WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING TO HAPPEN?
A World Leader is Going to Come
by Max Frazier, Jr.

From the February 2007 Philogian

During my thirty-four years of ministry, perhaps the most asked question I have received from parishoners and students alike is: What is going to happen in our world?  The world seems to be in a constant state of turmoil these days.  Perhaps the continent of Antarctica is the only region in the world where no crisis is lingering, although those who hold to a global-warming ideology would say that even Antarctica is in turmoil.  Does North Korea and its radical leader possess a nuclear capability?  Is Iran developing its own nuclear warhead program?  Can peace ever be achieved between the Palestinians and the Israelis?  And, what about Iraq, will that nation ever find stability?  The people of the world cry out for answers, but no definite answers seem to be forth-coming.  Is there anyone who has a solution? 

The Bible provides two solutions to these troubling questions.  First, the Bible asserts that a man will appear upon the world’s stage in the closing days of this age, drawing the world to himself.  He will become the autocratic dictator of the world.  He will bring a peaceful resolution that will only last momentarily until he has firmly grasped the reins of world domination.  The second solution to the questions of peace for the world is found in the person of Jesus Christ when He returns to this earth to reign as King from the throne of David in Jerusalem.  What a day that will be!

With this article, I want to begin a series of four articles describing some of the events that will yet happen in our world.  This series will culminate in November with the wonderful news of Christ’s Second Advent.  But we begin with that interesting person who will unite the world in the final days of this present age.  The Bible gives him many names, as we shall see momentarily, but we know him best as the Antichrist.

A Brief History of the Understanding of the Antichrist

Throughout the history of the Church, various individuals and institutions have borne the title, Antichrist.  For those first century believers, the Roman Emperor Nero was the Antichrist.  It was Nero who ordered the deaths of many Christians, including the Apostles Peter and Paul.  It was Nero who committed suicide alone and in an obscure place, thus causing people to question whether he was even dead.  As late as the fifth century, Augustine wrote concerning Nero, Others, again suppose that he [Nero] is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom (from The City of God). 

The Church father, Tertullian (ca. 150-ca. 225) believed that the very presence of the Roman Empire kept the Antichrist from being revealed.  Thus he prayed that the Empire would remain in tact.  He wrote in his Apology: There is also another and a greater necessity for our offering prayer in behalf of the emperors, nay, for the complete stability of the empire, and for Roman interests in general.  For we know that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth – in fact, the very end of all things threatening dreadful woes – is only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman empire.  We have no desire, then, to be overtaken by these dire events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed, we are lending our aid to Rome’s duration. (quote from The Coming Antichrist, by Walter K. Price, p. 24). 

During the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Church was considered to be the Antichrist.  It is interesting that King James I, the one who authorized the English translation of the Bible that bears his name, wrote A Paraphrase Upon the Revelation of the Apostle S. John.  Therein he claimed that the plague of locusts, mentioned in chapter 9, were the different orders of monks and the pope was their king (quote from The Coming Antichrist, p. 35).  The Westminster Confession of Faith, written in 1646, declared: There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be the head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God (quote from The Coming Antichrist, p. 34).

Others have borne the name Antichrist down through the years of recent history.  After the French Revolution many believed that Napoleon was the Antichrist.  Prior to World War II, many Bible scholars, including Oswald J. Smith and Harry A. Ironside, believed that Benito Mussolini was the Antichrist.  Ironside wrote these words concerning Mussolini in 1930: His bombastic utterances backed up by tremendous ability to perform have astonished the world.  He declares himself the Man of Destiny, chosen to revive the Roman Empire and restore it to its pristine glory.  The Mediterranean, he declares, shall yet become a Roman lake surrounded by nations in alliance with Italy…At least six powers already are in alliance with Italy, and that the remaining ones will join the confederation seems to be just a question of time (quote from The Coming Antichrist, p. 40). 

It seems rather obvious that the world keeps trying to define the man of lawlessness – the term the Apostle Paul gives to the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians.  So, we look for men of great evil character.  But, perhaps we are looking for the wrong characteristics.  We know with certainty that the Antichrist will become a very evil man.  But, the Bible would help us to understand that he enters the world’s stage on a less violent and evil note. 

