Through my years following Bible Prophecy I have come across those who feel it necessary to name the Antichrist and share their thoughts publicly. Everyone specified has not in fact been the Antichrist and some of the nominees were quite far fetched on two levels.
First and foremost the person cited did not turn out to be the Antichrist. Second, the Antichrist candidate could not possibly enter political power because there was no geopolitical possibility for the public figure to gain the political seat needed for him to be the Antichrist.
The men named were absurd possibilities and the prophecy writers lost all credibility when their candidate did not turn out to be the Antichrist. Some Bible Prophecy writers feel very strongly about their Antichrist nominee especially if it is a politician or religious leader they do not like.
Naming the Antichrist is the wrong avenue for a Bible Prophecy writer to venture into on so many levels.
If you name the Antichrist and are wrong you lose all authority. It is no different than identifying a date for the Rapture. Once you lose believability people will be reluctant to listen to any of your teachings. In addition, when you name the Antichrist and are wrong you lead people to focus on the wrong person.
Yes, the Antichrist is here and within the political realm working his way to his political seat. I do not agree with those who say we cannot know his identity before the start of the Tribulation or that he will not be revealed until after the start of the Tribulation.
The Antichrist can be known beforehand because the treaty with Israel, which begins the Tribulation will be signed after the Antichrist gets into power. This will not all happen on the day the Antichrist obtains his political seat, he will be in power prior to the initiation of the treaty that begins the Tribulation. Bible Prophecy provides many verses detailing how the Antichrist acquires his political seat and any candidate must fit the Biblical criteria.
The Antichrist’s identity will not be widely known, the Biblical wise men and women will know who he is and they are few in number.
One of the reasons the Antichrist’s identity will not be broadly known is because the only people paying attention are Evangelical Christians. These Christians are then divided into those who are interested in end time Bible Prophecy and those who are not. When you examine the Christians who do follow Bible Prophecy News it further divides into which teachings they follow.
Bible Prophecy experts are divided between those who teach the European Union is the revived Roman Empire, to those that teach that an Islamic Caliphate is the Beast of Revelation. Other Bible Prophecy gurus are instructing that the United States is the Revelation Beast. Some instruct that the final world empire is all coming about via a conspiracy by the Illuminati and Bilderbergers. Other highlight even more conspiracies and bazaar correlations. Shrinking it down even further is that within each category are more explanations.
I teach the EU as the Revived Roman Empire and have seen others who have some good insights and have a good grasp on the EU, to one individual who did not have a good understanding at all and is teaching errors yet he is out there with the various experts.
Part of the problem is that there is no standard in the Evangelical world for relating Bible Prophecy to current events and there are some watchmen providing some real bad information who in the end are instruments of Satan providing disinformation and throwing everyone off the track off what is really happening to fulfill Bible Prophecy. Anyone can start a website and many of these persons who are warning about Bible Prophecy and the end times are throwing people way off course to what is really happening because of their errors.
So based on my knowledge of what is being taught and how many teachers there are out there, I doubt the true identity will be known among many. I could be wrong and the Evangelical world might become more unified in their teachings as we get closer to the start of the Tribulation.
There are those who say we cannot know the identity of the Antichrist and they cite 2 Thessalonians 2:3,which reads:
Let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come expect there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.
They teach that the falling away is the Rapture of the church. “The falling away” is talking about falling away from the true faith. The rest of the passage, which talks about he that restrains they teach is the Holy Spirit that is present with the body of believers that are still on the earth, but once the church is Raptured out the believers and thus the Spirit is gone and the Antichrist can be revealed.
The problem with this theory is that the Holy Spirit is going to be present during the Tribulation via the 144 thousand witnesses, the preaching of the two witnesses and the Tribulation saints. We also have the little phrase in Daniel 11:32 that says…”but the people who know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” This no doubt is the Holy Spirit at work in the Tribulation Saints.
There are the individuals who say we should be focusing on Jesus and not the Antichrist. The early church fathers focused on the Antichrist. Larry D. Harper is the leading expert on the early church fathers and their writings regarding the Antichrist. His mission The Elijah Project is devoted to helping educate the public on the early church beliefs regarding the end of the age. Thus the preoccupation for the Antichrist spans from the early church.
As I wrote in an article there are over 30 names given to the Antichrist in both the Old and New Testament, we see him in the book of Genesis and in the book of Revelation. He rules the world in the world’s final seven years. The Antichrist is a central figure in the Earth’s final years leading to Armageddon.
Each generation since the Apostles have paid attention to the signs of the end times and have looked for the Antichrist who is Jesus’s nemesis and who is the Son of Satan. It is not because we are not focused on Jesus, but rather focused on the entire picture.
As Bible Scholar Larry D. Harper so eloquently stated in his preface to his book “The Antichrist”, “These are not normal times. These are the End Times. Our generation has been selected to witness the final awesome battle between the forces of Light and Darkness. We have been chosen to witness the ultimate triumph of good over evil.”
For those who will live after the start of the Tribulation with all that is given in Scripture, there will be enough to identify the Antichrist. The Saints living in the earth’s final years will know the identity of the Antichrist and that he is Satan on earth.
Believers living beforehand, prior to the start of the Tribulation and the Rapture, will wonder about the Antichrist’s identity and if we come to know it we will see more of God’s word being fulfilled before our eyes.
To even be in the place to begin picking a candidate you need to understand the ins and outs and who is who in European and world politics. I have yet to see a Bible Prophecy teacher who delves that deep and has that kind of knowledge which is on par with a foreign affairs analyst. Most of what is written by Bible Prophecy experts in correlating world news to Bible Prophecy can be tossed into the garbage pail of junk journalism.
I spend a ridiculous amount of hours in study and I see potential candidates who I have revealed to my inner circle of friends but would never come out publicly.
This is not my job as a Bible Prophecy teacher, my job stops short of naming the Antichrist.
If my personal candidates are wrong can and I were to make them public I would lose all credibility.
If I am right I would not even know if I were correct at this point, but rather use the knowledge as a compass to gauge where we are at until the start of the Tribulation. As I stated there is the possibility that we will all be more unified in our beliefs of how the prophetic writings correlate to current affairs as we get closer to the start of the Tribulation and as a group will be able to know his identity as he negotiates the treaty, that is if the timing of the Rapture is immediately before the signing of the treaty that begins the Tribulation and not prior to an event that might spark the need for the treaty, which is the topic of another article.For more on end Time Bible Prophecy subscribe to my Youtube channel (Bible) Prophecy Talk Today!