Dr. Michael Yousseff is an Egyptian-born American and founding rector of The Church of The Apostles. His messages are broadcast 3,800 times a week into 200 countries through Leading the Way Ministries. He holds a PhD from Emory University in Social Anthropology. Church of the Apostles is a magnificent church that has an old-world cathedral look about it. It’s located just north of Atlanta, Georgia, on I-75. If you’re ever in the Atlanta area, you need to take some time and visit. You won’t be disappointed.

I was disappointed, however, when I read Dr. Youseff’s article “The Fall of Dictators and the Antichrist” that was published on the Christian Post website. Here’s part of what he wrote:

The Bible indicates that a world-dominating character will rise at some point. That person is often referred to as the Antichrist.
The Antichrist has certain characteristics that appear to fit many past despots, which led some to speculate about Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein, for example. But speculations are not very helpful. Because of contradictory elements within suspected people, it will be very difficult to predict the Antichrist until he actually appears on the scene and identifies himself publicly.
The Antichrist will show up at a time when there’s true global, political, social, and economic upheaval. And people will believe that he is the only one capable of solving those seemingly insurmountable problems.
He will be charismatic and affable, and he’ll mesmerize people everywhere. Even those normally at odds with each other will be united in liking and following him. He will win global approval by his sheer ability to identify with people of all religions and of no religion at all. Only after he is able to receive adoration from the masses will he reveal his true character and intentions.

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The following ad copy appeared in World magazine for Joel C. Rosenberg’s new book Implosion:

Is America an Empire in Decline or a Nation Poised for a Historic Renaissance?

This ad copy startled me. I’ve read most of Rosenberg’s books and debated him on the meaning of Ezekiel 38 and 39. (He wasn’t up for a second debate.) He’s a dispensationalist. Dispensationalists don’t believe in a Renaissance.

Had Rosenberg abandoned his dispensational views like so many other dispensationalists have, even some high-profile dispensationalists that I am not at liberty to name? No. He’s a prophecy writer who’s halting between two opinions. He’s schizophrenic similar to Brannon Howse who decries America’s problems, claims to teach Christian worldview, and then tells the kids that come to his weekend conferences that the rapture’s around the corner (see here, here, and here).

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I was recently interviewed on the Atlanta Alive television program about my book Last Days Madness and Bible prophecy. You can see the interview above in the embedded video.

WorldNetDaily goes a great job in directing readers to articles and topics that show where America has gone wrong. In fact, there is so much of this material that one can get information overload. This is one side of the coin. The other side is a preoccupation with end-time speculation. Hal Lindsey is a weekly columnist and periodically there are articles informing readers that we are living in the last days. A few years ago, at the top of the WND page, we were asked this question: “Are We Living in the Last Days?” It was an advertisement for Greg Laurie’s book of the same name.

One sentence caught my attention: “Are We Living in the Last Days? will help you take some of the guesswork out of understanding the last days and will encourage you to live confidently and expectantly in an uneasy and uncertain world.” Laurie believes that world events are pointing to an end-time climax that will happen soon. This messy world is about to come to an end. This is why, given the condition of the world, we must live “expectantly” that it’s all going to over soon. Of course, we’ve heard this before. We’ve been hearing it for nearly 2000 years! All of these prophetic prognosticators have one thing in common: They’ve all been wrong. All the “signs” that Laurie sees as evidence of our near end refer to events that led up to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. For a thorough study of this topic, see my book Last Days Madness.

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After the interview with the Atlanta Live television program, each guest was invited to come together for a panel discussion about our differing views on Bible prophecy, the cultural implications, as well as what we have in common. You can view these panel discussions in the video embedded above. I think one thing everyone of us on the program agreed about was the need for Christians to get out their Bibles and actually study these questions themselves rather than merely relying on their “spiritual leaders” to do their study and thinking for them. The Reformers did not spill their blood for the cause of “Sola Scriptura!” so that we could today make a new form of Christian elitism where rather than reading the Bible ourselves we depend upon others to tell us what it says.

In my video series Basic Training for Understanding Bible Prophecy, I go into much more detail explaining the biblical case for post-millenialism and partial preterism that is only briefly alluded to in this panel discussion. We explain in clear language the interpretation of the time texts, The Olivet Discourse, Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, the Book of Revelation, and more. The series comes with a bonus CD-ROM: 120-page study guide with outlines of each lecture, study questions, supplemental readings, and 15 additional articles on eschatology. We challenge you to include these considerations in your biblical study.

