Antichrist represents lawless behavior and is related to the democratic form of government (that which is governed by the will of people). The False Prophet represents the attempt to manage the things of God and Christ by means of the soul of man rather than the Spirit of God.

How do we escape the danger of becoming part of Antichrist or of the False Prophet? By fleeing from the message and ways of the popular churches of today that are not careful to continue in humble, cross-carrying obedience, not following after the Lord Jesus Christ.

We find Christ when we seek after Him with all our heart. But if we are attempting to satisfy our desires in this world and at the same time trying to serve Christ we are going to be deceived.

The world is crucified to us and we to it. The Spirit of God often denies us the most fervent desires of our flesh and soul. We suffer many afflictions, many hardships, many pains of flesh and mind.

If we endure to the end we will be saved.

But if we choose to believe we can have what we want and still be the servant of Christ we run the risk of being led astray.

If God's highest will for mankind were that people be happy and content on the earth, God would not have placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden. Also, God would not have allowed Satan to tempt Adam and Eve.

God has a far grander plan for us than our immediate material contentment. The Lord God of Heaven is pressing us into union with Himself through Christ. God is making us His sons and an integral part of Himself, and is bringing us into stupendous glory. The Spirit is teaching us the knowledge of God and His ways and to be sternly obedient to the Father.

We are pressed into Christ, made God's sons, and brought to glory by means of numerous afflictions, testings, sufferings, perplexities, and problems. These all are gifts of love from the Father in Heaven.

Let us cast out of our personality the Antichrist love of pleasure and our rebellion against God's Christ and His cross.

"So that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." One could spiritualize this passage and state that Antichrist is the self-rule of man and sits on the throne of the human personality. Certainly it is true today that students of all ages are being taught in their schools that man is god. There is no god other than man. The idea of an intelligent Person creating and governing the universe is presented as outdated superstition.

Man can rule himself and the world by means of his own intelligence and industry, the universities claim. This is an expression of Antichrist.

It is true that the self-rule of man is of Antichrist. But we believe that in addition the Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and an Ark of the Covenant will be constructed. A human being will sit between the wings of the Cherubim of Glory in the rebuilt Temple. He will proclaim he is God, the Creator, the Lord, and that there never has been and never will be a god other than himself.

To be continued.