The Islamic Antichrist (13 page)

On that day I [the Lord] will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. (Zechariah 12:10)

A day of the Lord is coming…the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle.
On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives
. (Zechariah 14:1, 3–4, emphasis mine)

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.” (Romans 11:26)

Put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God…Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000
from all the tribes of Israel
…Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb [Jesus the Messiah], standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads…
And they sang a new song
… (Revelation 7:3–4; 14:1, 3, emphasis mine)

We see that when Jesus returns to “to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem,” “his feet will [literally] stand on the Mount of Olives.” Jesus will be physically present in Israel. At this time, it is said, those Jews living in Israel will see Him and realize that He is “the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him.” Thus the acknowledgment of Jesus as the genuine Jewish Messiah and divine Savior will fill their hearts and “so all Israel will be saved.”

THE ISLAMIC TRADITIONS

Of course, based on the Islamic traditions, Muslims expect Jews to acknowledge the Dajjal as the divine Jewish Messiah; thus, in the Islamic mind, the Jesus of biblical tradition will fulfill the three most primary Islamic expectations of the Dajjal. Clearly, these traditions will be used by Satan not only to preempt the Muslims of the earth from receiving the real Jesus when He comes, but to inspire them to attack Him. The plot never seems to stop thickening. Consider the following statement by well-known Muslim apologist Osamah Abdallah. The question posited to him was, “What do Muslims believe about the end of the world and Jesus’ part in it?” His answer is astonishing as it relates to this discussion:

Briefly, Christians believe that Jesus will come down to earth and fight for the state of Israel.… What seems to be quite ironic to me is that those Jews that Jesus is supposedly going to fight for don’t even believe in Jesus as GOD himself nor as a Messenger of GOD.…
Jesus never liked the Jews
.… Now without being biased, we Muslims have a story that makes a lot more sense and is empty of contradictions! We believe that Jesus will come down to earth toward the end of the world time to fight the army of Satan which will be mostly from the “bad” Jews or “Zionist Jews” as we call them today, and the deceived from the Polytheist Christians or the Trinitarian Christians and the Pagan Polytheists such as Hindus, Buddhists, etc.… Some Jews and many Christians will be among the good and blessed who will fight with Jesus’ side.
The army of Satan will be led by a person who will claim to be Jesus Christ himself. The Muslims will call him the Dajjal or the Deceiver. The real Jesus’ army will fight the Dajjal’s army and defeat him. The empire of Israel will fall, and the religion of Islam will prevail
.
¹
(emphasis mine)

This is quite amazing. We see that as a direct result of the Islamic apocalyptic traditions, Muslims expect two Jesuses to come: the real one and the false one. By Mr. Abdallah’s admission, the Muslim Jesus will be identifiable by the fact that he does not like Jews; indeed, he is expected to attack and
slaughter them. Likewise the “false” Jesus (according to Islam) will be clearly identifiable by the fact that He will defend the Jews. Thus, as we have seen, Mr. Abdallah and Muslims everywhere expect the Muslim Jesus, along with his leader, the Mahdi, to attack Israel and do battle against Him whom Christians understand to be the real Jesus. The battle of Armageddon as prophesied in the Bible may indeed be coming into very clear focus.

CHAPTER TEN

THE REVIVED ISLAMIC EMPIRE OF THE ANTICHRIST

W
hile the information
that we have covered thus far is certainly quite interesting, ultimately, if Islam is indeed the primary vehicle that Satan will use to fulfill his final rebellion against God, it is the Bible that must be the primary litmus test. What does the Bible say about the nature and the makeup of the Antichrist’s empire?

The Bible abounds with proofs that the Antichrist’s empire will consist only of nations that are, today, Islamic. If one were to do a thorough study of all of the various examples from the Hebrew prophets, it would be extensive. But for the sake of brevity and our purposes here, we will present a limited argument based on some portions of Scripture from the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation. Despite numerous prevailing arguments for the emergence of a revived European (Roman) empire as the Antichrist’s power base, the specific nations that the Bible identifies as comprising his empire are today all Muslim.

Pretty simple. This fact leaves us with only a couple of options. The first option is to assume that before the coming of the Antichrist, most of these Islamic nations will experience significant transformation and leave their Islamic roots behind. There are problems with this option. While there are ample reports of individual Muslims coming to follow Jesus from throughout the Muslim world, there are really no concrete signs of any of these nations abandoning their Islamic roots on a larger scale. In fact, many of the nations that we will look at are
presently seeing a resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism sweeping throughout their lands. Nevertheless, for years I have heard Bible teachers express that before the coming of the last days, Islam as a religion would basically fizzle out and become entirely irrelevant. The present reality and long-term statistical trends, however, simply do not bear this out.

