, the crooked tax collector, but when the message of Jesus convicted him, he repented and repaid those he had cheated—four times over (Luke 19:8).
Authentic Christian love tells the truth and confronts sin. The world will say we are judgmental and unloving if we confront sin. Let’s dare to be slandered as “unloving” while we dare to love as Jesus loves.
Is the Christian faith the only religion that teaches about the Last Days? No. In fact, the three largest monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—all devote a great deal of attention to eschatology, the study of end-times prophecies. There are startling parallels between the prophetic teachings of these three religions:
Jerusalem. The end-times prophecies of all three religions center largely on events in and around Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.
Signs Preceding Judgment. In all three religions, there are prophetic signs pointing to the Last Days and Final Judgment. Jesus speaks of these signs in Matthew 24:4–28.
The Messiah. All three religions predict the coming of the Messiah. In Judaism, the Messiah will restore the kingdom of Israel and God will be Israel’s King (Zechariah 14). In Christianity, Jesus the Messiah will return to earth, defeat the Antichrist, and rule over the Messianic kingdom (Matthew 19:28; Revelation 20:4–6). In Islam, Jesus is called Isa, and He is a prophet and the Masîḥ (the Islamic Messiah) who will one day return to help the Imam Mahdi defeat the al-Masih ad-Dajjal (the Islamic Antichrist).
Final War. In Judaism, the Messiah leads Israel to victory over Israel’s enemies. In Christianity, Satan instigates the final conflict, the Battle of Armageddon. Islam also features a final battle, and like Judaism and Christianity, makes reference to the nations of Gog and Magog (Yajuj and Majuj; Quran 18:94–100).
Sheikh Hisham Kabbani, a Lebanese-American Sufi scholar, observed, “Jews are waiting for the Messiah, Christians are waiting for Jesus, and Muslims are waiting for both the Mahdi and Jesus. All religions describe them as men coming to save the world.”5
Despite these similarities, there are major differences between the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments and the prophetic passages of the Quran. The central figure of Islamic eschatology is called the Imam Mahdi (Mahdi means “the Guided One”). Muslims view the Imam Mahdi as a savior who will lead a revolution to establish a global empire, the final Caliphate. The Mahdi will rule the earth as the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad.
Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims have differing views regarding the Mahdi. The Sunnis view the Mahdi as a righteous, wise, and divinely inspired human being but do not view him as a supernatural being. They believe he will be born, live a natural life span, and die like any other human being.
The largest sect of Shia Muslims (the Twelver Shia) takes a more mythological view of the Mahdi. They believe the Mahdi was Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Mahdī, who was born in 869, became an imam (religious leader) at age five, and is still alive today, more than eleven centuries later. They believe he underwent two periods of “occultation” (being miraculously hidden from the world), and will remain in occultation until he returns to lead the faithful and punish the infidels just before the Judgment Day.
Dr. Samuel Shahid, director of Islamic studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, observes that the Mahdi of Shia Islam “is the embodiment of the earnest longing and hope of the Shiites who have been oppressed and persecuted throughout the course of history.” Dr. Shahid describes the mythological nature of the Shiite Mahdi:
The Shiites believe that when the Mahdi reappears from his great occultation, he will recover the original book of Psalms from the lake of Tiberius, the Torah and the Gospel, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tablets of Moses and his Staff, and the Ring of Solomon, from a cave in Antioch. . . . The Mahdi will conquer the world and destroy all the infidels . . . [and] take over every city, even Jerusalem, that Alexander the Great vanquished, and [he will] reform them. That will gratify the hearts of the people of Islam. . . .
The universal Islamic community he establishes is not based on peace or love. It is an earthly militant kingdom under the banner of Islam in which people either will accept the Shiite type of Islam, or will be killed.6
Here’s one of the most troubling aspects of Islamic eschatology: Islam’s “savior,” the Mahdi, bears a striking resemblance not to the biblical Christ but to the biblical Antichrist. Why would Satan’s masterpiece, the Antichrist, so closely resemble the Islamic Mahdi? I believe it’s because Satan knows the Bible. He is preparing the followers of Islam to look upon the Antichrist and see him as their long-prophesied Imam Mahdi. For centuries, Satan has been preparing the Muslim people to receive the Antichrist as their savior.
