The Islamic Antichrist (18 page)

We the Palestinian nation,
our fate from Allah is to be the vanguard in the war against the Jews
until the resurrection of the dead, as the prophet Muhammad said: “The resurrection of the dead will not arrive until you will fight the Jews and kill them.…” We the Palestinians are the vanguard in this undertaking and in this campaign, whether or not we want this… (emphasis mine)

Oh, our Arab brethren.… Oh, our Muslim brethren.… Don’t leave the Palestinians alone in the war against the Jews…even if it has been decreed upon us to be the vanguard.… Jerusalem, Palestine, and Al Aksa [the Temple Mount], the land that Allah blessed and its surrounding areas will remain at the center of the struggle between Truth and Falsehood, between the Jews and the non-Jews on this sacred land, regardless of how many agreements are signed, regardless of how many treaties and covenants are ratified. For the Truth is in the Qur’an, as verified by the words of the prophet Muhammad, that the decisive battle will be in Jerusalem and its environs: “The resurrection of the dead will not occur until you make war on the Jews…”

The battle with the Jews will surely come…the decisive Muslim victory is coming without a doubt, and the prophet spoke about in more than one hadith and the Day of Resurrection will not come without the victory of the believers [the Muslims] over the descendants of the monkeys and pigs [the Jews] and with their annihilation.
⁴

Oh Allah, accept our martyrs in the highest heavens.… Oh Allah, show the Jews a black day.… Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews and their supporters.… Oh Allah, raise the flag of jihad across the land…
⁵

Thus, as the world eagerly awaits and believes for the peaceful coexistence of the Jewish and the Palestinian people, the imams, the religious authorities of the Palestinian people, with the full support and approval of the political leadership, ceaselessly beat the drums of “the final war,” the final slaughter of the Jews.

SATAN’S ANCIENT HATRED FOR THE JEWS

When we compare the spirit that we see in Islam with the spirit that we see manifest under the rule of the Antichrist and the False Prophet, we find the same ancient hatred against the Jewish people in both. This ancient hatred originates with Satan himself. From the day that God showed His favor to the Jewish people, Satan has raged against them. Satan’s primary vehicles that he has used to do this have been several great world empires. These are the “beast” empires that we discussed in chapter ten. Throughout the Bible, we read of Satan’s attempts to exterminate or persecute the Jewish people:

1. Through Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, when he ordered the slaughter of every male Hebrew child (Exodus 1:5–22).

2. Through Shalmaneser, the ruler of Assyria, when he conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and carried away and dispersed ten of the twelve tribes into exile (2 Kings 17:5–6).

3. Through Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of Babylon, when he attacked Jerusalem, the capital of the southern
kingdom of Judea, and carried the rest of the Jews off into exile (2 Kings 24:10–16).

4. Through Haman, the man appointed as second in command over the Medo-Persian empire, when he attempted to have every Jew in the empire killed (Esther 3:9).

5. Through Antiochus Epiphanes, the Greek ruler of Syria, when he laid siege to Jerusalem in what the Jewish historian Josephus describes as one of the bloodiest sieges in Israel’s history (Daniel 8:23–25; 1 Maccabees 1–6).
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6. Through Titus, the Roman emperor, who attacked and captured Jerusalem, killing over 1.1 million Jews and enslaving more than ninety-seven thousand (
Wars of the Jews
, VI, ix, 3).

7. Through various Islamic and Christian empires, which we cannot fail to mention. Even Christianity (albeit in a perverted form) has been
far
from innocent in the bloody history of the Jewish people.

8. Through Hitler,
führer
of Germany, who killed over six million Jews during World War II.

9. And eventually through the Antichrist and the False Prophet and their future empire, which is prophesied very clearly by the prophets Zechariah and Ezekiel to attack Jerusalem and kill two-thirds of the inhabitants of the nation of Israel (Zechariah 13:8–9; Ezekiel 38).

Any thinking person at this point must stop and ask: What else can explain such a consistently bloody and painful history of one people other than an inhuman, demonic hatred? Who could instigate such a black and persistent attack against one people who represent such a very small fraction of one percent of the earth’s population—no matter where they dwell? Who else if not the devil himself? The history of the Jewish people
alone is proof to the open mind that Satan exists and that he hates those whom God loves and declares to be the very “apple of his eye” (Zechariah 2:8).

CONCLUSION

Throughout natural history we see willing vessels manifest Satan’s hatred for the Jewish people. And, even more frightening, in the sacred texts of all three monotheistic religions, we see yet another future attack against the Jews, this one worse than all those that preceded it. In the Bible, it is specifically Satan’s pawns—the Antichrist, his False Prophet, and all who follow them—who carry out the final onslaught. In Islam it is the Mahdi, the Muslim Jesus, and as the tradition says, “faithful Muslims,” who carry out such atrocities. Indeed, in this regard, Islam again fulfills one of the primary characteristics of the Antichrist spirit; that of an unquenchable anti-Semitic spirit.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

END-TIME MARTYRDOM

W
hile the last chapter
dealt with the concentrated hatred and murderous spirit of Islam toward the Jewish people, this chapter deals in a more general sense with the worldwide persecution and martyrdom that the Antichrist’s empire will wage against anyone who follows Jesus or who refuses to become a Muslim during the last days.