How Does the Antichrist Come to Power?

The answer to this question lies in a very important text in the book of Daniel.  When teaching the book of Daniel I tell my students that Daniel 9:24-27 is the key that unlocks the chronology of the end times.  Let’s examine verses 26 and 27: After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.  The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.  The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.  He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’  In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.  And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

I want us to notice that the text indicates that the act that will initiate the final ‘seven’ or final seven years of Daniel’s vision is a covenant that the Antichrist will make with the people of Israel.  We know that Israel is desperately trying to find answers to the questions of peace with her neighbors.  And one of the great obstacles in any peace-negotiating process concerns the city of Jerusalem, especially the area known as the Temple Mount.  Perhaps Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas might be able to sit down and reach some type of agreement concerning the lands of Gaza and the West Bank (ancient Judea and Samaria) and the formation of a border between the two peoples.  But, the question of control over Jerusalem will continue to cause a great impasse.  After conquering Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel vowed that they would never surrender the Holy City again.  Jerusalem has been an international city, but that did not work effectively in the past.  Can there be a resolution to the Jerusalem Question?  I certainly do not want to offer one, nor do I see any person presently on the world’s stage who has an answer.  But the Bible explicitly states that some day (and I believe that day might be closer than we would think) a man will step forward with a plan for Middle East peace that will be accepted by both Israelis and Arabs.  That agreement will begin the countdown to Armageddon (the subject for an article in the August issue of the Philogian). 

The Apostle John, writing in the Revelation, states that the Antichrist will first appear as one who rides a white horse: I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals.  Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!”  I looked, and there before me was a white horse!  Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest (Revelation 6:1-2).  So, both Daniel and John state that the Antichrist will begin on a rather placid note.  It is interesting that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, in their popular end-time series Left Behind, also portrayed Nicholai Carpathia, their antichrist figure, as beginning in a peace-seeking mode. 

So, instead of looking for a person who is bent on warfare, we should be looking for an individual who is earnestly pursuing a man-given peace, especially within the realm of the Middle East. 

Will the Peace Last?

The answer to this question is an emphatic “no!”  John continues his story of the Antichrist in chapter 6 with the introduction of a red horse followed by a black horse.  The red horse represents warfare: When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!”  Then another horse came out, a fiery red one.  Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.  To him was given a large sword (Revelation 6:3-4).  The Antichrist is bent on world-wide domination.  He will use the military forces at his disposal to eliminate those who oppose his power and to subjugate people to his will.  One can now understand why Napoleon, Hitler, and Mussolini were considered to be Antichrist. 

A consequence of war is a deterioration of the world’s economy, pictured by the portrayal of the rider now on a black horse (Revelation 6:5-6).  The Antichrist will not only rule the world militarily, but also impose his own economic standards.  In his article titled, “The Antichrist: Who Is the Next World Ruler?”, part of a collection of essays in a book edited by Chuck Swindoll titled, The Road to Armageddon, Dr. Dwight Pentecost makes this statement concerning the economic conditions imposed by the Antichrist: John says the situation has become such that it will take all a man can earn in a day to provide a crust of bread for his family…and don’t even consider trying to have olive oil for your bread or wine to wash it down with, because it won’t be available (p. 94).  And this economic control will be regulated through some type of system, known in the Bible as the mark of the beast: He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name (Revelation 13:16-17).  What this might look like is not as difficult for us to understand as it might have been for the Apostle John back in the closing days of the first century.  We know that technology exists for the implantation of a micro-chip in a person’s forearm that carries all his personal information.  It is sort of having your own personal bar-code.  Perhaps the day will come when a person will have to be scanned by a scanner before he or she is granted access to a business to either make purchases or to see merchandize.  With the implementation of these devices, the Antichrist will be able to control the economics of his kingdom.    

