Prophecy

The Antichrist - PR04-02

© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)

Now we're going to look at the biography of the last world dictator. Some exciting things have taken place recently. We were considering the eastern confederacy, and we found that that which we had indicated from the Word of God, the coming together of the oriental nations, particularly of Japan, moving away from the orbit of American influence, and moving toward a closer alliance with China in preparation for that eastern confederacy which is to cross the dried up Euphrates River in order to come into conflict with the antichrist in Palestine, has taken one more step closer to fulfillment. That was a very dramatic day in the world's history. I have since read the observations of our ambassador to the U.N., our Texan, who observed that the attitude and the response on the floor of the U.N. when free China was voted out and communist China was voted in, that the atmosphere was one of intense hatred, and of glee and of rejoicing, that it was absolutely appalling to all of our statesmen.

So a great victory has been won for the satanic world, and now the response of the Senate in this past week has even appalled the president of the United States. The Senate, partly in response with indignation over this attitude on the part of people that we have been supporting with our foreign aid, the Senate cut off and simply refused to pass the foreign aid bill, and they killed it. Our government is now in a panic. It's having repercussions in all the nations of the world because they can't believe that the United States would actually come to a point and say, "Fine. From now on we will use our money for our decrepit cities, and for our own poor, and for advancing the cause of American life. You people who voted to remove a nation of 14 million people and to dismiss them as a nonentity, a nation whose economic life has been a marvel in contrast to the dire status of living just across the channel in China itself, mainland China, people who were willing to oust a free nation and rejoice over it have got something wrong with their thinking." And it is time the United States maybe gave some second thoughts to supporting that kind of thinking.

A World Dictator

The Bible predicts a day when the whole world is going to be ruled by one man. And again, if you were to make that statement publicly, most of the world would scoff. Most of the world would look upon that and say, "Now you're just absolutely crazy." When nobody can conceive in our day, that there can come a time when one person runs every nation on the face of the earth. And yet, this is exactly what the Word of God predicts. But obviously, the world is going to have to come to a certain situation. There are certain conditions that are going to have to exist before the climate is right for the world to accept a dictator. A dictator just doesn't walk in and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, I am now here to become your dictator." He rather rises as a result of desperate circumstances within a nation. In this case, it will be desperate circumstances in all the nations of the world. Hitler, in the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, came to power because of the despair that possessed the German people from the economic depression and from the results of World War I.

Now the conditions for breeding dictators have historically been: anarchy; lawlessness; moral decadence; human desperation; and, a desire to have some hero to admire and to worship. Now the trends of world conditions today are moving to this kind of a desperation and this kind of a climate of restlessness on the part of the people of the world. We have an epidemic-like growth in major crimes. Every statistic that you read indicates to us that major crimes are multiplying far far out of proportion to the increase of the world's population. That means that more and more people are becoming criminals in major ways every day who were not that before. We have mounting warfare through guerrilla tactics and through the revolutionary movements. We have open declaration of Black Panthers who are coming into this country who have been in exile, and who are coming with the open declared intent of conducting guerrilla warfare in the United States, and moving the nation increasingly to a status of fear.

The population boom is an ever-living problem and growing worse. Those who are the most expert on this subject are declaring that there is no return. The world will not be able to take any action to control the population explosion, and furthermore, along with it, what a population explosion creates in the way of pollution, congestion, unemployment, famine, and unrest. These are elements that are only going to get worse. So all the talk that you hear about controlling population and about improving the environment are, by and large, will-of-the-wisp hopes that are not to be realized by people who study these things in great detail.

There is a certain wide-scale psychological ailment in our society. There is an alienation on the part of large segments of the society. There are pressures from impersonal qualities in the society, and certainly the movement toward a drug oriented culture, which again, from the Word of God, we realize that the Bible, in describing society in its last days, tells us that it will be a society which refuses to repent of its drug addiction.

We have a vast array of super weapons and the communists still want to rule the world, while the free world is determined not to let them do it. So with super weapons on two sides you have a condition of constant tension in reference to open violence and conflict. Society is increasingly becoming receptive to the idea of the need for a strong man with a strong hand to control the problems and the tensions of the world. So as we move along on just the various directions in which we are going today, there will come a time when the world will be so desperate that it will welcome Satan's man who will come on strong. He will be able indeed to bring a certain temporary peace to the world. Then he will not be able to be stopped. He will be the apple of everyone's eye after the desperate conditions that the world will have come to.

The Antichrist

Now the New Testament has something to say about this dictator. Throughout the Bible he has various names. Daniel 7:8 calls him "the literal horn." In Daniel 8:23, he's referred to as "the king of fierce countenance." In Daniel 9:26, he's referred to as "the prince that shall come." Matthew 24:15 speaks of him as "the abomination of desolation." 2 Thessalonians 2:8 speaks of him as "the wicked (or the lawless) one." Revelation 13:1 refers to him as "the beast out of the sea." Daniel 11:36 speaks of him as "the king who shall do according to his will." 2 Thessalonians 2:3 calls him "the man of sin." And 2 Thessalonians 2:3 also calls him "the son of perdition." 1 John 2:22 refers to him as the "antichrist," which is perhaps the best name because he is a substitute--an antichrist.

Revelation 13

I'd like us to look together for a little bit at a major revelation concerning the antichrist world dictator which is to come. Here is a personality that you should be acquainted with. His characteristics should be in your mind. Then maybe you can look over the world scene and see what you see in the way of people who may be matching up to this. In Revelation 13:1, John says, "And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea." Now in Scripture, this word "sea" has reference to the chaotic mass of the gentile nations. Revelation 17:15: "And he said unto me, 'The waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.'"

So the picture here of a beast coming out of the sea, as we interpret Scripture with Scripture, means that out of the gentile nations, some place on the face of the earth, out of the mass of gentile nations, this strong man will be born; will be reared; and, will come on the political scene. Revelation 17:1 says, "And there came one of the seven angels, who had the seven bowls, and talked with me saying, 'Come here and I will show you the judgment of the great harlot that sits upon many waters.'" This harlot, which is a false church (which we will be looking at), sits upon many waters, and this means that she sits in a dominating position upon all the gentile nations.

The sea here indicates the nations, and out of the sea, a beast arises. This is the antichrist who here in Revelation 13 is given the title of a beast, because from God's point of view that's how God sees him--as a bestial personality. What he does is very bestial, and the conditions and the climate to which he leads the societies of the world are extremely bestial. Now this man and his kingdom are described under the analogy of several animals.

The Beast

Let's begin again at Revelation 13:1: Click to continue reading the full article.

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