One of the most interesting topics of Bible prophecy concerns the coming “man of sin” that students of eschatology refer to as the “Antichrist”. He is the one that the devil himself will indwelt in these end times during the coming Tribulation period. He is described by the Bible as the “prince of the people who destroyed the city and sanctuary” which of course was fulfilled in 70AD by the Romans when they destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Hence, the vast majority of the Bible prophecy community correctly recognizes that this “man of sin” will rise from the area of Western Europe. This is of course the traditional and fundamental view of the vast majority of sound Bible prophecy teachers.
Afterall, the Romans were the ones who carried out the burning of the city and the destruction of the Temple as history so clearly records. Proponents of the Islamic Antichrist theory argue that the “invading forces even though they were led by the Romans were actually people of local (regional) ethnicity so thus the Antichrist will come from the Middle East”. This is however incorrect as a brief inspection of history shows. Eschatology expert Sean Osborne has noted that:
The Antichrist cannot be Islamic. He will come from the same genetic stock as his prophetic forerunner, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Macedonian-Greek European. His ethnicity will be in exact fulfillment of Daniel 9:26b. Everybody knows that the Roman legions which destroyed the 2nd Temple and the city of Jerusalem were Legio X Fretensis (from the Straits of Messina between the Italian mainland and Sicily), Legio V Macedonica (which obviously was from Macedonia), and Legio XV Apollinaris which was stationed on the Danube River near what is present day Austria and Slovenia. These Roman legions were all staffed by Roman (European) citizen soldiers from the lowest all the way up the chain of command to General Titus Flavius Vespasianus.
As we can see here, the “people who destroyed the city and temple” were indeed Romans. Thereby properly confirming the Western Antichrist origin. However, despite this rock solid evidence of the Antichrist rising from the Western European area that the ancient “Romans” inhabited, there have been a couple of “renegade” interpreters of Bible prophecy that have come on to the scene as of late promoting a Middle Eastern Antichrist. Many of these “interpreters” have chosen to put more faith in the “newspapers” than the Word of God itself. When examining the above quote about the people who destroyed the temple and the city, it defies all logic to try to argue against recorded history. Yet these people do and we will find out why as well.
These new self described “prophets” have decided that God didn’t know what he was talking about, so they need to clarify God’s own words for Him. It is this “arrogance” and biblical “immaturity” that causes them to err in great detail as they perpetuate the myth of the “Islamic Antichrist”. Anyone who follows the debate over the Antichrist is bound to have run into these “new fad theories” about the Antichrist’s origin being from the Middle East. This is “newspaper exegesis” at it’s worst. While the above example is one of the more popular “objections” raised to a Western Europe Antichrist, as we see in reality the argument simply has no merit whatsoever.
In fact, there are several “recycled” arguments for an “Islamic Antichrist” that have been used over and over to perpetuate this myth. This article will dispel these myths and will guide the reader into the safe harbor of Bible prophecy peace according to the words of the Lord himself. Let’s look at another “objection” of the “Islamic Antichrist” proponents.
According to a rather popular “proponent” of the Islamic Antichrist position, this self described “prophet” declares that in Daniel 11 the “king of the north” is actually the Antichrist. However, an elementary examination of the Daniel 11 verses shows that this is simply not the case. It is simply a matter of noting the “personal pronouns” used in these verses to distinguish the Antichrist, king of the south, and the king of the north. In reading the whole chapter of Daniel 11 it is clear that a good bit of the chapter is spend talking about the Antichrist. This continues down to Daniel 11:40-44 as the Antichrist battles the king of the north and the king of the south. Let’s look at the scriptures:
The Islamic Antichrist proponents make the mistake of trying to say that the “king of the north” is one and the same as the Antichrist. This is absurd as our elementary examination of the verses show that the grammar used in these verses simply does not allow for such a thing. If the proponents of the Islamic Antichrist theory took the time to carefully read the scriptures they would be able to distinguish the difference. However, in order to “shoe-horn” their preconceived idea of an Islamic or Middle Eastern Antichrist they have blurred the text and fallen off the wagon of proper grammar.
Another “objection” that the proponents of the Islamic Antichrist try to use to make their case is that they claim that the Roman empire use to have an “Eastern” component to it. They argue that this is evidence that the Antichrist’s origin could be Middle Eastern. Once again, an elementary understanding of history is necessary in order to uncover the truth and put to rest this phony argument. While it is true that the Roman Empire was at one time split into two “legs” with a “Western and Eastern” component the fact is that the “Eastern” component did not exist until hundreds of years after the destruction of the temple and city in 70AD. So the Eastern peoples of the Roman Empire were not even under Roman control at that time and therefore were not part of the people who history records fulfilled the prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. So by default, this argument has no legs in which to stand.
0 comments:
Post a Comment