Is the Antichrist Being Revealed?

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   All right, this morning most of you already know that it's called is the Antichrist being revealed. Now just for those of you have never been here before never been in say multiple services. I don't always preach on end time events, but I have done over the last couple of years, you know, several and their CDs back there if you need them. If you want them, they're free. You can get some if you want to. But I want to say this. I've been I rededicated my life to the Lord. I was born again when I was 11 years old. But then I got away from God in my teenage years as some of you well know and came back to the Lord when I was 19. And the Lord baptized me in the Holy Spirit shortly after that and called me to the ministry and powerful vision of Jesus and God spoke to me and he called me to the ministry and no doubt about it and then that's when I led some of my friends to the Lord that are now preachers and led family members to the Lord and and God just just moved mildly, but ever since that time and that was in 1987. I have studied Bible prophecy at different points and I have studied it for years and years and years and I want to say this. I have never ever in 24 years of being a minister. I have never said or pointed toward a man and said this man is probably the Antichrist. Never have. So I'm not a sensationalist or an alarmist or anything of that nature and I before this I've spent many actually probably several months researching this individual that I'm going to point out to you this morning and I am I am personally convinced. But let me say this. I want to say this. I'm I'm I'm going to leave a 1% chance that maybe it might be his son or someone else in his family. You understand? It's that certain almost to me. The problem is over the years when you talk about this over the years people have pointed to different ones. Oh, he's the Antichrist. Some people said Gorbachev years ago and then some people came along and said Reagan and you've heard people out there nuts saying it's Obama and all this stuff. But the bottom line is the for someone to be the Antichrist, they have to fit the biblical um the biblical pattern. They have to fit the biblical description. If they don't fit in any point, then they can't be, okay? So people that have been doing that over the years, I believe was Satan's way of when the guy did come of getting us to say, "Ah, that's not him." People have been saying that for years. The devil's good at that, isn't he? I think this last guy that came up saying the rapture was going to happen on May 21st was just another way the devil's tried to make people who talk about end

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   time events look stupid, okay? But the bottom line is that end time prophecies are being fulfilled and more now than ever. So um the question today is of course is the is the Antichrist being revealed? And uh I believe so, but we're going to look at some scriptures first. Um I want you to turn in your Bibles first of all for turn to 1 John uh chapter 2 and verse 18. If you don't have a Bible, we got a few extras up there, but I want you to turn 1 John chapter 2 verse 18. Um this is something that, you know, there are people out there who who have different views of the book of Revelation. Some people say that uh have a historical view and that some of the that the events in Revelation and end time events have already happened in history. Uh some people actually say that the Antichrist, there's no such thing as the as the Antichrist, that there's been many Antichrist over the years, like different Popes and Hitler and so on. And but this verse tells us something very specifically. And he says here, he says, "Little children, it is the last time. As you have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are many Antichrist, whereby we know that it is the last time." In other translations, like the NIV, TIV, it says the Antichrist shall come. Okay? So, he's saying, yes, there are going to be many people who display the spirit of Antichrist. I mean, Hitler truly displayed the spirit of Antichrist, okay? Um, there's there's been many people. Nero and so on down the line. But he said that the Antichrist would come. Um, and that's just a verse I wanted you to see. Now, if you want to, you can turn to Matthew 24. Just turn to Matthew 24 real quick. Um, because there are some people, you know, the book of Daniel talks about the the coming Antichrist, okay? In chapter A matter of fact, it talks about him in chapter 7, in chapter 8, in chapter 9, in chapter 11, okay? In the book of Daniel. Now, there are some people who say that Antiochus Epiphanes fulfilled the prophecies of the Antichrist in, you know, about 160-something uh, BC, when he came into Jerusalem and desecrated the temple and and sacrificed a pig on the altar in the temple, which of course that was that was truly um, the abom- an abomination to the Jewish people to come into their temple and do that. But what we see in prophecy, and I'm going to say this many times, is we see dual fulfillment. We see, like in we see it in the book of Hosea, God said it to through Hosea the prophet, he said out of Egypt I have called my son. Well, that prophecy applied to two things. It applied first to God calling Israel out of Egypt out of the slavery back in Egyptian bondage. But then it also applied and it was used by New

