The Book of Revelation – Mystery or Illumination？ - Part 1 — Shane Idleman

Illumination, and I will tell you up front that I would need about eight months to truly unpack the book of Revelation. Any of you who have taught before, you know that you can't just put some paint on this old house and hopefully it all is painted.

It's a project of sanding and getting things ready and prepping. It's the same with the book of Revelation. There's so much here. But I will tell you this, that there is much speculation out there, especially people now are saying, you know, I'm watching the news to find out what book of Revelation we're in.

And we know that the book of Revelation talks about cataclysmic events. And here's what we also know, that as history goes by, I believe that the more and more history that goes by, the more our theological view of eschatology, eschatology is the study of the end times, that we will actually be more in tune with what God is doing.

For example, if you go to the fourth century or so, the 300s and St. Augustine and what he wrote in Origen and what he wrote in Justin Martyr and what he wrote, and then the early church fathers coming up all the way to the reformation.

What did Calvin and Luther think of the Antichrist? And the possibility of Israel becoming a nation again was not even on the radar. So now we are here in 2020 and we see that the nation of Israel was rebuilt.

We see that what could never have occurred before with a one world type government and a one world monetary system and everybody seeing these witnesses in Revelation and that just seemed impossible even 50 years ago.

So the more we learn through history and being in history and living into the future, the more I believe we will be able to grasp this book of Revelation. And I wanna just remind you of a couple things that Revelation, the book of Revelation also talks about.

Endurance, Perseverance, and Deception

Endurance and perseverance and deception. Those are the three things I'm gonna concentrate on towards the end. And hopefully you'll join us for a little bit of worship at the end where we just need to take some time and seek God and seek his heart for what's going on.

But endurance, what does that mean? It's physically enduring something. Perseverance is mentally enduring something. And then deception means getting the right information from the right people from God's word.

And I talked about that the last few weeks, so I'm not gonna talk about that again. If you did not catch the message from last week, go ahead and tune in on false prophets and getting the right information.

And I'm also gonna not speak on chapters one, two, and three because I talked about the churches, the seven churches in Revelation. If you go to our website, I think it was a few years ago now, you can search for that and those messages should come up.

I'm also not gonna go through chapter by chapter, verse by verse because I don't believe it's a unfolding in that order. And to understand the book of Revelation, you really wanna look at Old Testament imagery.

Old Testament Imagery in Revelation

What did Jesus riding on the clouds mean in the Old Testament? Well, Jesus wasn't mentioned technically in the Old Testament as far as that goes, but riding on the clouds and the clouds of God's judgment and the darkness and the wrath of God.

And John will use Old Testament imagery for a connection there. So for example, I don't think Jesus is gonna be riding back on a cloud like he would ride a horse. We don't think the devil is going to be bound to a physical chain, he's a spiritual being.

So that's why it gets tricky because some things are allegory, some things are metaphor, some things are literal. And let me just tell you right up front, here's the issue. Great men and women of God are divided on exactly what is going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to happen.

And people change things later on, they embrace a different view later on as they start to better understand certain things. And so I'm not going to give you a concrete view. This is how it's all going to break down because I know, I actually don't know other than what Scripture says.

So that's why we wanna look at Scripture. And my concern with embracing one view wholeheartedly is this, let's say we teach without a shadow of a doubt, without a shadow of a doubt, the church is going to be raptured, going to be taken away before it gets difficult.

And I used to have people tell me this, I haven't recently, probably because they see what's really going on, but they used to say, man, Brother Shane, don't worry, before it gets real difficult, we're outta here.

And they tell their kids that, you know, just enjoy America, enjoy good food, and enjoy our nice home, and enjoy vacation, and don't worry, as soon as it gets tough, look, we're outta here. And I believe that can be very dangerous because what about if you're not outta here?

Preparing for Persecution and Holding Eschatology Loosely

What about if you have to go through some serious tribulation? And I think we need to prepare our kids and our family for the reality that we might face severe persecution just like the early church did.

Now, do I find joy in saying that? Absolutely not. I prefer not to face any of that, but even now, look at what is happening. I mean, just the persecution that has come against me and this church has probably magnified over the last year, and different security concerns that churches have to take, and it's intensifying, and so that's my concern with gravitating towards one view and holding that as an essential, such as Jesus' death on the cross, His resurrection, the inerrancy of Scripture, the triune nature of God, these things that are foundational, I think we need to be careful in eschatology because there are good men and women divided on this issue.

