I believe a great deception has infiltrated the present day church and even the elect are being deceived. It has poisoned our thinking and gone far deeper than we realise. It can hinder our relationship with the Lord and fill our hearts with a fear for the future. It can effect our vision to, for many are believing for a falling away of the Church when the Lord wants us to pray for a worldwide revival. How can you have both? Many Christians live in the dread of receiving the ‘mark of the beast’ mentioned in revelation and so denying the Lord. The belief of a coming ‘one world’ government, also makes Christians say and do unwise things.
This teaching was only birthed after the Reformation in 1517 when Luther pointed out to Papal Rome that their control of the masses and world dominance was prophesied in the bible. Luther showed them that they had all the marks of the Antichrist and needed to repent. This confrontation sparked the Reformation. The Papal Powers began to lose ground so they devised a theory that they were not the Antichrist, for there was a man still to come in the future. This idea fell flat and the reformation went ahead with devastating effect on the Papal Church, and they lost power all around the world. Napoleon actually took the Pope captive at one stage, and later he was only left with the Vatican.
300 years later once the fires of the reformation had died down, a Brethren preacher called Derby adopted and taught about this future antichrist. It sounded more exciting. Scofield put them in the footnotes of his bible and it was soon embraced by the modern day Church.
Charles Spurgeon vehemently opposed this teaching and said that it belittled what Christ did on the cross. If the future antichrist teaching is to be believed then you needed to tamper with the prophecy of Daniels ‘70 Weeks’. Theologians believed that this was speaking about God’s people up until Christ as far as the 69 weeks was concerned, but to justify a future antichrist you had to say that the last 70th week hasn’t happened yet, and was still to come.
The 70th week speaks of Christ’s covenant made at the cross, but they now say that its speaking of the Antichrist and his covenant that will be broken. They also say that the Prince mentioned here is the Antichrist and not Prince Titus who came and destroyed the Temple in 70AD.
We are in it now so deep that even well-known preachers have taken it as gospel.
This view may seem preposterous at first, but all you need to do is check the source, for history backs it up. Not like the futurist teaching that says that its going to happen in the future. This can only be proved true when its happened. Modern day preachers keep giving predictions of who the Antichrist is and keep getting it wrong.
At the beginning of the Book of Revelation it says that the things written there will shortly come to pass and that was 2000 years ago. Paul said there would be a falling away soon after his death and that did happen just as he said. We need to be looking back and not forward to find the marks of the Beast.
Since the Reformation the Church has been set free and there is now nothing to stop her from fulfilling her destiny. Gods end time plan is for revival.