Announcer: It's time now for Bible Talk. Join our hosts, Gary Gibbs and John Bradshaw, speakers for the Amazing Facts ministry, as they now open the Bible and discuss themes that affect your life today. Stay tuned because the next 15 minutes will deepen your understanding of God's word.
John Bradshaw: Hi friend, and welcome to Bible Talk, where we talk about what the Bible says to us today. I'm John Bradshaw and with me is Gary Gibbs. Hi, Gary.
Gary: Hi, John. Last time we met together, we studied a very interesting topic, the topic about the Antichrist.
John: And is this a hot button topic today. Everyone's talking about it. It's in the movies. Prophecy is being written about it, news magazines. It seems as though everyone's got an opinion and, hey, we talked last time, some of them are pretty funny opinions.
Gary: It really is. I looked up on the Internet, just typed in 'Antichrist'. David Hasselhoff - he's an actor on a program called Baywatch - becomes the first hit there for Antichrist. Supposedly he's the Antichrist.
John: Now, I hope is just doing that tongue-in-cheek. But you get people who are deadly serious about promoting the idea that it's Ronald Reagan or Proctor & Gamble or...and we can stay that it is 'd', none of the above.
Gary: In fact, John, you showed us that the Bible says that the Antichrist beast is actually a nation.
John: Yes, that's what the Bible says.
Gary: And where did we find that at?
John: Now, remember the Book of Revelation, so symbolic, draws its symbols from the Old Testament Scriptures. And you go back to the Old Testament book of Daniel. Study Revelation and Daniel together and in Daniel 7, you've got Daniel the prophet having a dream about all of these beasts. And he says about what he is dreaming about. He talks about these animals coming up out of the sea, you know. And, then, he says in Daniel 7:17, these great beasts, which are four, are four kings that shall rise out of the earth and that they're kings. Verse 23: the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom.
Gary: So it's symbolic. It's just like here in the United States of America, we represent America by a beast.
John: Oh, sure. I mean, if you were to read a cartoon you might see a conference table with an eagle, and a bear, and a lion at the table.
Gary: You're originally from New Zealand, what animal do you use to represent New Zealand?
John: We're Kiwis, see. Not the fruit, man, the bird. We're Kiwis.
Gary: Oh, there's a bird? A Kiwi bird.
John: What do you mean, there's a bird? You need to know that. I need to educate this man right here.
Gary: Well, I like to eat Kiwi fruit. The bird, I'll leave alone.
John: You better not eat that bird, it's rare and endangered. It's a precious symbol of our country, see.
Gary: OK. So, the Antichrist beast, it's a nation, it's a kingdom. Now does kingdom this exist today?
John: Well, I'll tell you what we can do. We can look in the book of Daniel, Daniel 7, and look at some of the identifying marks of this nation and we can find out.
Gary: Well, why don't we do that, because this is probably quite a new concept for a lot of people, because most of the things we read and we see in the movies, it presents that Antichrist as a supernatural, single individual.
John: Sure.
Gary: Now, we're talking about a world power, a kingdom.
John: Often people say the Antichrist is a Jew living in the Middle East, or, you know, there's a popular series where the guy's a Romanian. Whichever way they look at it, it's generally one man doing some terrible thing.
Gary: I remember, John, several years ago, and it wasn't that long ago, in fact, full pages ads were taken out in, like, USA Today, The New York Times, The L.A. Times, saying the Antichrist is here. Now this was expensive. These ads were multiple thousands of dollars. Somebody spent a lot of money, saying the Antichrist is alive excuse me, no, the Christ is what it said, the Christ is alive today and living here. And, of course, as Christians, we said that has got to be the Antichrist. But, you're saying, no, it's not a single individual, it's a kingdom. So, there are points here in Daniel.
John: Yeah, why don't we walk through them. You read in Daniel 7:8, I considered the horns and lo...in fact, I want to back up.
Gary: Alright.
John: I'm just thinking as I go here.
Gary: Well, there's a lot here.
John: You've got these four beasts, that Daniel saw. He said the first was like a lion and eagle's wings. That's verse four. Then, there was another beast like a bear raised up on one side. Then, verse six, a third one like a leopard and, verse seven, a fourth one that defied zoological classical version. It was just this thing.
