Assessing the Antichrist Spirit

Radio talk show host Dan Bongino, as of late, has been declaring something to the effect: “There’s a spirit of some kind active in the world. I don’t know… Can’t say what it is… But it’s evil and has the world in turmoil…”

Bongino goes through all that’s going on daily, dealing mostly with politics but including deep dives into cultural issues and the insanity he sees happening. He attributes it to some spirit –a zeitgeist of this strange time– in which everything is upside-down – filled with evil.

He has claimed many times on air to know Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and Lord, all the while a Catholic. And I don’t doubt he is a true believer. This is not to judge him in this matter but rather to point to the fact that he does seem to have at least some insight into what the evil might entail that he and others believe they observe and sense is going on in this world.

Bongino says consistently that many express to him they sense the same existent of an evil spiritual influence that is taking humanity down a destructive pathway. And this is what I would like to try to address in this commentary –thus the title Assessing the Antichrist spirit.

John, the apostle who was perhaps closest to Jesus in brotherly relationship while the Lord was in physical flesh on Earth, was inspired to write the following.

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:1-3).

That evil spirit that concerns Mr. Bongino and many of his friends and colleagues is made manifest by John’s Holy Spirit-inspired revelation. The spirit of Antichrist is as prevalent as in the apostle’s time of writing about it.

Bongino says that wickedness he senses is “spiritual.” I don’t believe he knows that it is of the same “spirit” or spirituality of which John forewarned, however. Like so many secularists, he sees it as some spirit of the age, a zeitgeist ideological force from the human intellect that bubbles up from time to time to come against human rationality and interaction.

The evil within humanity, I think he and others of the non-Holy-Spirit-influenced mind believe, is born out of those among us who want all others to come under their self-centered control. These seem to think it is out of some form of mental illness –a psychosis of some inexplicable description—that sets in motion the insanity that desires to inflict authoritarian madness.

They are not far from wrong about it being an illness. It is a spiritual illness, the same disease that its first infected carrier deliberately accepted in place of God’s Perfect Order. Lucifer’s 5 “I wills” of Isaiah chapter 14 have brought forth the iniquity infecting and affecting the human race since he looked admiringly at himself into that mirror of iniquity.

Here are a few news excerpts of proof that the Antichrist spirit wafts wickedly as ever among today’s inhabitants of Earth.

Haiti warlord ‘Barbecue’ orders gangs to ‘burn every house you find’ & storm presidential palace amid bloody coup fears. HAITI’S capital has been rocked by a fresh wave of violence as warlord Barbecue ordered his thug army to “burn every house you find.”…

Ben Bergquam Reports: Columbia Professors Come Out in Force to Support of Anti-Israel Protesters – Refuse to Condemn Hamas Killers…

Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Israel Protests Spread to Yale, UMichigan, NYU, and Across America. Several days of protests, assaults on Jewish students, and chaos at Columbia University in New York City have now spread to other American college campuses…

‘This Is 1938’: Dozens Arrested At Yale, Columbia Pauses In-person Classes Amid Rising Anti-Semitism…

PARENTAL WARNING: Popular Kids TV Show Introducing “Lesbian Moms.” If you’re a parent or grandparent, you probably know about the kids TV show “Bluey”… Since its debut in 2018, Bluey has become a critically acclaimed show, gaining popularity worldwide after its addition to Disney+ in 2019. So what do you do when you’re widely loved by parents and children alike? You use that fame to push the LGBTQ agenda, of course!…

WATCH: Houston Police Union Issues Warning That the Texas City is ‘Not Safe’ as ‘Many Suspected Murderers’ Are Walking the Streets. The Houston Police Officers’ Union has issued a warning that the Texas city is “not safe” and “many suspected murderers and capital murderers” are walking the streets on bonds.

The spirit of Antichrist is most observable at this moment through rising anti-Semitism. Satan’s hatred for the people God calls “chosen” is an Ephesians 6:12 globalist agenda thrust from every direction upon the horizon of Prophetic progression. The so-called intellectual institutions of America –the elite higher education institutions– are particularly a collective focal point in considering just how powerfully influential is that spirit that will ultimately eventuate in the worst tyrant of all human history inflicting death and destruction upon humanity of the Tribulation era.