The implications of one’s view on Bible prophecy can have broad affect on how they involve themselves in political trends, economic shifts, military action, and of course Gospel proclamation. One of the other panelists in this discussion, Dr. Thomas Slater, Professor of New Testament at Mercer University, made an excellent observation when he said: “When people concentrate on whether or not the world is going to end soon, they stop making the world a better place.”

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A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament shows that the number of the Beast of Revelation 13 is 616. Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, states that “the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero.”[1] The early fragment supports the view that Revelation was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and whether the number is 666 or 616, the number is a reference to Nero and not some end-time antichrist figure. Only time will tell how this discovery will affect dispensationalism.

The first readers of Revelation were told to “calculate the number of the Beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six” (13:18). Since Revelation was written to a first-century audience, we should expect the first-century readers to be able to calculate the number with relative ease and understand the result. They would have had few candidates from which to choose. Notice that the number is “six hundred and sixty-six, not three sixes.” Tim LaHaye misidentifies the number when he writes, “The plain sense of Scripture tells us that it comprises the numbers: six, six, six.”[2] The three Greek letters that make up the number represent 600, 60, and 6.

Ancient numbering systems used an alpha-numeric method. This is true of the Latin (Roman) system that is still common today: I=1, V=5, X=10, L=50, C=100, D=500, M=1000. Greek and Hebrew follow a similar method where each letter of their alphabets represents a number. The first nine letters represent 1–9.[3] The tenth letter represents 10, with the nineteenth letter representing 100 and so on. Since the Book of Revelation is written in a Hebrew context by a Jew with numerous allusions to the Old Testament, we should expect the solution to deciphering the meaning of six hundred and sixty-six to be Hebraic. “The reason clearly is that, while [John] writes in Greek, he thinks in Hebrew, and the thought has naturally affected the vehicle of expression.”[4]

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If you like to form your eschatology from the newspaper and are persuaded that the world is getting worse, you may want to consider what technology expert Byron Reese had to say in this recent video interview on Triangulation about the breakthroughs on the verge of being made in medicine, energy, etc. Byron has spoken at our conferences and he is Chief Innovation Officer at Demand Media.

My December 27, 2003 article Earthquakes: Are They a Sign of the End? prompted a number of responses, which I thought would be worth re-visiting. There was one particular email that was especially meaningful and moving for me. It was critical of my position, so I wrote the following response to clear up some issues:

Thanks for writing. Please note what Jesus said in Matthew 24:33-34: “Even so YOU too, when YOU see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to YOU, this generation will not pass away until ALL THESE THINGS take place.” The “you” refers to Jesus’ first-century audience (24:2, 4, 6, 9, 25, etc.) not an unspecified future “last-days” audience.

“This generation” (Matt. 11:16; 12:41–42; 23:36; Mark 8:12; Luke 7:31; 11:30–32, 50–51; 17:25; cf. Gen. 7:1; Ps. 12:7; Heb. 3:10) refers to the generation to whom Jesus was speaking. “This generation” never refers to a future generation.

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WorldNetDaily goes a great job in directing readers to articles and topics that show where America has gone wrong. In fact, there is so much of this material that one can get information overload. This is one side of the coin. The other side is a preoccupation with end-time speculation. Hal Lindsey is a weekly columnist and periodically there are articles informing readers that we are living in the last days. Over the weekend, at the top of the WND page, we were asked this question: “Are We Living in the Last Days?” It was an advertisement for Greg Laurie’s book of the same name.

One sentence caught my attention: “Are We Living in the Last Days? will help you take some of the guesswork out of understanding the last days and will encourage you to live confidently and expectantly in an uneasy and uncertain world.” Laurie believes that world events are pointing to an end-time climax that will happen soon. This messy world is about to come to an end. This is why, given the condition of the world, we must live “expectantly” that it’s all going to over soon. Of course, we’ve heard this before. We’ve been hearing it for nearly 2000 years! All of these prophetic prognosticators have one thing in common: They’ve all been wrong. All the “signs” that Laurie sees as evidence of our near end refer to events that led up to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. For a thorough study of this topic, see my book Last Days Madness.

If Greg Laurie and the folks at WorldNetDaily are right, then why bother trying to fix a broken world that is about to be thrown on the ash heap of history? Why concern ourselves with peace in the Mideast? It will never happen this side of the millennium. Israel must be judged one more—two-thirds of the Jews destroyed (Zech. 13:8)—before things can get better. The only event worth considering is the “rapture” of the church to rescue us from this mess. So then, why bother with anything?