And I think it's also hard for this very reason. We want to know what is going to happen. We want to know where it's going to happen. We want to know when it's going to happen, why it's going to happen, and how it's going to happen.

And I've learned throughout my life that God often doesn't show me all those things. He wants me to step out in faith. Had I known how, when, why, where, and all the intricate details of planting this church, I might have never jumped into it because we want to jump ahead of God.

We want to know everything now, and a part of living in a life of faith is not knowing these things. So I can look at the book of Revelation. I can read different authors and different views and say, Lord, I don't know.

I'm stepping out in faith. A few things we do know, and I'm going to talk about that in a minute, but what I don't know is how this is all going to play out. We do see persecution coming. We do see the movement towards a system that will govern one world leader and different things.

So that's kind of the long introduction on where my thought is with this. I don't embrace one view strongly over others, even though I would lean towards, well, let me explain that as I go through because it might be too much up front to unpack because I want to unpack it with each point, but I'm considered, if you've heard mid-tribulation, you're out of here midway through the tribulation, if you think the tribulation is taught that it's the future, mid-trib, post-trib, that you're out of here after the tribulation, pre-tribulation, which you're out of here before the wrath of God is poured out, and pre-millennial, post-millennial, all-millennial, and all these different terms, what I consider myself is a pan-trib.

I'm pan-trib, P-A-N, pan-trib, and I will explain it to you right now. I'm going to see how it all pans out, and I'm sure many of you have heard that before, but isn't that the truth? Because I read some sections of Revelation, I read some authors, and it makes sense, and then I read other portions of Scripture in the Old Testament with John's writings, and I don't know, this seems to be relevant here, and it's difficult, and I had a lot of questions growing up.

Questions About the Rapture, Millennium, and Revelation's Symbols

For example, I love Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel Ministries. I actually listened to his entire tape series. It took about a year. I was stuck in a John Deere 310SG backhoe. I'll never forget that. Air conditioning and heating, and I would sit on that thing, and I would dig for hours and hours, everything from power lines to water lines to leech lines to block wall footings and foundations, and I would just absorb the Word of God, and I love that ministry, but he would often say, when teaching, like in Revelation 3, he's talking to the churches in Revelation 1, 2, and 3, but he's not, the church isn't mentioned anymore after that, so that is a proof text for the rapture they would teach, and I just can't embrace that.

I don't see that as a proof text. Now, I'm not doubting the rapture. That's taught in Scripture, but so I started to have a lot of questions. Another question I had was, and still have, is this millennial reign of Christ and the rebuilding of the temple, and why is there sacrifices?

Again, why are you sacrificing? To me, that seems like total blasphemy, and people say, well, it's a memorial. Well, that's not a good memorial. That's a bad memorial. So, and all these questions about the mark of the beast and 666 and the number of man, and then I read Josephus' works.

Josephus was an early Jewish historian, and a lot of what he wrote when he talked about the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, well, it actually was AD 66, I believe, to AD 70. It was a three and a half year siege.

Interesting how the book of Daniel talks about three and a half years, and so Josephus talking about that cataclysmic event really paralleled some of what's in Revelation, even though I don't gravitate towards that view necessarily.

So I just had a lot of questions from every side and every angle, and that's why many of you do. So I would just caution you, hold your eschatology loosely in the palm of your hand because it could be wrong in certain areas.

What is right that we all know, and I might talk about that again in a little bit, is this, Jesus is coming again. Are you prepared? Are you ready? The kingdom of God, I believe, is here in this sense that Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you.

When a person believes in Jesus Christ, has the Holy Spirit of God, the kingdom of God is within you. However, I don't believe it's at its fullness yet. He still will rule and reign and govern the affairs of men.

He is coming again. We know that there is a taking away. In Thessalonians, and we'll talk about that, there's a catching up, and the church believers will be caught up to Jesus Christ. Is that a rapture, and is that different than his second coming, or is it one event?

