Who is the Antichrist? Part 2 – War against God’s saints and His laws
Who is the Antichrist? And so, in light of that, when we come back to Daniel 7:25, the next thing the angel said this man will do is this: “He shall wear out the saints of the Most High.” In other words, he’s going to wage all-out war against people who are true believers in Jesus Christ during the seven-year tribulation period. This will be many people saved during this seven-year tribulation period. Revelation 7 makes that very clear where John saw 144,000 Jewish men who will get saved during the tribulation period plus John saw “a great multitude from every tongue, tribe and nation” on the face of the earth who will be washed in the blood of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, during the tribulation period. Many people will get saved during that seven-year period of time, and those tribulation saints will refuse to acknowledge that Antichrist is God, will refuse to worship him, and as a result, he will wage all-out war against those tribulation saints.
Interestingly, this same man is described for us again in Revelation 13 where he is presented as a “beast who comes out of the sea.” And this is what we’re told about him, that the beast was worshipped, verse 4: “They worshipped the dragon (who is Satan) which gave power unto the beast (the Antichrist), and they worshipped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?’ And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and power was given unto him to continue for forty and two months. He opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle and them that dwell in them and it was given unto him to make war with the saints and overcome them; and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Tribulation saints will not go along with the masses of people in the world who will worship the Antichrist. Tribulation saints will refuse to worship him as God and so he’s going to wage all-out war against those saints and passages in Revelation make it very clear that tribulation saints will be martyred by the Antichrist. Revelation 20:4-5 make that very clear, for example, that many of these tribulation saints will be put to death by Antichrist and his forces.
But then coming back to Daniel 7:25 again, the angel told Daniel that this man would also think to change times and laws. Now, we’re not told how he will do that, but let me point out, “times and laws,” time periods and laws, such as natural laws, spiritual laws, etc., are things that were established and ordained by God to bring order into the life of man here on planet earth and apparently as this man, Antichrist—by the way, John calls him the Antichrist in 1 John 2—“as this man, the Antichrist, the future ruler of the revived Roman Empire of Western Europe, claims that he is God, he’s going to try to usurp priorities that belong exclusively to the true and the living God and try to change time periods and laws different from the way God had established them in order to demonstrate the fact that he is deity. This man is going to be a tyrant, an absolute dictator.
Interestingly, Jacques Delors, the President of the European Community Commission, the decision-making body, in a public television speech in Europe made this statement: “Western Europe must have one political executive to make decisions and fight for the policies of its union.” One political executive. The man who established the telemarketing system here in America lived and studied in Western Europe for a number of years, and he has made the statement in an editorial in his telemarketing magazine several years ago that in order for the European Union system to operating effectively, Europe must have one ruler, only one overall ruler to hold that system together and they could operate.”
And God, some 2500 years ago, through this prophecy that He gave to Daniel and other prophets, made it very clear that’s exactly what they are going to get. When the revived Roman Empire has been functioning for a period of time with ten equal rulers and ten divisions, there will be an eleventh ruler that will rise to power within that revived Roman Empire, gain control of it, but he’s going to be energized and dominated by Satan. He’s going to be an absolute dictator. He’s going to be a tyrant. He will demand that he have his own way and anyone who rejects his claim to be God, he will try to put to death.
You see, this again demonstrates there is a true and a living God, that He knows the end from the beginning, and some 2500 years ago He could foretell these things that are going to take place as we move into the end times. And it looks as if the world is very quickly moving in this direction, even in this time in which we are now living.
