The spirit of Anti-christ

The spirit of Anti-christ
By Abraham Israel

Most of the end time events will not be driven by human intelligence or human efforts, but it will be strongly driven by the spirit influence of the heavenlies, in executing events even up to the battle of Armageddon. This is when Christ will step in to this planet earth to save it from self-destruction. If we turn to the Bible to find the truth about the end time events, normally the first thing that people notice with their human perception is to see it with their focus on a single man who is named as “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

This man is called as the Anti-christ because Christ came to fulfill the Law of God through the empowerment of God’s Spirit (Matt 5:17; Luke 4:16-21), but this man will come to break the commandments of God from the greatest to the least empowered by the spirit of lawlessness which is Satan himself who is the chief of it (2 Thessalonians 2:3; Genesis 3:15). And the Bible also affirms this fact by saying that, “the coming of the Anti-christ [lawless one] will be [is] according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs and lying wonders….” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). This Anti-christ is also referred in the Book of Daniel 11:36 as the king [man with authority] with particular noticeable character traits such as those described below,

(i) He will do according to his own will [self-will (Proverbs 18:1)],

(ii) He will exalt and magnify himself above every god [pride (1 Peter 5:5)],

(iii) He will speak blasphemies against the God of gods (2 Thess 2:4; Rev 13:4-6; Dan 7:8) [despiser of God (Prov 14:2)],

(iv) He shall prosper till the wrath has been accomplished [walker of the deceitful way of Satan (Prov 14:12)],

(v) In Rev 13:4, we notice that it is Satan who will be giving his authority to Anti-christ, in exchange for the worship that Satan will receive through Anti-christ from the whole of humankind. The Anti-christ will act as a fully surrendered vessel of Satan, knowingly he will sell his soul to Satan in exchange for his power and authority. This is the same power and authority that Satan promised to give Jesus if He will fall before him and worship him, but Jesus rejected this deceitful offer of Satan openly (Luke 4:5-8). The Anti-christ will be a normal man empowered by Satan himself.

The other things that Anti-christ will do is,

(i) He shall neither regard the God of his father’s [i.e. he must be of a Christian lineage].

(ii) He shall not regard the desire of women [i.e. population control, birth control through strict abortion law, one family no child policy, marriage without covenant (i.e. live-in relationship) and polygamous relationship].

(iii) He shall not regard any god.

(iv) He shall exalt himself above them all (Daniel 11:37).

(v) But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses [an eastern god which is nothing but an idol in which Satan himself will reside to be worshipped]; and a god which his fathers did not know [because they must have worshipped the true God as an Assyrian Christian (Is 14:25; Dan 11:37)] he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things which is a custom of eastern idolatrous religion of China, India, etc… (Dan 11:38; Rev 9:20-21; Deut 31:29; 1 Cor 10:20; Dan 5:23).

(vi) He shall act against the strongest fortresses [nation of Israel and its allies] with a foreign god [i.e. a god foreign to him and also to the nation of Israel], which Anti-christ shall acknowledge, and advance its glory; and he shall cause them [i.e. pagan gods] to rule over many [i.e. nations which followed the living and the true God], and divide the land [the land points to the land of Israel and also the whole planet earth in general] for gain [economic gain will be the driving force of co-operation for the emergence of the one world government with one world leader] (Dan 11:39).

(vii) As the Bible says “the lawless one [Anti-christ]…. [will work] according to the working of Satan, with all power [because then the saints shall be given in to his hand for a period of three and half years (Dan 7:25)], signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish…..[being unsaved]” (2 Thess 2:9-10).

(viii) The spirit of Anti-christ is nothing but Satan and his evil cohorts because the Bible says, “every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh…is the spirit of Anti-christ, which you have heard was coming [when? Exactly at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, to make Him disobey His Father’s commandments and to kill Jesus Christ physically if He cannot be killed spiritually (John 14:30-31)], and is now already in the world [why? Because they were all thrown out of the place of absolute authority over this planet earth (Job 1:7; 2:2; John 12:31-33)].” (1 John 4:3-4). In other words all the spirits that does not submit to the authority of Jesus Christ, and those who do not want to obey His word will all come under the category of the “spirit of the Anti-christ” (1 John 4:3).

(ix) Anti-christ is not a illusionary character or a fable that the Bible indicates, but is a unique person who will open his spirit in such a way to Satan, that he will become the first human person to openly challenge Christ to fight Him in a war (2 Thess 2:8; Rev 13:4-10; 16:10-11; 19:19-21). Apostle John spoke about this person of Anti-christ as the one who is coming. Even though he said many anti-christs have come already during his time in the first century itself, yet undeniably he was pointing to a single person as Anti-christ who is coming. Because these things were happening even during those times, hence Apostle John said these events give us a clear evidence that it is the last hour. If we ask the question in what way it is the last hour? The answer is, it is the last hour for every human being to make a choice to accept Christ as the one who has come in the flesh or reject Him and deny this fact to become a part of the spirit of Anti-christ (1 John 2:18; 4:2-3,4).

(x) The other important thing to understand is, the world [i.e. the world system of governance] is at present is highly influenced and directed by this spirit of Anti-christ, hence the voice of the world system of governance is the voice of the spirit of Anti-christ (1 John 4:5).

(xi) Those who are of the world will not like to know God or hear His apostolic messengers because of the strong influence of these spirits of Anti-christ. They will only like to hear those things that come from the source of the spirit of Anti-christ, because they will be accustomed in hearing its voice. By this we can know any person whether he is on God’s side or not. In other words recognizing the above characteristics in a person, we can easily find out whether that particular person is of the Spirit of truth [i.e. Holy Spirit and all the God’s angelic spirits] or the spirit of error [i.e. Satan’s spirit and all His cohorts of evil demonic and angelic spirit’s (Luke 8:2)].