#345

Will The Antichrist Be Muslim?

A Lot Of Buzz

Whenever I hear a lot of prophecy teachers and preachers start buzzing about a topic that has captivated people’s attention and then saying they know answer to the puzzle I tend to perk up. The Mark of the Beast is one and if you want to start, shall I say a heated discussion just talk about the Rapture. However the current topic DuJour is who will the Antichrist be and specifically where he will come from. I’ve addressed this from time to time, but it merits another look. Why is it a hot topic? Whenever an Islamic leader rises to prominence or an Islamic conflict occurs, especially in the Middle East, the theories fly fast and furious. With Israel fighting a war against Hamas and a great deal of attention focused on what will happen next there, all the prophecy teachers who pushed a Muslim Antichrist are dusting off their notes and revising their books for sell again. I’m not saying they are seeing dollar signs by doing it, but I am saying they are capitalizing on the timing to trumpet they knew all along. Overall, getting people to pick up a Bible even remotely is a good thing. However, if we want to be thorough we should research if their arguments are sound. I would expect no less scrutiny of my views.

Who’s On Board?

As I noted before a lot of people are speaking out on the Muslim Antichrist theory, some who haven’t addressed it before or at all. John MacArthur, Jimmy Evans, Walid Shoebat, Joel Richardson, Phillip Goodman, Dr. Joe VanKoevering, Mark Driscol, Perry Stone, and the list goes on and on and on. All good, decent people and excellent preachers and teachers. I have no issues with them on quite a few things. But just because they have good exegesis overall, doesn’t mean they are right on everything. When I hear folks start saying “well I heard so and so teach about the Muslim Antichrist” and I presume they are dropping names because that person is good on other things so they must be right on this, too. And that’s a fair thing to suppose, however that can’t be the barometer for whether something is Biblical or not. We need to be just like the Bereans that Paul considered more noble because they actually check out his teachings against the Word of God before they would accept it. If there is a Biblical answer for something, that should trump the opinions of any man or woman no matter how accurate they are. Their accuracy is only measured by Scripture not the other way around.

I Have A Few Questions: Islam Wants To Rule The World

Please know that this is not meant to be an exhaustive teaching on the topic. In my opinion, that would take more than a few lessons. I’m just trying to address some of the reasons I don’t think a Muslim Antichrist jives with the Bible’s information for who the Antichrist is. First of these concerns if that since Islam states as it goal to assimilate all people and religions and fly its flag from every nation that agrees with the Antichrist doing the same thing. It’s a good observation since we do read in Revelation 13:7 this:

And the beast was allowed to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation. (NLT)

However, that has been the goal of more than Islam so why couldn’t it be someone from the revived Roman Empire? Or Germany? Or China? Or even France? All had leaders who had the exact same goal. And there is this issue of divisions even in Islam itself. You have at least Sunnis and Shi’ites who say they want the same thing and trust me when I tell you they are nowhere close to agreeing with each other. Some teachers point to the shear numbers of Muslims and that after the Rapture, they will comprise the largest block of religious people left so once Christians are taken up in an instant, they can easily dominate the earth. It sounds good at first blush, but that’s presuming their numbers are static now and growing. What is they declines sharply by say being beaten in a few wars?

I Have A Few Questions: The Religion of Islam Will Take Over The World

To be certain, Islam is a growing religion. But much of that is linked to their growing birthrates since if you are born into an Islamic family you are instantly a Muslim. It’s happens at birth, there is no conversion process. So if you have more children, you automatically have more Muslims. But that really isn’t my point here. My point it that the Muslim population can and I believe will be decimated as a result of two wars seen in the Bible, both of which I believe will happen around the time of the Rapture, either shortly before or shortly after it. That would be the Psalm 83 and the war of Gog and Magog seen in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Some is some debate over the first, but a lot of agreement for the second. In both, large populations of Muslim countries will fight in these wars and will lose big time. Hear is how Bible prophecy teacher, Bill Salus explains this point:

Well, one of the things that comes up in his presentation is you know he is overlooking two powerful what I believe are Muslim prophetic wars, Muslim dominated wars in Psalm 83, and Ezekiel 38. Which I am many of our colleagues believe happen before the Tribulation period. Remember the harlot world religion comes up right around the time of the Tribulation period. So, if there are Muslim wars, epic Muslim wars beforehand that would have an effect on really this location and the religion, the dominant religion at that time. So, let’s look at Psalm 83 for instance, you’ve got ten populations, this is a final confrontation between the Arabs and the Jews involving nations that surround–surrounding nations that share common borders with Israel. They are defeated by the Israeli Defense Forces. Now all those nations are predominately Muslim, there are ten populations. You know you’ve got Jordan, and Lebanon with Hezbollah up there, and you’ve got Syria, and Iraq, and probably Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And you’ve got Palestinians in there and Hamas, etcetera, Muslim countries. Right now Joel Richardson’s argument is well there are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, it obviously going to be the religion that dominates. Well, I would say after these two wars in Ezekiel 38 I’ll just mention in a minute there are 600 million roughly Muslims involved in these wars that will be either killed, exiled, imprisoned… I say Psalm 83 will be a punch to the gut of Islam. Ezekiel 38 will follow and be an upper cut to the jaw of Islam. So, by that time we get into the Tribulation period Allah will have lost its Akbar. You know Allah Akbar means he’s the greater god. These terrorist always shout “Allah Akbar,” all the time, you know.