Assessing the spirit of Antichrist at this moment leaves no other conclusion. The world is on the very edge of that man of sin, the son of perdition, the Antichrist himself being almost ready to step from the shadows of obscurity and onto the stage of man’s final years leading to Christ’s Second Coming.

You can avoid facing that hideous creature from the Abyss by doing the following –thus going to Jesus Christ when He calls believers to Himself in the Rapture.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

---

Scoffing: A Sign of the Last Days

The Bible tells us that a key sign of the last days will be the arrival of those who will mock our hope in Jesus’ appearing. The Apostle Peter wrote about these scoffers in 2 Peter 3:3-4:

“Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

Do we see this happening today? Very much so! In Dr. Ron Rhodes’ recent book, Bible Prophecy Under Siege, he described the current epidemic of mocking our blessed hope this way:

“Today, Bible prophecy is under siege. There are atheists, secular humanists, liberal Christian theologians, posttribulationists, midtribulationists, preterists, and many others who are launching vitriolic attacks, particularly against pretribulationism.”

In my experience, the most painful attacks have come from fellow believers who no longer believe in Jesus’ future reign over the nations and the Lord’s restoration of a kingdom for Israel. I hear from many fellow saints who tell me that they are no longer welcome in their churches because of their belief in the Rapture, which is also true for me.

They Target the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

More than any other belief, modern-day scoffers target our hope in the pre-Tribulation rapture. Most of them acknowledge the Second Coming in some way or another, but it’s our belief in Jesus’ imminent appearing that generates the fiercest mocking from fellow believers and those outside the faith.

Did the apostle have the Rapture in mind when he penned the words to 2 Peter 3:1-10? It seems likely that he did. In verse 4, the Greek word for “coming” is Parousia.” In 1 Thessalonians 4:15, the word refers to the Rapture as it does in 2 Thessalonians 2:1. However, in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 it refers to Jesus’ Second Coming. The context determines how we interpret parousia.

I believe the apostle is referring to the Rapture in 2 Peter 3:1-10 because the mocking includes a denial of the time of tribulation (2 Peter 3:4-7, 10). The scoffing of today precludes any direct intervention of the Lord to judge the wickedness of our day, such as we see in the book of Revelation, which they claim is either allegory, past history, or code that doesn’t apply to believers today. They push the Lord’s return to a far-distant return that carries no significance for today’s saints.

It’s Jesus’ return for His church that kicks off the “sudden destruction” of the Day of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10). This is the target of those who mock our hope.

They Ignore Jesus’ Command to Watch

Because they deny the possibility of Jesus’ imminent appearing, they ignore Jesus’ command to “watch” for His return.

It’s curious that Peter urges us to “remember the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles” (2 Peter 3:3). The Lord gave many commands through the apostles, but here, Peter refers to one in particular that relates to His coming. Is this not the Lord’s instruction that fits best with the context of watchfulness and readiness (Matthew 24:42, 44; 25:13)?

The Didache, which means “teaching” in the Greek, is a brief document from the early church. Many scholars date it to the first century, as early as AD 70, although church leaders may not have compiled it into one document until around AD 300. The first sentence of the document states, “The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations.” Chapter 16 contains these instructions:

“Watch for your life’s sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ready, for you know not the hour in which our Lord will come.”

The Didache demonstrates the importance that the early church placed on readiness for Jesus’ return.

They Misinterpret God’s Patience

The ridicule of our hope in Jesus’ soon appearing often stems from the fact that it’s been an extraordinarily long time since Jesus commanded us to watch for His coming. The implication is that we are foolish to expect the Rapture in our lifetime since it has been two thousand years since He promised to return.

In 2 Peter 3:8-9, the apostle anticipates such sniping as he writes:

 “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Mockers fail to understand the Lord’s patience in waiting for people to repent before He sends the horrific judgments of the tribulation. Instead, they see it as an indication He is not returning at all for His church and push it to an end-of-the-world wrap-up of human history that doesn’t at all comply with what Scripture says about Jesus appearing or His return to Earth to set up His kingdom after a time of judgment upon the earth.

