The Rise of the Antichrist by Woodrow Kroll Today’s Radio Study: Woodrow Kroll: Beginning at Revelation 13, notice, it says, “Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon,” That’s Satan, you know. “The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast” (Revelation 13:1-3). What do we know from what we’ve read in Scripture about this Antichrist, this beast that it talks about. First of all, let’s recognize that he’s not the only person mentioned in this passage. I mean, it did mention the dragon here; that’s where the Antichrist gets his power. Antichrist is just a human being like you and me. He has no power, except given to him by Satan. So let’s talk about Satan first of all. The career of Satan has been a long and infamous career starting before the creation of the world and going on through the period of the Tribulation, even through the period of the Millennium. But Satan is not alone in his dirty work. Satan drew a third of the angels out of heaven when he fell. Satan will one day empower a single human being to do his dirty work for him. That human being is the one we’re going to talk about today—the Antichrist. Since Satan’s ambition has always been to be God—but that’s impossible, isn’t that true? Satan can be like God. He can hope to be God. But he can never be God. But since his ambition has been to be God and that’s impossible, Satan does the very next best thing: He fakes being God. He sets himself up to imitate God. So, everything God does, you can find that old snake doing something like that. And you’re going to see that in this chapter because in this chapter, during the dark days of the Tribulation, Satan is going to fake it again and make people think he’s God. He’s done this before. Remember the magicians in Pharaoh’s court? Satan gave them power to make people think the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not really God. Satan has always been about the business of fooling people into believing God is not God and he [Satan] is. Now we get to the Tribulation period and we’re going to see here Satan showing up faking the potential that he is God. In fact, if you look back in chapter 12, at verse 9 (we’re in 13 today, but I want you to start in 12:9), it says, “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth [with his angels], and his angels [who] were cast out with him.” He deceives the whole earth. 1 The Rise of the Antichrist

When we get to chapter 13, we’re going to find out exactly how he does that. And he does it through his good friend, whom he gives the power to deceive the whole earth—and that’s the Antichrist. So, if Satan wants to mimic God, and God exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there’s probably a good chance you’re going to see Satan come up with a, kind of a, counterfeit trinity. And he does exactly that. He shows himself to be the false father. He wants to be God the Father, so Satan is opposite to God the Father. And he occupies the position of, in the evil trinity, as God the Father occupies His position in the Trinity of God. That means then that the Antichrist is the counterpart to God the Son, Jesus. And the beast that we’re going to learn about a little later on is the counterpart to the Holy Spirit of God. So, while we have God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit in the Holy Trinity, we have Satan, the Antichrist and the beast or the false prophet in the unholy trinity. He’s doing his dead, level-best to make us think he is God. So, in chapter 13:1, we see the counterpart to the Lord Jesus, the false son. He is the Antichrist. Remember, when we say the word Antichrist, its a-n-t-i, not a-n-t-e. Ante means “before.” This is not a christ who comes before Christ. This is a person against—anti—Christ. So, an antichrist is a person who wants to be Christ and opposes everything the Lord Jesus stands for. If Satan, then, is the total opposite to God the Father, the Antichrist is the total opposite to God the Son. Now, one of the interesting things I read about Satan here is that Satan gives power to this beast. And the beast has a very unique description that is only matched by the description of Satan. Verse 1 talks about this beast coming out of the sea, having seven heads, ten horns and crowns upon his head. Now, we’ve encountered that before, haven’t we? That was a description of Satan earlier in the Book of Revelation. What he’s doing now is, Satan is transferring his power, his kingdom, to the Antichrist and allowing a human being to feel power that he has never felt before or ever will feel again. Whoever this person is...and we don’t know who it is, whoever this person is, is going to have power like an individual has never had in the history of the world. Put Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Hannibal, Hitler—all the great military powers of the world, evil powers of the world—put them all together and you will not have as much power concentrated in all these people as will be in this one man in the future. Let’s learn a little bit about this man: verse two, “The beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.” Everything the Antichrist does, he does because Satan gives him the power to do it. Now, if we’re going to understand who this Antichrist is, there is a clue to his identification back in the Book of Daniel. Look with me at Daniel 7. I’m going to make this brief because we really need to look at the whole Book of Daniel to see how it impacts the Book of Revelation. Let me read just a few verses out of Daniel 7 at verse 21, Daniel 7:21. This is the vision that Daniel has of this great beast, this great statue. And it says, “I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints. [See how similar this sounds like the Book of Revelation] And prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom. “Thus he said: [now watch this] ‘The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, trample it and break it in pieces. The ten horns are [the] ten kings who shall arise from this kingdom. And another shall rise after them; he shall be different from the first ones, and shall subdue three 2 The Rise of the Antichrist

