Intro to the End Times is a series walking through some of the key themes of the story of Jesus’ return from a historic premillennial perspective, with special focus on knowing the heart of Jesus as we partner with God through the most dramatic chapter of human history.
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In an earlier post, we looked at a list of “good guys and bad guys” in the end time drama. Of course, the most prominent bad guy is known as the antichrist. Scripture gives him many descriptors that tell us many things about him:
- His Nature
Beast (Da. 7:7, 11-12, 19-25), antichrist (1Jn. 2:22), man doomed to destruction (2Th. 2:3). - His Origin
Little horn (Da. 7:8), king of Assyria (Isa. 10:12), Assyrian (Isa. 14:25, 10:5) - His Sinfulness
Master of intrigue (Da. 8:23), man of lawlessness (2Th. 2:3), traitor (Isa. 33:1), destroyer (Isa. 16:4, 33:1; Je. 4:7; Je. 51:1, 56), oppressor (Ps. 72:4; Isa. 14:4, 16:4, 51:13). - His Leadership
Cruel master (Isa. 19:4), fierce king (Isa. 19:4), aggressor (Isa. 16:4), stern-faced king (Da. 8:23), commander (Je. 51:27) - His Position in God’s Plan
The Lord’s chosen ally (Isa. 48:14), chosen one (Je. 50:44), rod of God’s anger (Isa. 10:5)
The antichrist’s ultimate objective is to be worshiped as God. He’s not content to just make people fall into sin or reject Jesus. He wants to go all the way and actually be directly worshiped. Of course, really this is Satan’s objective working through the antichrist. Everything he does is to achieve this goal.
Rise of the Beast
Daniel 7 describes the antichrist as a “little horn” that arises in the middle of a ten kingdom confederation, overthrows three of the kingdoms, and proceeds to do all kinds of terrible things. Because of this “little horn” imagery, I like to remind people that any prominent figure who is currently globally known is probably not the antichrist. (Whichever US president you have most disliked over the past few years is not the antichrist.) I believe he will rise to prominence rather suddenly and seemingly appear out of nowhere on the world stage.
As we discussed in the last post, the antichrist publicly supports the Harlot Babylon to position himself in power, but as soon as he gets the chance he turns on the Harlot and destroys her to establish his own empire. This serves him perfectly, because the Babylon system has seduced the world into a kind of drunken stupor, inundated with every kind of sin to the full, so that they easily decide to follow him. The Babylon system has also included infrastructure uniting government, economics, etc, making them all the easier for the antichrist to take over and absorb into his new kingdom.
Abomination of Desolation
Daniel 9:27 says that the antichrist will make a “strong covenant with many for one week,” which makes most sense as a peace treaty in the middle east that is supposed to last for seven years (ie, one “week”). This treaty likely allows Israel to rebuild their temple and resume the traditional sacrifices– but the antichrist breaks the treaty in the middle and “put[s] an end to sacrifice and offering”. This is the event that Daniel and the New Testament call the “abomination of desolation,” in which the antichrist sets up his own throne in the temple and announces that he is God and must be worshiped. This is the most clear and dramatic sign of the times that Jesus and the apostles told us to watch for. If you somehow missed everything else up to this point, you’d BETTER not miss this!
“And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”
(Daniel 9:27)“So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)”
(Matthew 24:15, see also Mark 13:14, Luke 21:20)“…the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.”
(2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)
This act of desecrating the temple and declaring himself to be God is obviously the pinnacle of blasphemy. This is the point when the antichrist takes off his mask and in essence says, “I’m not interested in peace; I’m here to take over; everyone worship me.” This is the moment of the first seal that kicks off the second half of the seven years known as the Great Tribulation. (Check out my posts on the timeline and the sequence of the judgments if you need a refresher.)
At some point, probably coinciding with the abomination of desolation, the antichrist gets a mortal head wound and then is demonically resurrected (Re. 13:3), as a counterfeit of Jesus’ resurrection. At that point, he’s more demonized than ever– and of course witnessing his resurrection only further convinces the world of his claims!
Antichrist Worship System
The antichrist is very systematic in how he sets up his new mandated religion. He works with an an accomplice known as the false prophet, whom Revelation calls “another beast” (Re. 13:11-17). The false prophet is the antichrist’s right-hand man, and his job is to get the world to worship the antichrist. He has demonic power to do a lot of signs and wonders– it’s real power, but it’s from Satan, not God, to attract people to worship the antichrist.