Muslims believe the Mahdi will appear when Jesus (Isa) returns. Yes, Muslims believe in Jesus, but not as their Savior and not as the Son of God. To Muslims, Jesus is a great prophet, and they call Him the Masîḥ (Messiah). They deny that Jesus died on the cross. Most important, they revere the Mahdi (who has all the biblical earmarks of the Antichrist) above Isa (Jesus).
In Al Mahdi and the End of Time, Egyptian Islamic scholars Muhammad Ibn Izzat and Muhammad Arif describe in vivid terms what the coming of the Mahdi means to Muslims:
The Mahdi will be victorious and eradicate those pigs and dogs and the idols of this time so that there will once more be [a] caliphate based on prophethood. . . .
Jerusalem will be the location of the rightly-guided caliphate and the centre of Islamic rule, which will be headed by Imam al-Mahdi. . . .
That will abolish the leadership of the Jews, who direct the world from within the Masonic circles, and put an end to the domination of the shaytans [satans or demons] who spit evil into people and cause corruption in the earth, making them slaves of false idols and ruling the world by laws other than the Shari’a [Islamic law] of the Lord of the worlds. It will be the Day of Salvation from this Era of Ignorance.7
These Islamic scholars state that non-Muslims (“pigs and dogs”) will be defeated and exterminated by the Mahdi. The Mahdi will overthrow Jewish governance of Jerusalem. (These scholars reflect a common Islamic conspiracy theory that the Jews are implicated with the Freemasons in a secret plot for world domination.) The arrival of the Mahdi, the scholars claim, will usher in the “Day of Salvation.” The book of Revelation, however, says that the arrival of the Antichrist will trigger the Great Tribulation.
According to Islamic prophecy, Jesus will descend in Syria, east of Damascus, and He will assist the Mahdi in establishing the final Caliphate over the entire earth. At the end of the Mahdi’s rule, there will be a Day of Judgment.
When you study Islamic eschatology, you discover that the Mahdi has all of the power and authority of the Antichrist. Both the Mahdi and the Antichrist are said to possess supreme political and religious authority. Both the Mahdi and the Antichrist will be worshipped as the head of a one-world religion. Like the Antichrist, the Mahdi will establish his capital in Jerusalem, and he will rule the world from that holy city.
The Bible says that the Antichrist will target Jews and Christians for destruction; Islamic eschatology says the Mahdi will wage war against Jews and Christians. Those who oppose the Antichrist will be executed; those who oppose the Mahdi will be executed. Iranian religious leader Ayatullah Ibrahim Amini writes that the Mahdi “will offer the religion of Islam to the non-believers [Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims]. Anyone who accepts that call will be saved from being killed. All those who refuse to accept Islam will be killed.”8
Daniel 9:27 tells us that the Antichrist “will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” The “covenant with many” refers to a covenant with many nations. Clearly, Israel will be a party to this covenant. Daniel tells us that halfway through the seven-year term of the covenant, the Antichrist will break the covenant, and this act of treachery will have catastrophic implications for Israel. The Antichrist will put an end to temple sacrifices and set up “an abomination that causes desolation” in the temple.
Islam’s Hadith literature also speaks of a seven-year covenant the Mahdi (or “al-Mahdi”) makes with the “Romans”—that is, the nations of Europe. Islamic scholar Dr. Abul Hassan explains:
Al-Mahdi is said to be one who will initiate Islam’s fourth and final treaty between the “Romans” and the Muslims. Al-Mahdi will make this treaty for a period of seven years! In a Hadith, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “There will be four peace agreements between you and the Romans. The fourth will be mediated through a person who will be from the progeny of Hazrat Aaron (the brother of Moses) and will be upheld for seven years. . . . It appears that the period of this seven year peace agreement will likewise be the period of the Mahdi’s reign.9
There are a number of important points in Dr. Hassan’s statement. First, just as the Antichrist will make a covenant with “many,” the Mahdi will make a covenant with the “Romans,” or nations of Europe. Second, both the Antichrist in Daniel and the Mahdi will make a covenant lasting for seven years. Third, Dr. Hassan notes that the term of this seven-year peace agreement will coincide with the seven years of the Mahdi’s reign; the book of Revelation tells us that the Antichrist will reign for seven years.