Four Major Interpretive Approaches to Revelation

Well, welcome to the world of biblical discussions on end times. There's a lot of questions out there, as you can tell. And so what I want to do, instead of just teaching one view, and men I respect, if you follow Calvary Chapel, Jack Hibbs, of course, and Pastor David Jeremiah that we have on our radio network, and then Alistair Begg is different, of course, and John MacArthur, I've read a lot of his material, and also Greg Laurie.

And so there's different views out there, but I want to share with you the four main views. And usually you'll see those in the reformed theology. Westminster Theological Seminary, I believe in Pennsylvania, Peter Lyleback was a president there.

I had talked to him many years ago, and they would embrace a different view of the end times. And so you do see a teaching of the end times go up with a certain denomination. So this denomination teaches this, and this movement teaches this, and so it's kind of hard to find that middle ground.

But I want to share with you the four different views that are primary, so you know. I just think it's good there. And this is by Patrick. I don't mind sharing other views, so people are well aware of what is out there.

And this is by Patrick Zuckerin. He's the Executive Director of Evidence and Answers. And he talks about, number one, the allegorical approach. The allegorical approach, meaning allegory. And I should clarify, this doesn't mean that these people think everything is allegory.

And allegory is kind of a typology, and they use symbols and things to mean certain things. And in my opinion, it's a little dangerous because your interpretation is left up to how you read into that allegory.

So I don't necessarily embrace this, but it was prominent by Augustine. I believe it was Origen who brought it to light at the beginning. And the symbols in Revelation, they would say are not tied to specific events, but they point to themes throughout church history.

The battles in Revelation are wars in general that have occurred in history. And the beast from the sea may be identified as the satanically inspired political oppression to the church in any age. And the beast on the land represents pagan or corrupt religion to Christianity.

The Preterist View and the Destruction of Jerusalem

So that would be their view, the allegorical view. And some people do embrace that. And it is challenging because you have this beast coming out of the water, you have the beast on the land, and you have this antichrist, which is interesting, the word, and you can just look, just check this out.

I don't believe the word antichrist. This person, this antichrist is mentioned in Revelation. It's the beast, the false prophet, and words like that. And so it's interesting to say the least. And then obviously, many of you know about the second view, which is called preterist, and that means past, and it's derived from the Latin word.

It means past, and technically speaking, it means the two major views of preterists are full preterism and partial preterism. And both of these views believe that when Jesus was talking in Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse, that He was talking to that generation.

And the same thing with Revelation, that it was all fulfilled in AD 70, really 66 to AD 70, when Titus, the Roman captain, the Roman general, conquered Jerusalem. It was horrific, it was terrible. And the reason this gains some momentum is because there is some truth in that.

What Jesus said, when you see, you see this great temple and all these things, I tell you, all of these stones will come tumbling down. There will not be one upon another, and that did happen, that was literally fulfilled.

And Jesus said, I tell you the truth, this generation will see these things. So I'm the type of person who would believe in reading the Scriptures that Matthew 24 is relevant to us today. We are going to see various earthquakes and famines and civil wars, and so is it possible that it could have dual meaning, dual emphasis on it was applicable then and it's going to happen now.

All these things that Jesus talked about in Matthew 24 just didn't happen in AD 70, and now, well, now we're good. No, we could see these same things fulfilled. And again, if you read Josephus' works, you will see that a lot of things happened in AD 70 that fulfilled some of these things.

And again, it would take a half hour to just look at Matthew 24, when Jesus said, you know, the disciples said, when is this going to happen? When is the sign of the age? When is the end coming? And they viewed it as all one event, where some would view it as different events throughout time and that's why it gets a little complicated.

But it's interesting because you have to look at Matthew 24, you have to look at Matthew 23, and Jesus rebukes the religious leaders. That's when he said, you brood of vipers, you kill the prophets who are sent to you and you stone those who God has sent to you to give you my word.

You kill the righteous people and the blood of Abel all the way to Zechariah, son of Barqiah. You killed all these people and their blood is going to be required of you, of this generation. And that's what I believe Jesus was talking about.

I don't think in that particular moment he was talking about us 2 ,000 years later. It was a judgment. He was calling on the religious leaders of his day and they were judged. They were judged some 40 years later when Jerusalem fell.

He said, this blood will be required on you and that's when he goes into that famous discord. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you stone your messengers, you kill your messengers. Not unlike America today, amen?

The voice that needs to be heard in America is being suppressed. And Jesus said, oh, I wish I could gather you as a mother hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing. You have rejected your Messiah.