BEHEADINGS IN THE LAST DAYS

In the Book of Revelation, chapter twenty, the Apostle John sees a particular company of people. John gives us a very brief synopsis of what he sees. He specifically describes future end-time martyrs:

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)

I’ve dwelled on this verse many times. The Bible says that in the last days, beheading will be the primary method by which people will be martyred for their “testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God.” It is a strange picture to try to imagine. Is the Bible implying a worldwide resurrection of guillotines in every town square? What exactly will occur that
will result in a worldwide standard of beheading as a means of executing Christians? As I have tried to envision the nature of the end times and what they will look like, I have often wondered about this verse. Other passages very similar to this one also speak of a future persecution and a global trend of executing Christians for their faith in Jesus: “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me” (Matthew 24:9).

Here Jesus warns His disciples that they will be hated and ultimately put to death as a result of their identification with Him. But then there is a prophetic expansion on this prediction. Jesus says that “you will be hated
by all nations
because of me.” Jesus specifically predicted a global element to this future persecution against Christians. This next verse gives us even further insight:

All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. (John 16:1–4)

In this passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus is initially speaking to the disciples outside of a strictly end-time context. He first warns the disciples that in the days ahead they would see His followers put out of the synagogues. This prophecy came to its fullest expression after what became known as the Bar Kochba Rebellion in AD 132–135. During the Bar Kochba Rebellion the final separation of church and synagogue took place. Bar Kochba was a false Jewish messiah supported and endorsed by the highest level of the rabbinic authority at the time, the renowned Rabbi Akiva. Akiva’s support authenticated Bar Kochba as the Messiah in the eyes of the Jewish people. When Bar Kochba led the Jews in a rebellion against Rome, any Jew who did not participate was viewed as a traitor to the Jewish nation. The Jews who followed Jesus, however, who
before this time still regularly participated in the synagogue services, could not support a rebellion led by someone whom they knew to be a false messiah. As a result the Jewish followers of Jesus were expelled from the synagogues
en masse
and Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled in the second century.

But in the second part of this verse, Jesus is speaking of the end times. “In fact,” He goes on to say, “the days will come when your persecutors will do far more than merely expel you from a synagogue; they will kill you.” But the most bewildering and intriguing aspect of this verse is the next portion of Jesus’ statement. He says that those who kill you will think that in doing so, they are offering a service to God. This portion of the verse is key. How could someone in today’s world think that God demands the killing of other human beings simply because they believe differently? It’s such a completely foreign concept to most modern Western minds. It is not, however, a foreign concept to history. Both Islam and Christianity—Catholic and Protestant—have been guilty of this very thing, murdering those perceived as heretics from the only true religion. Jihad, the Crusades, the Inquisition—all fit the bill of murder for and in the name of God. One thing is for sure, an absolutely necessary ingredient in any such bloody exchange would have to be a firm conviction that God is on one’s side and that He commands such executions. It is impossible to imagine any belief system or philosophy on the earth that could carry out such a thing other than a well-established world religion. While totalitarian regimes are certainly capable of such a thing, this verse specifically says that the ones who carry out these executions will believe themselves to be serving God in doing so. No, the system that carries this out will be a religious system that views itself as the earthly steward of some form of global divine government. It must view itself as God’s only organization or community on the earth. Only such a scenario can account for the actions that we read about in these verses.

When we compare these three verses we get a very specific picture of what end-time persecution and martyrdom will look like. First, it will be global. Second, it will necessitate a belief system that views itself as having a divinely appointed governmental role on the earth. Third, it will involve the specific method of beheading as its primary method of execution. So we have a global religion that will view itself as a divinely appointed system on the earth, authorized by God to behead those who refuse to join. As we are about to see, in terms of religious systems that exist on the earth today, only the religion of Islam fulfills these requirements.

BEHEADINGS IN THE NEWS

When the first draft of this work was completed in late 2004, there were news stories almost weekly about Islamic radicals beheading foreigners and Christians in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and a few other countries. Now, five years later, beheadings continue to be a normal part of life in the Islamic world, but the Western media seems to have grown tired of reporting them with the same shock that they once expressed. A debate rages about whether or not this practice is indeed “Islamic” or merely the barbaric practice of a few radicals violating the true principals of Islam. Among the public statements picked up by the Western media are the usual denouncements of such incidents as having anything to do with “true Islam.” In most cases, the Western media gobbles these disavowals up and reprints them without much question. But if we examine not only Islamic tradition and history, but also the “word on the street” feelings of those Muslims who make their opinions known every day on Internet message and chat groups, we find a much different reality. Islamic message boards all over the Internet have debated the legitimacy or illegitimacy of such actions since they became front-page news stories.
CBS News
also picked up on some of this Internet chatter.