Gary: So, it is this dreadful, terrible beast, like a monster.
John: Now many people, most students of prophesy have got to realize that this first beast, represented by a lion with eagle's wings, is the nation of Babylon, the kingdom of Babylon.
Gary: In fact, John, I have visited a museum in Turkey, the country of Turkey, and it has panels out of ancient Babylon that adorned the walls leading up to presidential palace. And do you know what was on those panels?
John: You're going to tell me lions with eagle's wings.
Gary: Lions with eagle's wings, all the way up to Nebuchadnezzar's palace. So, yes, historically the winged lion represents Babylon.
John: You know, I've been to Babylon.
Gary: Oh, you have?
John: Yeah, on Long Island, New York.
Gary: Oh, Babylon, New York. [laughs]
John: Babylon, New York. At the marina there, they've got these two great pillars. On top of the pillars, guess what?
Gary: Winged lions.
John: Lions with eagle's wings.
Gary: Well known, well accepted historical fact.
John: So, what beast came after Babylon?
Gary: Well, what country came up after Babylon, would be Persia, the Persian empire.
John: That's represented by the bear raised up on one side. Then, the third beast is this beast like a leopard. And after Medo-Persia...
Gary: ...came Greece, Alexander the Great.
John: Absolutely. And, then, after Alexander the Great and Greece, and we're getting down to, oh, one or two centuries before Christ...
Gary: Yes?
John: ...came this dreadful, terrible, exceedingly strong thing with the teeth of iron.
Gary: That had to be the empire of Rome, because Rome overthrew Greece.
John: That's exactly what it was. And, then, you've got this beast, this nation, this kingdom, Rome not being overthrown by another nation, but, it says, I considered the horns. This beast had ten horns, you see. We find out later on in verse 24, these horns that came out of Rome were ten nations or ten kingdoms. So you had Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, Rome divides.
Gary: Rome breaks up into what today is Western Europe.
John: Yeah, that's right, that's right. And now we get down to verse eight, Daniel says, I considered the horns. There came up among them another little horn. And now he describes many features of this little horn, which is a little nation, see.
Gary: OK.
John: A little kingdom.
Gary: Now, the little horn here is the Antichrist and I believe all Christians accept that when you do the comparison between this and Revelation 13...
Gary: OK, now, now the little horn here is the Antichrist and I believe all Christians accept that when you do the comparison between this and Revelation 13, the little horn is what we would term the Antichrist isn't it?
John: Well, man, you can't deny that.
Gary: Right.
John: That's clear. So let's look at some of the identification points of this.
Gary: Alright.
John: Daniel 7:8, "There came up another Little Horn before," oh well right there, it's a little horn, OK? So this is a nation, this is a kingdom if you like, but it's small.
Gary: OK.
John: Now do you think that's significant?
Gary: Could be.
John: Oh, gotta be right? And how could it be the United States of America as some people might think?
Gary: Alright.
John: Anything but small, see. So point number one, it's little. And then in fact I, I skipped over one and I shouldn't have. "They came up among them," that is among the other nations, this little horn. Where did you place those little nations before?
Gary: Well, it was in Western Europe.
John: OK so this thing is coming up in.
Gary: Western Europe.
John: OK, Western Europe. And now that we've got the geography of it, let's get the chronology of it. I'm going to bounce down to verse 24.
Gary: Well you know I see something else there. It's also coming up out of that fourth beast isn't it?
John: That's what it's doing.
Gary: It's coming up out of that, so that, it's coming up out of Rome, out of Western Europe.
John: That's where it is. Sure.
Gary: Alright.
John: Verse 24 tells us when. It says, "The ten horns are ten kings that shall rise. And another" that's this little horn, "shall arise after them." See the Roman Empire broke up in about 538 A.D. And it broke up into these ten nations. And the Little Horn came up after they were already in existence. So where does it put it geographically? Sometime after 538 A.D. this little one's going to come up.
Gary: Right.
John: Now, you may say, "Well that narrows it down to like the last fifteen hundred plus years."
Gary: That's really narrow, John.
John: But what if you're one of these people who think that the Antichrist is the Emperor Nero?