You have rejected me. You have killed the innocent and the judgment of God will fall upon you this generation. So you have to look at Matthew 23 to really understand Matthew 24. But then he does go into things that I just don't see how they could have been fulfilled all in AD 70.

It must, in my opinion, must be partial fulfillment then and even future fulfillment going forward. In the war of the Jews, Josephus described events. I believe it was November, 67 AD. And he said that they were coming against one another.

There was an opposition to one another. Civil war in every city. Barbarians. And this lines up well with John's vision of people killing one another in the land. So that's why some people think revelation could have been fulfilled because there was civil war.

Everything Jesus said, just about everything Jesus said until you get to the latter part of Matthew 24 with various earthquakes and different things. A lot of those things you do see happened in AD 70 if you read the works of Josephus and find out really what happened.

However, when Jesus talks about all these things in Matthew 24, there's some cataclysmic events. And when he says, nothing like this has ever happened in the past and nothing like this is going to ever happen again in the future, it makes it seem like he is not referring to AD 70 in that situation.

Nero, the Three-and-a-Half Years, and Competing Readings

Now, so you can see why it gets confusing. Welcome to my world. Revelation gives me a headache sometimes. And also in John's vision, remember John's vision in Revelation? He saw a great sword and numerous times, Josephus spoke of the zealots killing others with swords and cutting their throats.

So could it be that beheading that John is talking about in Revelation? Again, I don't think so, but that's where some people come from. And you can look this up. The numerical value of Nero Caesar is 666.

That is very interesting to say the least. And John, they say, was warning the people of Caesar Nero, the number of a man, 666. But then you start to tie in, you know, you can't buy or sell without the mark.

And then is when it really doesn't seem to fit anymore in AD 70. So very interesting things. And I believe that's another interesting point is the numerous references in Revelation to a three and a half years fit very well between 66 and 70 AD when Rome laid siege.

See, Jerusalem didn't just fall in 70 AD within a month. It was a period of three and a half years from 66 AD to 70 AD. And when Daniel, when they talk about the three and a half years, and we talk, a lot of teachings about three and a half years, three and a half years, it fits that perfect, that narrative perfectly.

So on that side, I say, wow, that is a really good point. And I mean, I pray, I pray Revelation happened already in 70 AD, I pray that they're right and the Christianization of America is coming and the gospel is going to spread and we're gonna become, we're gonna actually become better and more godly instead of more depraved.

I wish that was true, but obviously I don't see that and I don't sense that. But you should know the gospel is going out big time in Iraq and in the underground church in China, Brazil, what's happening there, God is awakening.

So sometimes we get this view of, oh my goodness, everything is falling apart, the sky's falling and God is losing the battle. He's not, God will never lose the battle. He brings revival wherever he wants.

The Holy Spirit goes wherever he wants and God will bring revival, God will renew his people. He'll bring them up in Iraq and Iran and Syria and the underground church in China and there is a gospel call going out.

There are hundreds of thousands being saved per year, if not more, and so we do see that happening. We do see the gospel going out and I believe, this is why I'm not giving up in America and why I'm not cashing in my chips and just giving up and throwing in the towel because when God brings revival, he often brings it at the darkest times when America gets to her knees and cries out to God.

You might experience tremendous financial upheaval and God might use these things to bring us to our knees, more civil unrest, more killings, more mayhem, but God is still on the throne and we need to continue to look to him.

So I'm not giving up, I'm looking up. I don't like what's happening, but I also know that God, with a blink of an eye, with just a word, he can turn the course of this nation. And so looking at this book of Revelation, the Old Testament, I'm gonna give you what I mean by Old Testament imagery.

Revelation 17 and Old Testament Imagery

Revelation 17, one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls, and it's interesting when you talk about the seven bulls, the seven trumpets, the seven seals. Some people look at this as 21 different events.

Some people say there are seven different events. But what's interesting is you do see God, there's a seal, seals that are broken, and judgment comes, and then the cups are poured out and judgment comes, and then the trumpets are sounded and judgment comes.

So this could be a time of God judging the world as well. But anyway, one of the seven angels in Revelation 17 said this, come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute who sits by many waters.

With her, the kings of the earth have committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries. Then the angel carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness.