There is one notable discrepancy between Daniel’s prophecy about the Antichrist and Muhammad’s prophecy about the Mahdi: Daniel says that the Antichrist will break the treaty halfway through the seven-year period. Muhammad’s prophecy in the Hadith says nothing about breaking the agreement after three and a half years. Of course, if the Mahdi is the Antichrist, he won’t want to reveal his plans in advance.
Muhammad is quoted in the Hadith as saying that this seven-year treaty will be mediated through a descendant of “Hazrat Aaron” (Arabic for “His Holiness Aaron”). Aaron was the older brother of Moses and—this is significant!—Aaron was also the first high priest in Israel. Today, no Jewish person can trace his or her ancestry back to Aaron. So this “progeny” of Aaron will be a descendant in the sense of Aaron’s priestly office. When you combine the Daniel prophecy with the Islamic prophecy, they seem to be saying that the high priest of the reconstructed temple of Jerusalem will serve as the mediator of this agreement—and the Antichrist will break the agreement halfway through the Great Tribulation and will defile the temple with the “abomination.”
In another passage of the Hadith, Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri quotes Muhammad as saying, “The Mahdi . . . will fill the earth with fairness and justice as it was filled with oppression and injustice, and he will rule for seven years.”10 Again, the length of the Mahdi’s rule and the length of the Antichrist’s reign are the same—seven years.
In Al Mahdi and the End of Time, Muhammad Ibn Izzat and Muhammad Arif observe that Revelation 6:2 says, “I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.” As we saw earlier, this rider on a white horse appears to be a false man of peace, Satan’s counterfeit, the Antichrist. And who do these two Islamic scholars say the rider on the white horse will be? They write, “It is clear that this man is the Mahdi who will ride the white horse and judge by the Qur’an.”11 So the Antichrist of Revelation is identified by Islamic scholars as the Mahdi.
When Muslims call for a worldwide Caliphate, they are calling for the coming of the Mahdi, the long-prophesied “final Caliph” of Islam. When he appears, every Muslim on earth will be required to follow him. Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani writes that Muhammad said of the Mahdi (as quoted by the Hadith narrator Thawban), “If you see him, go and give him your allegiance, even if you have to crawl over ice, because he is the Viceregent (Khalifa) of Allah, the Mahdi.”12
There seems little doubt that Satan is preparing Muslims to accept the Mahdi as their leader. On close examination, the Mahdi seems indistinguishable from the Antichrist. When this counterfeit “savior” the Bible calls the Antichrist arises to impose his bloody reign upon the world, Muslims will be well prepared to welcome him as their long-promised Mahdi. And they will follow him to hell itself.
Today, there are two Islamic regimes in the Middle East. There is the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran, and there is the self-proclaimed Sunni caliphate that calls itself the Islamic State, or ISIS. The political policies and ideologies of both regimes are driven by an extreme end-times theology. The leaders of both regimes believe they have been chosen by Allah to plunge the world into global war. They plan to destroy Israel and the United States, and thereby hasten the return of the Mahdi. They do not hesitate to use torture, slaughter, and terror to achieve their goal of uniting the world under Sharia law and the Mahdi’s global caliphate.
The ceaseless campaign of terror that Islamic extremists wage against the West is a foretaste of the future reign of the Antichrist. As Jesus foretold, “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again” (Matthew 24:21).