kings. He shall speak pompous words against the Most High [that’s God], shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and [he] shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand [now watch] for a time and times and half a time’” (Daniel 7:21-25). So, he’s talking about a kingdom that comes into being during the last half of the Tribulation period. Now, come back with me to Revelation 13 because what I want you to see here is He is referring to the fourth of the successive kingdoms in Daniel’s vision. And if you know, in Daniel 2 and again the vision of Daniel 7 that we read here, Daniel saw four successive world empires. The lion referred to Babylon. The bear referred to the Medo-Persian Empire which followed Babylon. The leopard referred to the Grecian Empire. And, finally, the last had elements of all four of them; and that was the Roman Empire. What we have here, then, is a description of the Roman Empire at the time when the Antichrist is alive on the face of the earth. Now, my friends who believe that the Book of Revelation is all historical say, “Aha, there it is! The Roman Empire existed in the time of Christ and in A.D. 70 destroyed Jerusalem. And all these events took place in A.D. 70.” My problem with their interpretation is, as much as I know about history, I don’t see any of these events in A.D. 70. I don’t see any of them anywhere in history, in fact. Their problem with my interpretation is, “But it’s obviously talking about the Roman Empire.” How do I deal, then, with the fact that we’re talking about the Roman Empire in a future way? And the only way I think, legitimately, one can deal with that is to say that what constituted the Roman Empire once could be revived in the future to constitute an empire again. And these ten nations that form this future empire are going to essentially be ten nations that were part of the initial Roman Empire. Now, that’s pretty heavy stuff. But later in our study, we’ll see that Satan is not going to be successful. And neither is the Antichrist. One of the interesting things in Revelation 13, introducing the Antichrist...the very first time he’s been introduced in the Book of Revelation. I mean, here we are in chapter 13. You would have thought he would have come in chapter 1, all the attention he gets today. But he’s not the key to the Book of Revelation. It’s not the Antichrist; it’s Christ Himself who’s the key to the Book of Revelation. This Antichrist, though, notice verse 3 of chapter 13 says, “I saw one of his heads [that’s the Antichrist’s] as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed.” Now, what on earth is all that about? Well, the meaning here could be two-fold. Number one, it could mean that the Antichrist himself receives a deathblow and then comes back to life. Satan maybe brings him back to life, resurrects him to life. That’s one possibility. I don’t think I’d hold that possibility because I’m not sure Satan has the ability to bring people back to life. That’s probably not the way we should understand it. I think the primary meaning here is that there is a kingdom that is wounded, and not a king that is wounded. Notice, it does say, “One of his heads was mortally wounded,” not he himself but one of the heads. And in the verse prior to that it talks about the kingdoms being the heads of the Antichrist, so I think we’re talking about a wounded kingdom that has been somehow restored or somehow revived. And if that’s the case, then this kingdom becomes the base of operation for all that the Antichrist is going to do in the world. Now, what is the number one goal of Satan? The number one goal of Satan is to receive the worship of God. He wants to be God. He wants you and me to worship him as God. In fact, a lot of the world is doing that today and they don’t even realize it. 3 The Rise of the Antichrist

But in the future, he is going to set himself dramatically on a collision course with God with regard to worship. We see that in verse 4, “So they worshiped the dragon [that’s Satan] who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?’” Now, this is what Satan has always wanted. Satan wants to take the credit away from God. He wants the world to worship him and not to worship God. How will he ever get the world to do that? Well, I don’t know. But let me speculate. Suppose you were alive during this period of time, living on the earth and suddenly a third of the sun is blackened, a third of marine life is dead, a third of the crops are burned, things are getting worse, judgment is falling everywhere and you don’t have a clue why this is happening. And, then, some political leader steps forward and says, “Why, I can tell you why this is happening. Remember those Christians? God hated those Christians so much He had to take them out of here. I don’t know where they are now, but I want to tell you this: if you don’t follow me, you’re in bigger trouble than you’ve ever seen in your life.” And suddenly the Antichrist says, “I can explain everything that’s happening.” And people are so desperate for answers they fall down and worship anybody who can give them an answer. Now, is his answer true? Well, of course not; he’s a liar! But these people don’t know that. He’s telling them what Satan told him. And remember, Satan is the father of all liars. Satan doesn’t have the capacity to tell the truth. And now we have Satan’s henchman trying to fulfill the long term ambition of Satan and that is to get people to worship Satan. So, what is this person doing? This person, this Antichrist, this human being is now the mouthpiece for Satan. He is speaking for Satan. Who was it [who] spoke for God the Father? It was God the Son! Jesus came to reveal to us the words of the Father. He said, “I don’t speak anything on My own. I speak only what the Father gives me.” Now, we have the false christ, the Antichrist, speaking only the words that the false father, Satan, gives him to speak. Look what those words are. Verse 8, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” In other words, if you are not a believer, if you have not come to faith in Jesus Christ, during the Tribulation, you will follow Satan because you will follow the lie of the Antichrist. You will be so duped into believing the Antichrist has an answer for why things are the way things are, that he will be Satan’s mouthpiece; and only those who have faith in Jesus Christ will be able to discern truth from error. Now, today, we have those who believe the truth, those who are dead set against truth and the vast majority of people in the middle who don’t know which end is up, right? It won’t be like that in the future. There will be those who follow the truth and those hate the truth, who follow the lie. Now, as a result of that, saints are going to be martyred during the Tribulation. We read about that in verse 7. “It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation.” So, what do we know about this Antichrist person? We know, first of all, he has no authority unless it comes from Satan. We know, secondly, he has nothing to say unless it comes from Satan. And we know, thirdly, Satan has given him the authority to rule to rule over every tribe, every tongue and every nation on the face of the earth. So, this is not a European leader; this is not an Asian leader; this is not a Western leader. This is a world leader. Every nation on the face of the earth will fall down and worship this person and his god, who is Satan, because they’re blinded to the truth. And they’re blinded to the truth for the same reason people are blinded to the truth today. Not that it isn’t there; it’s just that they 4 The Rise of the Antichrist

don’t believe it. So, when you get to the end of this passage, it says in verse 9: “If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”

Unless otherwise indicated, scripture references are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 2012 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Back to the Bible P.O. Box 82808 Lincoln, NE 68501 1-800-759-2425 backtothebible.org

5 The Rise of the Antichrist