The false prophet sets up some sort of image of the antichrist and gives it demonic power to appear lifelike and even speak. Like with the statue built by King Nebuchadnezzar (or the giant chocolate bunny if you saw the Veggie Tales version), all of the people are commanded to worship the image and killed if they will not.
This is the context of the mark of the beast. The false prophet oversees a system in which everyone who worships the beast gets a mark on their hand or their forehead, and no one can buy or sell without it (Re. 13:16-17). Choosing take the mark of the beast seals their decision of opposition to God, that their heart is hardened and they will never repent, and therefore their ultimate destiny is the lake of fire (Re. 14:9-11).
This is key for us to understand: the mark of the beast is specifically tied to choosing to worship the antichrist. It’s a covenant with Satan that a person makes of their own conscious, free will, like a counterfeit of Jesus’ covenant of salvation with us. It is not a tattoo or an implant that a person might get without realizing the spiritual significance (although there may be some aspect of technology involved).
Empire and Resistance
The antichrist is bent on fully subjugating the nations of the earth to his rule. The first seal shows him riding on a white horse, coming “conquering and to conquer” (Re. 6:2). After his violent overthrow and annexing of the Harlot Babylon system, he will be mostly successful in ruling the earth.
“There shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it to pieces.”
(Daniel 7:23)“And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it”
(Revelation 13:7-8)
Although the antichrist gets closer to full rulership over the earth than anyone in history, there are still pockets of resistance. Daniel says that war will continue until the very end and also describes some kings who fight against him (Da. 9:26, 11:40-44). Plus, although by the end the antichrist will be in control of every nation on a governmental level, there will also be a certain amount of grassroots resistance!
Of course, believers will be resisting, although our priority won’t be on overcoming him with violence but with faithfulness to Jesus through persecution (Re. 12:11, 2Co. 10:4, Ep. 6:12). There will also be a number of Jews who don’t want to worship Jesus but also sure don’t want to worship that guy. It’s fair to expect that there will also be a small number of unsaved Gentiles who don’t want to follow the antichrist for their own reasons. These are all being preserved by the grace of God, even in their lost state, for the moment Jesus appears and they realize the truth and give themselves to Him (Isa. 4:3, 10:20-22; Jo. 2:32).
Prison Camps
One particularly terrifying aspect of what the antichrist will do echoes what Hitler did in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. Many verses refer to those that the antichrist puts into captivity, particularly Jews. The antichrist hates the Jews with all the fury of Satan himself who knows that they are God’s covenant people, and like Hitler, he will have specific, horrific plans to torment them. (I already posted about God’s promises to Israel and what happens to Israel during the end times.)
“though for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder.”
(Daniel 11:33)“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near… They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations”
(Luke 21:20, 24)“If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes.”
(Revelation 13:10)
This sets up the most beautiful context for the Gentile church to demonstrate sacrificial love for the Jews, like Corrie Ten Boom hiding Jews from the Nazis and ultimately going into a concentration camp. Of course, this will be the most dramatic in the Middle East, as Jews flee Israel into the surrounding Arabic nations… where Arabic believers will risk their lives to protect them. These Arabic believers (and believers of many backgrounds) will carry sacrificial love like Corrie Ten Boom, and also supernatural power like their own Jewish prophets. That is going to blow Jews’ minds and provoke them to jealousy like nothing else possibly could!
When Jesus comes, He will be the greater Moses doing the Exodus all over again, releasing plagues and setting captives free (Isa. 61:1-2, Mi. 7:15)! As He reenacts the most central event of Jewish history, this will confirm to the Jews who He is, and with the witness of the church fresh in their minds, all Israel will be saved.
We’ll go into more detail in the next post about what exactly Jesus does when He arrives, but for now, let’s just look at what Paul says about the antichrist’s destruction:
“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”
(2 Thessalonians 2:8)
Amen and amen.
Further Resources
In writing this, I referred a lot to this end times concordance from The Prayer Room. It lists a ton of verses for every end time topic you can think of.
I also recommend Joel Richardson’s book The Islamic Antichrist for a very compelling case that the antichrist is actually Muslim and is their coming messiah figure prophesied in the Koran. It’s available as a free ebook.
