April 1, 2021 @ 9:00 AM

The Revelation of the Anti-Christ

Thus far we have looked at the signs leading up to the Great Tribulation, the Rapture of the Church of Jesus Christ, and a brief overview of the Great Tribulation. During the first 3.5 years of the Great Tribulation, a man of mystery and great influence will arise. He is called by many names: The Anti-Christ (meaning “substitute or counterfeit Christ”) (1 John 2:18). Revelation 9:11 calls him the “king” of the locusts of the abyss (demons). Rev. 9:11 also calls him the “angel of the abyss,” “Abaddon” (destruction-Hebrew), and “Apollyon” (destruction-Greek). Remember a primary characteristic of the thief in John 10:10, “He comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.” Revelation 11:7 calls him “the beast” and 2 Thessalonians 2:3 calls him the “man of lawlessness.”

Where does this “Counterfeit Christ” come from, who is he, and what is he like?

  • The Anti-Christ arises from among the nations and is a resurrected king.  Evidently he is a king who is slain by the sword and is resurrected by Satan.  In this way, complete with scars, the Counterfeit Christ is able to deceive the nations into believing that he is Jesus Christ.
  • The Anti-Christ is a man.  He is never named, although speculations have ranged from Nero, to Hitler, to Mussolini, to the Pope, to Henry Kissinger, to Mikhael Gorbachev.  In short, we don’t know who he is, but we do know a lot about him.
  • He is an arrogant, blasphemer of God and everything holy.  This stands to reason when you realize that he is empowered by Satan.  He is a cruel ruler who will dominate the whole world.  He rises to power at the start of the Great Tribulation.  He has no sexual desire for women but rather power is what “turns him on”.  As with all the anti-Christ’s throughout history, the Anti-Christ will deny that Jesus Christ is God incarnate and is God’s son.

How will the Anti-Christ rule the world during the Great Tribulation? The Anti-Christ will do a number of things that will gain great favor with the peoples of the world:

  • He will make a covenant with Israel.  He will aid them in rebuilding the temple, beginning animal sacrifices and establishing a priesthood.  All of this will take place during the first 3 ½ years of the Great Tribulation.
  • He will provide solutions to the world’s problems.  He will solve military and economic problems that have plagued mankind for centuries.  (Much as the Messiah will do).
  • He will be assassinated and miraculously healed and raised to life again.  This will astound the masses and gain a great following.
  • He will have the two witnesses, sent by God, murdered.  These two have preached the Gospel to the world and declared to the world the need to repent.  Their murder delights a guilt-ridden world and gains further popularity for the Anti-Christ.
  • He will persecute and murder Christians (saved during the Tribulation, many during the preaching of the two witnesses). This, too, draws the favor of the ungodly who delight in seeing God’s people destroyed.
  • He will head up a 10-nation confederacy.  This confederacy, ruled by 10 “puppet kings”, will form the “power base” for the Anti-Christ to rule the world.
  • Through Anti-Christ’s religious affairs Chancellor, The False Prophet, Anti-Christ will begin an identification system, which will be tied to the economies of the world.  No one will be able to trade locally, nationally, or internationally without his name or number (666) laser-tattooed upon or injected into him or her.  This brings about world unity and gives the Anti-Christ tremendous power.  He will also establish a universal calendar and universal monetary system.  This further aids world unity and his power. Beware globalism!

The Tribulation Temple

As I mentioned in the previous article, the Anti-Christ is instrumental in the building of a 3rd Temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah. The first temple was glorious in splendor. The materials were gathered by King David but the temple was built by his son, King Solomon. It took him 7 years to build it but It was destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians. King Herod rebuilt the temple, the second temple, in 37 B.C. It was not the magnificent structure of King Solomon’s temple. It was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70 and has never been rebuilt since then. The Anti-Christ will oversee the building of a 3rd Temple. It will be built on Mt. Moriah. The history of the site of the temple traces back to Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac on Mt. Moriah (Genesis 22:1-14) and King David’s offering of a sacrifice at Ornan’s threshing floor on Mt. Moriah (1 Chronicles 21:18). It is on this very spot that King Solomon built his temple and every temple must be built on the same site (2 Chronicles 3:1). It is this same site that the Anti-Christ must build the temple for it is only in the temple that animal sacrifices can be offered and the temple can only be built on that specific site!

The Anti-Christ will persuade the Jews to rebuild the temple at the beginning of the Great Tribulation. The temple will be structured with an outer court, a holy place, and a holy of holies. There will be a great altar, a laver, a menorah, a table of showbread, an incense altar, and an ark of the covenant. The Jews will joyfully begin setting up the sacrificial system complete with animal and grain offering (Daniel 9:27). At the mid-point of the Great Tribulation, the Anti-Christ will demand that the Jews cease to worship God Almighty and instead worship him. This is called the Abomination of Desolation (Daniel 9:27, 12:11, Matthew 24:15, 2 Thessalonians 2:4, . We will discuss that in depth in a future article. Suffice it to say, there cannot be an Abomination of Desolation without a 3rd temple in which to do it.

There is a huge problem in all of this. The second most holy site in Islam, the Dome of the Rock, sits on Mt. Moriah. How will this be dealt with by the Anti-Christ? I don’t know. Perhaps there is a miscalculation and the Dome of the Rock is not precisely on the temple mount such that there is room for the Jews to build their temple next to it. Perhaps God will cause an earthquake and swallow up the Dome of the Rock. Perhaps the Dome of the Rock will somehow become defiled and the Muslims will tear it down rather than worship in a defiled temple. Perhaps an uprising against Islam will break out and the Dome of the Rock will be destroyed in the conflagration. Lots of speculation but I don’t know. Only God knows.

Irv