I Have A Few Questions: The 7 Year Covenant And The Desecration Of The Temple

The Bible is pretty clear that at the Tribulation time clock will start when the Antichrist forges a covenant with Israel allowing them to be secure from his push for world domination. Many think it will to allow them to rebuild their Temple and so it would require some kind of deal for the Muslim world to even allow it. This is why some think the Antichrist himself will be a Muslim. But therein lies two problems. First, Israel simply doesn’t trust Muslims at all. Why would they trust another Muslim leader at such a critical time in their history? They are fighting a war right now against Muslim leaders that want them annihilated. I highly doubt they will lay down and agree to any agreement with a Muslim Antichrist. Bible teacher and former IDF soldier Amir Tsarfati notes this:

No Muslim leader will be accepted as a messiah by the Jews and no Muslim leader will allow them to build a temple in Jerusalem! The world is not becoming Muslim - the world is becoming faithless and Godless. If anything Europe will elect a leader to rescue itself FROM Islam and not to lead them to embrace it...

Then we need to look at this from the Muslim perspective. At the half way point of the Tribulation, the Antichrist will declare that he is god and will set up shop in the Jewish Temple. The declaring he is god is a sticking point for Muslims, though as we see in this exchange on that issue, this time from an article where Bible prophecy experts Nathan Jones and Dr. David Reagan talk with another Bible Prophecy teacher, Ron Rhodes discuss this point:

Dr. Rhodes: It’s a hot button and I actually know a number of the people that write about this as both of you do. And I have to say that the people who write about this I have found them very nice people. But their theology is just very, very bad. And if I might put it this way how would it be possible for the Antichrist to be a Muslim in view of what we know from Scripture elsewhere that is going to be true about the situation of the end times. For example we know from 2 Thessalonians 2 that the Antichrist is going to claim to be god, right?

Dr. Reagan: Absolutely.

Dr. Rhodes: Now what Muslim would ever claim to be God?

Nathan Jones: That’s heresy.

Dr. Rhodes: It completely goes against the Muslim Creed. The Muslim Creed says that there is one God named Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. No good Muslim would ever say anything about that. By the way Dave how would the Muslim world respond?

Dr. Reagan: They would kill him immediately.

Dr. Rhodes: That’s right he would just–

Dr. Reagan: We wouldn’t have to take care of him.

Dr. Rhodes: He’d be history, that’s exactly right. So, that’s an impossibility. And there is no way you can wiggle your way out of that. I’ve seen them try. The guys that are writing books on it they try to argue their way out of it. But I mean it is worse than fiction you can’t wiggle your way out of that.

I Have A Few Questions: The Antichrist Will Be Roman

Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26, NASB)

In this portion of Bible prophecy we read about the Antichrist as the prince who is to come. And it states that he will come from the same people who destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem. According to even the people who say that the Antichrist will be a Muslim acknowledge this interpretation. However, we know that Roman troops and leaders destroyed the city and temple so how can we get a Middle Eastern leader from that? Dr Reagan gives us help here as well in his article about the Antichrist:

Shoebat tries to dispel this meaning by arguing that the Roman legions that carried out the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD were composed primarily of Syrians and Turks. He therefore concludes that the Antichrist will arise from the Syrians or Turks and will be a Muslim.

On the contrary, Bible prophecy scholar Sean Osborne has proved that the Roman legions were composed of Roman soldiers, recruited from what is present day Italy, and were led by Roman officers of historical renown. Local Syrians and Arabs were recruited as auxiliaries to take care of menial tasks, and had, at best, logistical support roles. “They were in no conceivable manner representative of ‘the people of the prince who shall come.'”

But Shoebat’s argument here is really grasping at straws in the wind! For one thing, the ethnicity of the soldiers is irrelevant because the Romans never used mercenaries. All their soldiers were citizens of Rome. But it would not have made any difference if the legions had been composed of Australian Aborigines, for it was the Roman government that decided to destroy Jerusalem, it was the Roman government that gave the orders, and it was Roman generals who carried out the destruction. Rome was the rod of God’s judgment and it is from the Roman people that the Antichrist will arise.

Where Our Focus Should Be

As I alluded to earlier, all this talk of a Muslim Antichrist is good for one reason and that is getting people back to reading and studying the Bible. And it also even gets unsaved people interested in Bible prophecy which is always a good thing. However, getting all hot and bothered by this camp or another camp can divide believers needlessly. I even debated about even broaching this topic again, but I felt like it needed a little attention if only to concentrate on and work out what the Bible says about the end times and during the process we will discipline ourselves to study to show ourselves approved, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed about his or her knowledge of the Scriptures. My father-in-law says he’s pan-trib because he says it will all pan out in the end. I agree. So why would I advise us to not pay more attention to who the Antichrist will be? Simply because we won’t know for sure unless we are in the Tribulation who he will be, where he will come from and what he will do. We can agree to disagree in the end, but what we should definitely agree on is living lives like Jesus could return at any moment and work while it is day, for the night is coming when no one can work.