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   Testament writers and the apostles when Jesus was a young boy and his parents had to take him into Egypt to hide him from Herod and then he calls them out of Egypt. So you see there's dual prophetic fulfillments of things. And that's why sometimes that Old Testament in time prophecy is kind of hard to understand. You have to pay a close attention to the details when it starts talking about things going on right then or things shortly thereafter and then all of a sudden it switches and starts talking about things way far out in advance or the latter days, okay? So what's interesting is people who say that the abomination of desolation, which is a refer a term referred to by Daniel is was Antiochus Epiphanes, we have a problem because because what? Nearly 200 years later in 33 AD, Jesus speaks Matthew 24. And what did he say? When they asked him, "What will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the age?" And one of the things he said was when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place. So Jesus took that and said it's going to happen again in the future. Now in 70 AD, the Jewish temple was destroyed and there hasn't been one since. So there's going to be a rebuilt Jewish temple for there on on the Temple Mount for there to be even the possibility to be the abomination of desolation. And we know that the Jews are preparing to rebuild that temple and as soon as they get the okay they're going to do that. And and I'll talk more about that in a second. But I wanted you to see that. That's in Matthew 24 verse uh, 15 there. He said, "When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place." And uh, um, very important. Now, what's interesting, I'm just going to say this this morning, some of you will disagree with this, but I'm going to say it this morning. I don't believe that the rapture takes place before the last 7 years begins. I don't believe that at all. And I've got a CD back there. I don't have time to get in that, but if you read Matthew 24, he says, "When you see the abomination of desolation" and he gives a chronological order there. And he says, "When you see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place." Well, that's in the middle of the chapter. Then he says, "Then this is going to happen. Then this is going to happen. Then this is going to happen." You do not see the rapture until verse 29 through 32. He says, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give off its light. Then you will see the sign of the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, sending forth his angels with the sound of a trumpet, gathering his elect." Um, so I don't believe that we see the rapture first. Matter of fact, I believe that the the revealing of the antichrist happens before the rapture happens. And this is a key. Now, I'm going to tell you why. Here's another verse. I mean, right after that that he says he talks about false Christ and false prophets. But I want you to turn turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.

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   And I'm not putting every verse up, so you'll need to turn to it if you want to if you want to see these things. But in in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, look at look at verse 1 two there. I just want to point out something. In those verses there, and I'll let you get there. I'm I'm and and pardon me this morning if I go fast because I haven't done one I haven't done a message like this that's this long. This is this is more of a college class this morning than it is a teaching uh, church service, okay? Cuz I want you to see it. I don't want you to just believe Pastor Dean. I you to believe the scriptures and I want you to just see the facts. I'm just going to present facts this morning. You will make your decision on your own. Amen. But in 2 Thessalonians, he he starts talking about let no one deceive you because they thought, you know, he said don't be soon shaken by letters from us as the day of the Lord has happened. But what does he say? He said that day will not come. And what did he say? Not just the coming, he said I'm talking to you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him. Everybody see that in your Bible? Everybody see that? He says about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him. That's the rapture of the church. He says that day will not come unless a falling away comes first. That word is an apostasy. That means many turn away from the faith, the true faith in Jesus. And then he says, "And the man of sin be revealed." So God clearly tells us that there would be a day that the man of sin, the son of perdition, that wicked, that's what 2 Thessalonians calls him. He's a man who will come. He said that man will be revealed. What's interesting, just a just a quick look at the word in the Greek dictionary for revealed, it's apokalupto. And here's what it means, to take off the cover, to disclose or reveal. So So God told us there would be a day that the man of sin would be revealed. Now, ultimately, we're going to know for sure that the man of sin is revealed because at the midpoint of the tribulation, Revelation 13 tells us that he will step into that holy place. Well, this actually 2 Thessalonians 2 says he'll step into that holy place and declare himself to be God. That's in Revelation 13. We know it happens at the midpoint because he says that's when he begins to blaspheme the temple and the tabernacle and those who dwell in heaven." I mean, that's when he changes. Okay? The Antichrist first comes peacefully. I'm going to show you that in the scriptures. Then he come Then he changes at the midpoint and becomes the vicious satanic individual that he is. Okay? So, I just wanted you to see that the Bible clearly says there'd be a day that he'd be revealed. All right? Now, I want everybody to turn to

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