There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and 10 horns. I want you to think about this for a minute. What have we been told over the years?

Who is this? Is it the revised Roman Empire? Is that what this is? So therefore, I saw the woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and 10 horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet.

I think that's significant. Why would he mention what the woman is wearing? And was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and filth of her adulteries.

The name written on her forehead was a mystery. Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth. Here's the thing though. How do we know that he might be referencing Israel and not Rome?

Hear me out. Purple, scarlet, gold and jewels and pearls are almost identically tied to Israel's high priest. That's what they wore. That's exactly what is described is what the high priest garments look like.

And this is what I mean by Old Testament imagery. John's looking to the Old Testament for imagery. The Old Testament prophets consistently spoke of Israel's spiritual harlotry. Why would Rome be committing spiritual harlotry when Rome is already not part of God's kingdom?

They are Gentiles. And so all these things just make you think. Jeremiah 3 .3 says, you have the forehead of a whore talking to Israel. Revelation 18 .24, in her was found the blood of the prophets and the saints.

So it doesn't necessarily sound like Rome. And that's, again, we're reading over the years kind of being confused in these areas. What is this? Again, we don't know. Time will tell and we will all know at some point.

I'm convinced of that. But this beast that we're making out to be, I'm sorry. So the beast could be Rome and it destroys the harlot Jerusalem. So that would not be a coming beast. That would have been what happened in AD 70, according to this view.

So very interesting things in regards to that portion. I can see what they're talking about because to me, this describes what the priest wore. It describes Israel's harlotry and that she was judged by Rome.

Dating Revelation and the Futurist Perspective

Now, here's where the challenge gets. Interesting. It really has to do with the date of Revelation. If the book of Revelation was written, like many of us believe, AD 90, 95, right in there, 25 years after the fall of Jerusalem, then obviously Revelation, no portion of Revelation is talking about AD 70, without a shadow of a doubt.

However, if the book of Revelation was written in the 60s, 60 ADs, then it could be talking about 70 AD, the fall of Jerusalem where this terrible, million Jews were slaughtered, the blood ran down the streets, Josephus talks about.

And so that is just interesting to say the least. I know that the main reason, the main way they date the book of Revelation is by one of the early church fathers. He talked about it being after the reign of, well, let me just read, I think I wrote it down here.

Let's see here. Oh yeah, Irenaeus in his work against heresies said that John wrote Revelation at the end of Emperor Domitian's reign, which ended about 96 AD. And Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of John.

So that's really where they use his quote to say, okay, it must be a later date. And maybe it could, I don't know. I know it's confusing. I know for most of you, if you're not a Bible scholar, this is over your head, doesn't make a lot of sense, but don't worry, I'm getting somewhere right here at the end shortly.

And so here's some troubles I have though with AD 70, Revelation being filled in AD 70. Number one, why would John, okay, let me flesh this out for a minute. John is writing to the seven churches in the first three chapters of Revelation.

He's writing to the churches, we understand that. However, those churches are not in Israel, in Jerusalem, where Titus came and conquered. They are actually four to 600 miles north. Smyrna, Ephesus, Laodicea, all those churches are way, so why would John be warning these churches of something that's gonna happen 600 miles away in Jerusalem when it really didn't affect them?

Granted, they were persecuted. They were killed for the faith, many of them. And so that's one way I don't see, it's not like the church is in Jerusalem and he's warning the church. Also, when you read Revelation, you see cataclysmic and cosmic events, the stars falling and different things.

And now, granted, if you use Old Testament imagery of the stars falling and God bringing mountains low and valleys, mountains like valleys and bringing them down low, it's often a sign of His judgment, of His power, of His authority.

So maybe not necessarily stars will be falling and mountains crumbling. We know there is a lot of imagery there. So my thought is, and all of this is, that's why you have to hold this loosely. Very interesting, very interesting thing.

But when you see the cataclysmic events unfolding in Revelation to me and the cosmic events to me, that would mean that this is something yet to come. So I would be probably considered a futurist that these things are coming, but at the same time, I'm not fully convinced on that argument.

I lean towards some of these other aspects. And so it's kind of like, okay, well, I know things are gonna get tough. Are you prepared? I know that Jesus is coming again. Are you ready? I know that there could be a one world government and we're gonna talk about that going forward, the mark of the beast and all these different things.