The other option, a far more reasonable one, is to conclude that the Antichrist’s empire will indeed be Islamic. This fact alone should make most Bible scholars and students of eschatology consider the role of Islam in the last days very seriously. In this chapter we will examine exactly which modern nations the Bible says will play primary roles in the last days empire of the Antichrist.

EZEKIEL’S IDENTIFICATION

The Prophet Ezekiel lists the nations of this final empire quite specifically as he prophesies the future attack of the Antichrist against Israel. In the thirty-eighth chapter of his book, Ezekiel begins by directly addressing the Antichrist, whom the Lord refers to by the unusual name of “Gog.” The name Gog is a specific title for a ruler from the land of Magog. It could be likened to the pharaoh and Egypt. Pharaoh is an ancient title for rulers of Egypt, and Gog is a title for rulers of Magog:

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; prophesy against him and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and bring you out with your whole army—your horses, your horsemen fully armed, and a great horde with large and small shields, all of them brandishing their swords. Persia, Cush, and Put will be with them, all with shields and helmets, also Gomer with all its troops, and Beth Togarmah from the far north with all its troops—the many nations with you.’ Get ready; be prepared, you and all the hordes gathered about you, and take command of them.” (Ezekiel 38:1–7)

I encourage you to open your Bible and read through all of Ezekiel chapter thirty-eight slowly. The specificity with which Ezekiel describes modern-day Israel is quite astonishing. Prophesying to the Antichrist, Ezekiel says, “In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate.” Israel is described as “the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations, rich in livestock and goods.” Clearly Ezekiel was describing the Israel of today.

So Ezekiel gives us the specific names of countries that will be involved in the invasion of Israel led by Gog. Listed in order, they are Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, and Beth Togarmah, as well as “many nations with you.”

IS GOG ANTICHRIST?

Prophecy teachers and Bible scholars have different opinions regarding the identification of Gog and his coalition of nations. The majority position for the past few decades, however, has been that the invading army of nations described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not the army of the Antichrist, but another army led by another world leader. I personally reject the idea that Gog is anyone other than the Antichrist. While a smaller book could be written examining all of the various reasons why this is so, for now, we will only very briefly examine two of the primary reasons why I think this is untenable.

THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GOG

There are two specific mentions of Gog and Magog in the Bible. Gog is mentioned not only in Ezekiel but also in the Book of Revelation. Let’s look at the passage from Revelation:

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 20:7–10)

Even after the earthly thousand-year reign of Christ from Jerusalem, the Bible says that yet another army will form to attack the holy city of Jerusalem. Again, the leader of this army is called Gog and his army, Magog. Those who take the position that Gog is not the Antichrist must wrestle through the fact that this Gog and his armies are resurrected, so to speak, at least a thousand years after the first Gog. This is a difficulty. Obviously, the first “Gog and Magog” shares more than a mere name with the second “Gog and Magog.” There is a correlation between the two that extends beyond this very unusual title. Those who see Gog and the Antichrist as two separate entities must be able to explain just what similarities the Gog of Ezekiel and the Gog of Revelation bear that merits them both carrying the same name.

Actually, in order to estimate who Gog is, all one must really do is take a look at who the Antichrist is. The Antichrist, quite simply, is the devil incarnate—or at least the closet thing to it. Some passages of Scripture actually shift from speaking of Satan to speaking of the Antichrist seamlessly as if they are one and the same (for instance, see Isaiah 14). And as we have seen, Satan will share his worship with the Antichrist. Simply stated, Antichrist is the puppet that Satan will use to attack Jerusalem. And, at least in the Book of Revelation, Gog is also Satan’s puppet, and he will serve the very same purpose. In terms of both role and function, the Antichrist and the Gog of Revelation are essentially the same. Even as Satan will raise up a man to carry out his work in the days to come, so will Satan also raise up a man to carry out his final rebellion against God one more time at the end of the Millennium. Both times, the
leader of Satan’s rebellion against Jerusalem is referred to as Gog and his army is called Magog. Why should we view the basic nature of the first Gog as being any different than the second? Those who view Ezekiel’s Gog as a competitor to Antichrist find themselves taking a very inconsistent position.

But if you are not yet sure, consider this second point. Ezekiel says specifically of Gog that the prophets spoke of him in times past:

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Are you not the one I spoke of in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel? At that time they prophesied for years that I would bring you against them. (Ezekiel 38:17)

The question must be asked then—if Gog and Magog are spoken of by Israel’s former prophets prior to Ezekiel, then where are all of these references? We will be hard pressed to find any unless we do some serious stretching of the Scriptures. But if we take the position that Gog is the Antichrist, then it is very easy to find numerous passages about the Antichrist and his invading army throughout the prophets.