Finally, and of great importance to those who study the nation of Israel, is the change in attitude of the Antichrist toward Israel.  As we have seen from the Daniel text, the Antichrist begins with a strong gesture of peace and goodwill toward Israel.  He will be regarded as the one who is their savior from the problems of the world.  But, as the years click down toward the close of the age, the Antichrist will have a change of heart toward the people of Israel, especially toward their religion.  Daniel records it this way: In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.  And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him (Daniel 9:27).  Jesus, in one of His final teachings to His disciples, a teaching we call the Olivet Discourse, also refers to this passage in Daniel: So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains (Matthew 24:15-16).

Just what exactly is “an abomination of desolation?”  For a first-century Jew that term conjured up a horrible event in Israel’s recent past.  In 168 BC, the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, conquered the city of Jerusalem.  As an act celebrating his complete animosity toward the Jews, he erected an altar to his god Zeus in the Jewish temple and then offered a pig upon the altar of burnt offering.  No more heinous act could ever be made in a Jewish culture.  It was an act of abomination.  What both Jesus and Daniel are saying is that the Antichrist will re-enact a similar gesture of hatred toward the Jews and their religion.  This act will be the revelation of the real character of the Antichrist.  He will proclaim himself to be as god to the people.  If anyone had a mistaken idea of who he was, this act will clearly dispel any of those ideas.  This act is one of defiance against the God of Israel.  It is almost as if Satan, through the act of his puppet, is shaking his fist in the face of God and defying God to act. 

How Does the Story of the Antichrist End?

The final chapter in the story of the Antichrist will be written on the Plains of Esdraelon in a conflict known in the Bible as the Battle of Armageddon.  The armies of the world, united under the banner of the Antichrist, will rise up to destroy the city of Jerusalem.  The Apostle John records the final chapter in the life of the Antichrist this way: But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf.  With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image.  The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur (Revelation 19:20). 

For seven years this man held power over the world.  Like many other dictators the world has known, the Antichrist literally held the power of life and death.  Few who dared to oppose him lived to tell about it.  In many ways he was god to the world.  But, he was not the God who sovereignly watched over all that the Antichrist was doing.  For the actions of the Antichrist were merely a prelude to the greatest moment the world has ever seen: the return of the King to claim His throne. 

Is the Time for the Antichrist at Hand?

My dear Village Schools friends, if I had the answer to that question I would…well I am not sure what I would do.  But I don’t have the answer to that question.  I can only look at the situations happening in the world today and try to see them in the light of prophetic truth.  There does seem to be a movement toward a one-world religion.  Islam believes it is the only legitimate religion in the world.  Will it be the banner under which all other religions will gather?  Recently we have witnessed attempts by some Christian leaders to bring other religions together in the hopes of resolving many of the social issues plaguing the world today.  Could this be a harbinger of the coming of the Antichrist?  And, what about Iran and Russia and their interest in the Middle East?  These are matters that we will consider more fully in our next issue. 

But, suffice it to say that I do believe that it is possible the Antichrist is alive right now, this very moment, somewhere in the world, probably in some European country.  (Probably not in Romania from which came the Antichrist of LaHaye and Jenkins).  So, what is the challenge to each of us as believers?  We are not to be filled with despair, but we are to be encouraged that our God is still sovereignly in control.  Nothing will happen in this world without His permission.  We are to be alert to what is happening in the world and use those events as a springboard from which to proclaim Christ.  He has promised that He would come again.  And, perhaps that might even occur before another issue of the Philogian would go to press.  Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Resources for Further Study

LaHaye, Tim, and Jenkins, Jerry B.  Are We Living in the End Times?  Wheaton,
Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999.  This book presents the theology behind
the fiction in the “Left Behind” series.  This is an important book to read if one is to understand the reasons for many of the characters and actions in that series.

Price, Walter K.  The Coming Antichrist.  Chicago:  Moody Press, 1974.  This is one of
the most helpful volumes I have read on the topic of the Antichrist.

Swindoll, Charles R., et. al.  The Road to Armageddon.  Nashville: Word Publishing,

1. This is an excellent collection of essays written by some of the best known

scholars in the field of prophetic study from Dallas Theological Seminary..

In addition, there are many helpful volumes on both the books of Daniel and Revelation that will give added information in a study of the Antichrist. 

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