But I would probably be that futuristic type Revelation is going to come in the near future if I were to lean in any direction. However, there are a lot of questions with that scenario too. And I'll get to that in just a minute.

Humility, Teachability, and the Historical Approach

And I think we also need to be careful. This is a biggie. I've noticed that pride is deadly in the life of a Christian. And what I mean by pride is a lot of times we don't wanna be challenged. We don't want our views to be challenged.

We've held these views for many years, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. I read Hal Lindsey's book and this is what I believe. And I read, I love the Left Behind series and this is what I believe. And this teacher taught me this and this is what I believe in.

And pride gets in there so we're not as open and teachable to maybe other things that are out there. So I just wanna encourage you, be open, be teachable. And many of you are probably wondering, how can I get more information?

Well, they're big, thick books and I've just about read them both. I wanna recommend The End, it's called The End, a complete overview of Bible prophecy and the end days by Mark Hitchcock. He would be the futurist, premillennial, dispensational probably kind of view.

And then there's the other side of it and Kingdom Come, the book is titled Kingdom Come by Sam Storm. He would take the all millennial position and some of what I talked about being already fulfilled.

But we do need to be careful because when you hear the word all millennial, it really shouldn't be called all millennial. What they mean by, if you say, I'm all political, it means I'm not political. If you put an A in front of it, it means you're not that.

So these people really are not all millennials. What they believe is the millennial reign, many times is here and now, that Christ is ruling and reigning on the throne now. Now I have issues with that, like I'm sure some of you do listening as well, but they would embrace a millennial.

So it's not like they are not millennials or they don't believe in any millennial reign. It's just somehow they've been given that title. And so again, I believe in dual fulfillment. Christ said He would return and He will return.

The Historical Approach and the Antichrist Spirit

Now the third view is interesting. It's called the historical approach. This view teaches that Revelation is a symbolic representation that presents the course of history from the apostle's life through the end of the age.

The symbols in the book of Revelation correspond with events in history. And most interpreters place the events of their day in the later chapters of Revelation. Many adherents to this position view chapters one and three as the seven periods of church history.

And I actually heard David Jeremiah teach on this about 10 years ago. Very interesting, a lot of great points. Not sure I embrace it, but so they would say this view, they would say we're actually in the Laodicean view of church history, meaning when Jesus was talking to the church in Laodicea, that you are lukewarm, wasn't talking to a specific church, but a period of time, and that we are in that now.

And Smyrna and the different churches, and when the church was persecuted, when they went through the early persecution, and when the missionaries went out in the 1800s, that they were, that was the era of the Philadelphia church.

And so it's interesting. The connections are pretty cool, but I'm not a historical approach guy. And they would say the breaking of the seals in chapters four and seven symbolize the fall of the Roman Empire, and the trumpet judgments in chapters eight and 10 represent other invasions.

Among Protestants of the Reformation, the Antichrist in Revelation was believed to be the papacy. So I don't know of how many of you are aware of that, but the Reformers, you have John Calvin, of course, you know, many of you, or not know him, but read his works in Geneva there.

And you have John Knox, who was in Scotland. You have Urich Zwingli, who was in Switzerland. Martin Luther, who was in Germany there, translating the Bible into the German language. And these Reformers would actually refer to the papacy, to the Pope as the Antichrist, because what they saw him doing, and they would read Scripture, it definitely, there are some definite parallels.

And that's why they would, Hitler, Antichrist. So you can attribute it to certain things. Now, I'm gonna get into this a little bit later. There's so much to this, but the Antichrist, you have to remember, we'll read the Scriptures when I talk about this, but there's a spirit of Antichrist.

So whether it's a one-world leader rising up, which I think we will see someday, but there is an Antichrist spirit. So all these people are waiting, waiting, waiting. Let me tell you, the Antichrist spirit is here.

It's been there a long time throughout history. The Antichrist spirit in America is alive and well. Antichrist against God. You can pray in every other name, just don't pray in Jesus. We're gonna slaughter children, even at nine months, but we're gonna walk around and acting like we are so spiritual, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

And you see this anti-God movement, and it is Antichrist, it is demonic at its core. So the Antichrist spirit is here, alive and ready, and it's influencing millions of people. And then, of course, probably the most famous, I should say, a view is that of the futurist.