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As with most theological positions, there are a variety of interpretations of this passage: (1) The salvation of every racial/ethnic Jew. This is an impossible interpretation. Why preach the gospel to the Jews if they’re all going to be saved?”[1] (2) the salvation of believers–racial and spiritual Jews–throughout history. This position changes the meaning of Israel, going from literal (Rom. 11:1) to spiritual (11:26). While it’s possible; it’s unlikely; (3) the salvation of a remnant of Jews at the end of history. This is the position of the Westminster Confession of Faith (Q. 191 LC). Two-thousand years have passed since Romans was written. The Jews have had plenty of time to be “jealous” (Rom. 11:11). The Jews in Paul’s day were jealous. That’s why Jews were persecuting the church; (4) salvation of those Jews who survive the Great Tribulation. This becomes a debate over when the GT took/takes place. A remnant of Jews was saved prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, therefore, the GT is a past event; (5) the remnant of Jews living during the period of covenant transition until the time Jerusalem was judged and the temple destroyed. This interpretation makes the most sense given the time indicators in the passage.

1. Paul is describing the remnant in his day (11:5) in the same way that Elijah was describing the remnant in his own day (1 Kings 19:10).

“I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom. 11:1).
The remnant is alive “at the present time” (11:5), that is, in Paul’s day. It’s this remnant that Paul hopes to save through the preaching of the gospel, many of whom have already been saved (cf. Acts 2:5–12, 37–41).

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Before there was LaHaye, there was Lindsey. Hal Lindsey wrote in 1970 that he believed that the antichrist was alive somewhere in the world. He repeated this belief in 1977 when he wrote that it was his “personal opinion” that “he’s alive somewhere now. But he’s not going to become this awesome figure that we nickname the Anti-Christ until Satan possesses him, and I don’t believe that will occur until there is this “mortal wound” from which he’s raised up.”[1] In 1980 he restated this conviction by claiming that “this man [antichrist] is alive today–alive and waiting to come forth.”[2] What was false thirty-four years ago is equally false today.

Not to be outdone, Dave Hunt voiced a similar opinion in 1990: “Somewhere, at this very moment, on planet Earth, the antichrist is almost certainly alive–biding his time, awaiting his cue. Banal sensationalism? Far from it! That likelihood is based upon a sober evaluation of current events in relation to Bible prophecy. Already a mature man, he is probably active in politics, perhaps even an admired world leader whose name is almost daily on everyone’s lips.”[3] Like Lindsey before him and LaHaye after him, Dave Hunt is confused.

Modern antichrist hunters are pursuing a figure who no longer exists. Let’s look at the biblical evidence. The word “antichrist” appears only in John’s epistles (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). “What is taught in these passages constitutes the whole New Testament doctrine of Antichrist.”[4] You will search in vain to find the word anywhere mentioned in Revelation or any part of the Old Testament. John’s antichrist is defined in the following ways, none of which fits the modern definition:

Anyone “who denies that Jesus is the Christ” (1 John 2:22).

Anyone who “denies the Father and Son” (1 John 2:23).

“Every spirit that does not confess Jesus” (1 John 4:3).

“Those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7).

Could the Bible be any more clear? According to the Bible, antichrist is not a single individual, a world-wide political manipulator of the religious masses.

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Yesterday I received a review copy of Eric J. Bargerhuff’s The Most Misused Verses in the Bible: Surprising Ways God’s Word is Misunderstood (2012) published by Bethany House. The author writes that common biblical phrases like “an eye for an eye” and “do not judge, or you will be judged” — “derived from the bestselling book of all time, the Bible — have often been misunderstood and misused” (13). I couldn’t agree more.

I often give a simple Bible quiz to people when I’m going to address a controversial biblical subject. I ask questions like the following to show that most Christians not only don’t have a handle on what the Bible says, but they often don’t have a handle on what a particular text means.

Did Noah’s Ark land on Mount Ararat? You would be wrong if you said yes (Gen. 8:4).
Who cut off Samson’s hair? It wasn’t Delilah (Judges 16:19)
Is it true that the lion and the lamb will lie down together? No it’s not (Isa. 11:6).
Does pride come before a fall? Not exactly (Prov. 16:18)

These are verses of fact, and many people get them wrong. When people find out that they believe things that are not found in the Bible, it makes my job easier in introducing a pet subject. There are verses of interpretation that people hear over and over again without ever doing their own study to see if the interpretation they’ve heard repeated so often is what the text actually says and means.

I received an email asking me if I could answer an objection. The emailer’s friend tried to claim that Matthew 23:39 is a prime indicator that the events of Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13 have not been fulfilled. He, like so many other futurists, appeal to Matthew 23:39 as prima facie evidence that Jesus is predicting a future Great Tribulation when in the midst of it the nation of Israel as a whole (after two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel are slaughtered by the forces of antichrist: Zech. 13:8) will proclaim, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” While this makes for great prophetic theater, it’s not what the text says.

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