Gary: Yeah.
John: He was around before that time.
Gary: Yeah, you've got a point.
John: Yeah it counts it out, doesn't it?
Gary: Yep.
John: OK, what else did we learn? Back up to verse eight? It says, "Before this Little Horn there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots."
Gary: So that's three of those countries of the ten that Rome broke up into.
John: Yeah they were destroyed, and I mean.
Gary: Obliterated.
John: Totally. Plucked up by the roots, man. You don't get rid of your weeds in your garden by snipping them off above the ground.
Gary: So no ancestors here on planet Earth.
John: They're gone. Then we find out in verse 24 again, that this nation was somehow diverse from all the other ones. So somehow it's different. OK? It's different. Now we get number six back in verse eight. "In this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man." So there's someone, let's say, at the head of this. Verse 25 says, "He speaks great words against the Most High."
Gary: And what does that mean?
John: Well listen, if you're speaking words against God, what are you guilty of?
Gary: Blasphemy.
John: Right, OK. So this thing blasphemes.
Gary: Yeah, that's what we were saying.
John: The same verse, verse 25 says, "He will wear out, wears out the saints of Most High."
Gary: That sounds like what my mom used to tell me if I did something wrong, she said, "Son, I'm going to wear out your britches."
John: Yeah, you've got it, that's right. In other words, this is a persecuting power.
Gary: OK.
John: Persecutes God's people. Also says in the same verse, "thinks to change times and laws." Now that sounds like someone who's wanting to take Christ's place, doesn't it?
Gary: It does.
John: Tinkering with the law of God there.
Gary: Yes.
John: And then? Now this one gets a bit complex, verse 25 again, "Reigns for," what the Bible says, "A time and times and the dividing of time."
Gary: Alright, so three and a half years. That's where we get the three and a half years for the Antichrist from.
John: Yes we do. But I want you to consider that in Revelation 12, it equates that exact same time period to 1,260 days.
Gary: Alright now, John, let's pull it together in our last two minutes here on the program. Can you walk through these again and tell us how they're fulfilled?
John: Yeah. You want me to go through those identification points again?
Gary: Yeah if we could, let's just walk through them.
John: Real quickly. First, Antichrist will be small. It will come up in Western Europe. It'll come up after the other nations, sometimes, sometime after four seventy six. It's going to come up, it's going to destroy three of them. It'll be different from the others. There will be a man leading it. It'll be guilty of blasphemy. Persecute God's people. It'll tinker with God's law and think to change it. And remember, it will reign for one thousand two hundred and sixty days but in Bible prophecy, and I wonder whether we've got time to do this justice, the Bible teaches us that prophetically a day is equal to a.
Gary: A year, yeah.
John: Everyone knows the 70th week is seven years.
Gary: Seven years.
John: Sure. So this thing rules for 1,260 years.
Gary: That's long enough that we ought to be able to spot which entity this is.
John: You'd think so. It's so long that it's obviously not Ronald Reagan.
Gary: Right.
John: It's not Henry Kissinger. David Hasselhoff can breathe easily, it's not him.
Gary: Now, I see the clock and I know we're running out of time. I think if people want to know who this is, they ought to call our resource line, we're going to give that number in a moment, and they should get our study guide for this.
John: It's called, "Antichrist is Alive Today," and you don't want to miss it. This really is a power-packed Bible study and it'll answer all of the questions and give you all of this information and more and we would urge you to get it. Gary, this is a powerful study. We just never seem to have enough time on this subject.
Gary: But John we will have time next time on this program and let's cover it then, exactly who this is.
John: And I think something to remember too is that whoever the Antichrist is, we all need to know Jesus Christ. And friend, we want to urge you today to get to know Jesus and love Him and be safe in His arms and join us again next time. Don't miss it when we come back with more of this on "Bible Talk." [music]
If you'd like more information on what we've been studying today we have a comprehensive Bible study guide we'd love to share with you that's absolutely free. This study includes many of the texts we've just discussed. And expands on the subject including information you'll want to know. To receive this free, informative Bible study guide, simply call, write or email and ask for BG115, "Antichrist is Alive Today," the toll free number is 866-BIBLESAYS, that's 866-242-5372.
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