In the final seven verses of Revelation 13, John reveals a second beast. John describes the rise of the second beast:
Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. (vv. 11–17)
The first Beast arose from the sea of humanity. The second beast will rise from the earth, and he will ensure that the people of earth worship the first Beast. The second beast is often referred to as “the False Prophet,” because he has the appearance of a lamb—meaning he will look and sound like Christ. People will see him as a man of God, a divine spiritual leader. Some people will even mistake him for Jesus, the Lamb of God. But the False Prophet will enforce the worship of the Antichrist. He will perform false miracles by the power of Satan, and even call down fire from the sky.
According to Islamic eschatology, Isa (Jesus) will assist the Mahdi, just as the Bible says that the False Prophet will assist the Antichrist to establish his global empire. This is not a coincidence. Once again, Satan knows the Scriptures better than we do. Satan knows every verse of the Bible, and he is preparing the Islamic world to recognize the Antichrist as the Mahdi and the False Prophet as Isa.
John writes that the False Prophet will have power to perform signs and wonders on behalf of the Antichrist, to deceive the people of the earth. The False Prophet will order the people to set up an image, a statue, in honor of the Antichrist.
This conforms to the prophecy of Daniel 9:27, where the angel Gabriel says that in the middle of the seven years of the Tribulation, the Antichrist will put an end to sacrifices and offerings at the temple. An image will be set up in the temple to honor the Antichrist—“an abomination that causes desolation.” And the False Prophet will have power from Satan to cause the image of the Antichrist to move and speak. What will the image say? It will give an order that all who refuse to worship the image will be executed.
Everyone on earth must receive the mark of the beast on their right hands or foreheads. Those who refuse the mark will not be able to buy or sell. Imagine if the government forbade you to hold a job, to own a business, or to buy food, clothing, or a home. What would you do? What would you eat? How would you feed your family? What about welfare? Sorry, you don’t have the mark. No government assistance for you. Would you go to a religious charity for help? What religious charity? There is only one religion—the religion of the Antichrist—and any who oppose that religion must be eliminated.
The last verse of Revelation 13 has baffled Bible scholars for centuries: “This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666” (v. 18). The number 666 has terrified superstitious people. Some think that if 666 is the “number of the Beast,” then it must be “unlucky.” Many people have refused to accept a telephone number or license plate that contains 666.
In 1988, as Ronald Reagan was preparing to leave the White House, he purchased a home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. The address was 666 St. Cloud Road. He had the street number changed to 668 to avoid the number of the Beast.13
People have tried to use the number 666 to figure out the identity of the Antichrist. But I don’t believe that number is a secret code or a hidden key to the Antichrist’s identity. As we have seen, the Bible uses the number 7 to represent the perfection and completeness of God. If something appears perfect but it isn’t of God, it’s not the number 7—it’s the number 6. It falls short of God’s perfection.
If 7 represents Christ, then 6 represents Satan. If 7 represents perfection, then 6 represents fallenness—a wickedness that pretends to be perfect. If the holy Trinity of God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) may be thought of as 777, then the unholy trinity of Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet may be thought of as 666. There are other possible explanations of 666. This is merely my opinion. Someday, after these prophecies are fulfilled, we will know beyond any doubt what each symbol means.
Meanwhile, I don’t want anyone to have a superstitious fear of that number. If your name is written in the book of life, then you have nothing to fear from the Antichrist. Our names are written in the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Himself. Nothing can erase your name from His Book. When you know that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, you have the peace of knowing He is always with you. When He comes to take His followers home, He will receive you with open arms.
Once, when I was preaching on the book of Revelation, a twelve-year-old girl in the audience heard me say that the False Prophet would force everyone to receive the mark of the beast—and she heard that in heaven, we will see the face of Jesus, and His name will be on our foreheads (Revelation 22:4).
Afterward, she went home and wrote one word on her forehead: JESUS. When she came out of her room, her parents asked her why she had written it. “Because,” she said, “I don’t want the Antichrist to have his name on my forehead. I want to belong to Jesus.”
This young lady is wise beyond her years. May you and I follow her example, write the name of Jesus on our foreheads, and boldly proclaim His name to the world.