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Psalms 60:4 You have given a banner to those who fear You, That it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah


Psalms 60:11-12 Give us help from trouble, For the help of man is useless. Through God we will do valiantly, For it is He who shall tread down our enemies.


Jesus is the banner given to those who fear God. The banner is truth, and truth is a man. His name is Jesus. There is soon coming a time, and in fact, the time has already begun, where truth will be openly and confidently confronted by the greatest lie ever released on the earth: that man can provide for himself better than God can.


The Bible says that the antichrist is the champion of this great lie. When most people hear the name antichrist, they get some kind of strange picture in their minds of a menacing figure, but the Bible describes a much different picture. The antichrist is a man who appears to have the answers to the world's major problems. He will offer himself to the world as a substitute for truth...as a substitute to Jesus.


The Bible says the antichrist will come up "out of the sea":


Revelation 13:1 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.


The "sea" that this man will rise up out of is a world scene that is quickly and unpredictably shifting. The quick movements of politic instability, economic uncertainty, increasing intensity of natural events. The Bible says when the antichrist comes to the fore front, it will be in an answer to these basic problems:


1. Instability in the middle east- a lack of peace in Israel


2. Instability in the nations of the world - war and rumors of war


3. Economic Instability on a global level - a threatening global economic problem


4. Cultural instability - rapid changes in cultural tolerance of lifestyle choices that were historically stable.


5. Civil instability - an observable lack of love and civility in society where random acts of evil and violence are on the increase. An increase in unprovoked hate.


The Bible says that out of this sea of trouble will come a man the world believes will have the answers to these crisis. The antichrist will offer himself to the world as tangible and visible alternative to the invisible Jesus. He will have a plan to fix the unrest in the middle east. The Bible says the antichrist will offer a 7 year agreement to protect Israel in exchange for her willingness to negotiate peace with her neighbors. He will have a plan for a new currency solution to stabilize the global economic crisis (called in the Bible the mark of the beast). The antichrist will also offer leadership for cultural and religious liberty (he will change the laws to be completely tolerant of alternative lifestyles and will be a champion of the uniting of religions). He will be very culturally progressive, and he will be very successful in convincing the world that he is loving and inclusive. He will appear to be a shepherd, but this shepherd is not a good shepherd:


Zechariah 11:16 For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those that are broken, nor feed those that still stand. But he will eat the flesh of the fat and tear their hooves in pieces.


This bad shepherd will say all the right things, but just like his father, satan, he is a liar. The Bible says God will "raise him up." It is God that allows the antichrist to have a time to operate in the earth with great authority:


Revelation 13:5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months.


God gives the antichrist authority for 42 months, or 3.5 years. Antichrist will have the same amount of time to show the world what is in his heart that Jesus had to show the world what was in His. Jesus' public ministry lasted three and a half years. He spent all of this time healing the sick, raising the dead, preaching repentance, forgiveness, truth, and love. At the end of this three and a half years, Jesus gave his life so that those he had created could have a choice to live with God forever.


The antichrist will have 3.5 years to allow the people that have chosen him to see what they are really getting. He will demand to be worshipped as the only God, and anyone who refuses to worship him will risk being killed. He will prevent anyone who doesn't worship him from being able to work, buy, or sell. He will kill anyone he can that refuses to be loyal to him.


Revelation 13:15-17 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.


Everyone who resists truth and puts their faith in the lies of this man will find themselves crushed by his promises. He promises liberty, but it will end in slavery. He promises peace, but it will end in war. He promises prosperity, but it will end in famine and great poverty. In world history, we have seen little previews of this same spirit released for short periods of time in pockets of the earth. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, North Korea...these promises of great humanistic prosperity have led to mass death and oppression every single time. In his mercy, God has allowed us to see where this thing is going...but do we remember? Will we choose truth? The Bible says the last expression of this will be global and extreme.


God is the one who will allow this to happen. This is because of God's design for mankind to relate to God in love. God has chosen love. Love requires a choice...love requires free will. The gloriously hard truth of the world is that everyone eventually gets what they want. If we want truth, love, and forgiveness in agreement with God that brings life, it is freely available to anyone who would choose it through a relationship with Jesus:


Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.


But, those who don't want to wait for the invisible Jesus, those who think Jesus "intolerantly" claims to be the only way to God, those who want freedom from Jesus, will get that very freedom. Those who would rather trust a person or a government they can see to fix the world WILL get what they want. Be careful what you wish for, you will eventually get it.


If we want freedom from what God says is good and true, then, for a season, God will allow the fruit of that false liberty to fully mature. All of God's ways lead to life, rebellion from God's ways leads to death.


The end of the age is the story of the "fruit" of both of those choices fully maturing. Sin, man without God, will fully mature, but so will the Pure and Spotless Bride, Jesus' mature Church. At the same time the man of lawlessness, the antichrist, will be plundering the very people who have chosen him, Jesus' Bride will be the ultimate expression of God with man, walking in mature love and supernatural expressions of God's power. The Bride will carry the banner of Jesus throughout the earth as a faithful witness that agreeing with Him is the solution...the escape...from this man-centered catastrophe.


I Peter 1:6-10 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls. Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you,

Revelation 19:6-8 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.