Our enemies, continued.

The False Prophet is man's attempt to imitate Christ without forsaking the world, taking up his cross, and following Jesus. It is the soulish individual seeking power in the supernatural realm by using the name of the Lord Jesus.

The False Prophet is making inroads into the Christian churches of our day, particularly in the Charismatic churches. The believers, being asleep in the lap of material prosperity, do not realize the voice they are listening to is that of the False Prophet. He is persuading them that God desires they be wealthy and comfortable in the present world.

Antichrist. Antichrist, the beast, is the spirit of democracy, of the rights of people, of libertarianism. It is man throwing off authority and making himself God.

The author believes that the spirit of democracy, of the rights of people, of freedom of speech as it currently is interpreted and practiced in America, will overcome every other form of government including all forms of socialism. The False Prophet, particularly in the Christian believers, will work together with the spirit of democracy to establish a world government that apparently is Christian but will prove to be the most vicious, the most subtle, the most destructive of the enemies of Christ over the 2,000 years of Church history.

In 1996 we had a presidential election in the United States of America. The incumbent president was reelected. He claimed to be a Christian and in fact enlisted the support of Christian pastors. Yet his record in office appeared to favor lawlessness and he had a widespread reputation for being lacking in integrity. He did not seem to be a cross-carrying disciple of the Lord Jesus, that is, a genuine Christian. Yet the voice of outrage was not heard in the churches he attended. So it will be in the days of Antichrist.

The voice is Jacob's but the hands are Esau's.

We are of the opinion that Antichrist will be a persuasive, charming individual of great charisma who will make a pretense of Christianity in this very manner.

The worship of money. The Scriptures warn us that money is the root of all evil. Yet there are prominent Christian leaders who teach that Christians ought to be rich in the present world.

Babylon (man-directed religion). Babylon represents religious effort apart from the known will of God, just as the Tower of Babel was an attempt to glorify and unify people apart from the Lord. Babylon portrays those Christian churches and religious systems that are building in their own wisdom and strength.

Laodicea. The spirit of Laodicea is that of apathy, of smugness born of the stress on the "rights of people." Because of the "friendliness" of the antichrist governments toward lukewarm Christianity, toward the man-directed religious systems, the believers will be "at ease in Zion." In this manner Satan will overcome the Christian churches of the last days.

The lusts of the flesh. Because of the delusion that Christian grace is an excuse for our sins, and because of the demon-filled environment in which we are attempting to survive, many believers have succumbed to adultery, fornication, various sexual perversions, covetousness, drunkenness, pornography, and other sins of the flesh. The lusts of the flesh keep us from our inheritance by bringing the judgment of God upon us and by warring against the new creation, the Kingdom of God, that is in us.

To be continued.