Don’t be alarmed, but we may be counting down to the end of the world with the speed of a microwave timer. I say this because the United States—that powerful nation that gave the world both Elvis Presley and Velcro—is electing the antichrist as its president. This very month.
The antichrist, of course, is the biggest villain of Bible prophecy. He is also as mysterious as Colonel Sanders’ top secret 11 herbs and spices. For 2000 years, scholars have speculated about his identity, but thanks to the internet, I know the answer: It is the newest president of the United States.
You may wonder how I can say this with any confidence when some of you are reading this before the election has even taken place. Do I have a special gift of prophecy? Have I uncovered a long-misunderstood text that reveals the result of the 2016 election? Have I gone looney after two years of non-stop election coverage on American TV? No, to all of the above.
The reason I know that the next president is the winter soldier of the Bible is because I have it on good authority that both candidates are antichrists.
Case in point: Don Colbert of Divine Health Wellness Center, based in Florida, made an appearance on TV to say, “That spirit of antichrist is majorly on one of these candidates, and that’s Hillary Clinton.” I’m on a tight deadline here and don’t have time to look closely into this man’s credentials, so let’s just accept his words as truth and move on. After all, he appeared on TV.
As for the other major candidate, the evidence against him is rock solid. For example, did you know that Trump Tower, where Donald Trump lives in New York City, is 666 feet tall? And he also owns the building at 666 Fifth Avenue in the same city. I suppose you know that 666 is identified as the number of the beast of Revelation? Also, a trump or trumpet is a little horn. The Hebrew prophet Daniel mentions a “little horn” speaking “boastfully” (Daniel 7:8). Are you getting chills yet? Remember, this is all reliable information; I uncovered it on the internet.
Actually, it isn’t that reliable. Turns out Trump Tower is actually 664 feet tall so it only reaches its sinister height after a good snowfall. And 666 Fifth Avenue was never owned by Trump and no longer has the same address. As for Trump being the little horn of Daniel 7, I’m sorry, but some prophetic interpretations are just too cute to be biblical. You might as well say that musicians Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie were the little horns in prophecy. Remember that the horn in Scripture is the pointy kind you find at the front end of bulls and Texas Cadillacs.
It’s nothing new
Of course, politicians have been accused of being the antichrist since the time of Nero. When Barack Obama first ran for the presidency, viral emails said he “fit every description of the antichrist.” People point out that the day after his election, the Pick 3 numbers of the lottery in his home state of Illinois were 6-6-6. Seriously.
Also, Ronald Wilson Reagan aroused suspicion because each of his three names had six letters. John F Kennedy, the first Catholic elected as president, was denounced as being the antichrist as was Franklin Roosevelt.
Maybe this is just part of the name-calling that enters every contest, whether it is political or not. It’s like a heated argument over who makes the best smartphone finally ending with the angry accusation that “Hitler used a Samsung.”
Accusing a politician of being the antichrist usually comes across as insincere, because the implication is not to prepare for the end of the world but to be sure to vote for the other candidate. Don Colbert, who identified the spirit of the antichrist in Hillary Clinton, said, “We as Christians have got to make the right choice because if we don’t, this nation is in decline and this nation will be in judgement and our children and our grandchildren will not have the great America that we want for them.”
Colbert’s concerns sound like they are limited to the temporal and political. It seems like the arrival of an evil power prophesied for two millennia would excite a deeper discussion than what the Dow Jones is going to look like for the grandbabies.
And the Bible says . . .
What happens when you remove the lens of politics from the discussion and see how the Bible identifies the antichrist? The disciple John is the only Bible writer who uses the word “antichrist” and he applies it to anyone who does not confess that Jesus has come from God (1 John 4:3). So his definition includes lots of people, past and present.
The antichrist is also identified by some as the “lawless one” described by the apostle Paul. This is an individual who arrives in the last act of earth’s history and will “oppose and exalt himself above everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
Paul also says “the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie” (verse 9).
In these texts, we can see that the final antichrist appears to be a religious figure—at least when he (or she) first comes on the scene. And we can also expect the being to perform the kind of miracles that make people say “How did he do that?”*
So do you see anyone in politics who fits this description? No? Well, so far the word antichrist appears to be more a slur than an actual description of a candidate’s qualities.
So how do I respond?
It’s such a temptation to demonise the political opposition, isn’t it? I got to know a chap once whom I really respected. Eventually he came into a position of power and I found myself on the opposite side of some issues that he championed. But in discussions with friends, I could never bear to say anything against the man. I knew he was honest, hard working and trying his mighty best to do the right thing. It was confusing at first, but I tried to not doubt the man’s integrity because I disagreed with his policies.
We all know sincere, good-hearted people who get their politics from a different radio station than we do. Sure, they may not be as smart or insightful as ourselves, but they don’t deserve to be dismissed as special assistants to the devil either. We are called to speak to them with respect and with just enough humility to admit that they might possibly have the faintest chance of being right. That seems like a good attitude to have to have in a political contest. When the end of the world comes, none of this will matter anyway. We might as well save the name-calling until the real antichrist comes along.
*To learn more about what the Bible says about the antichrist, go to www.hop.ec/secrets