Please don’t fall for the scoffing of so many Christian leaders and pastors who deny biblical teaching regarding both the Rapture, Tribulation, and the restoration of Israel. Most speak eloquently as they deliver excellent sermons, but they never mention any aspect of our “blessed hope,” which the Apostle Paul summarizes In Philippians 3:20-21:

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Don’t fall for the scoffing of our day. Of this, you can be absolutely confident: Jesus is coming back, and it could happen at any moment!

-Jonathan

Nearing Orwell’s Nightmare

Back to when I could see to read –now more than 30 years ago—I had 3 versions of George Orwell’s 1984 in my library. As a matter of fact, I believe those volumes are still here in the book shelves — somewhere.

I had read all three versions years before, during college years and afterward in subsequent re-readings. I believe I reread the book even during the actual year of 1984.

Of course, my interest in Orwell’s work involved more than merely an interest in dystopian literature. The book smacked of the Tribulation era described in the Bible. Its chief character, not the protagonist Winston Smith, but Big Brother, reminded of how Antichrist will control most of the world during that 7-year period known as Daniel’s seventieth week.

Now, because of blindness, I must have everything read to me through a computer voice synthesis program called Jobs Accessible Word System or JAWS as is its acronym.

Books –or any other text—must be presented in a text document form for JAWS to read them. So I now must have books in computer text to read books like Orwell’s novel. If I had such a document, I would certainly be reading 1984 at the present time. It seems that Mr. Orwell’s fictional cogitations were almost prescient – thus, the title of the commentary: Nearing Orwell’s Nightmare.

Orwell’s book sparked my interest in writing a novel along the lines of 1984 but Bible-centered in its scope. The novel’s title is Jacob’s Trouble – 666, which is inclusive of Jeremiah 30:7, the entirety of the books of Revelation, and some of the book of Daniel.

I believe my own effort at such a work of fiction was prompted by the Holy Spirit, but being the fallible human writer I am, I fell far short of capturing the nuance of developments that have now eventuated in movement toward the seven-year era that will constitute the Tribulation. And what a ride it has been upon the heaving waves of satanic tumult toward that horrendous time of which the ascended Lord Jesus forewarned through His beloved disciple John.

News of the hour the past week caught my attention with regard to indicating just how near this generation is to the dystopian world John foretold, Orwell described, and that I tried to capture in my fiction. And such news has been compiling day by day –sometimes hour by hour, as I indicate. Mostly, in mainstream venues, the words are, in most every case, constructed in such a way as to push into the reader’s mind the leftist ideological rants of the moment.

Orwell’s novel presented a completely changed way of covering news –and every other kind of communication. It was called News Speak. A governmental organization devoted every working moment to changing the way people heard news and even how they were influenced to think about what they heard. This brainwashing was called Double Think.

Here is an excerpt from 1984:

“Just the man I was looking for,” said a voice at Winston’s back.

He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the Research Department. Perhaps ‘friend’ was not exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays; you had comrades, but there were some comrades whose society was pleasanter than that of others. Syme was a philologist, a specialist in Newspeak…

“How is the Dictionary getting on?” said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.

“Slowly,” said Syme. “I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.” […] “The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,” he said. “We’re getting the language into its final shape – the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.”…

It was B. B.’s idea originally, of course,” he added as an afterthought.

A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston’s face at the mention of Big Brother…

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year, fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

[Source: 1984 by George Orwell, Part 1, Chapter 5, 1949]

So, Thoughtcrime” was prosecuted in Orwell’s 1984. They were in the process of doing away with this form of crime. They were simply in the process of changing everything in the way of communication so no one could go against the state –the governmental dictates.

Reminds of wokeness and cancel Culture, doesn’t it?

The Tribulation’s Big Brother will no doubt use every satanically-inspired technology to do exactly what Orwell’s B.B. was doing during that fictional dystopian era.

Antichrist will doubtless use the most highly advanced AI to institute Satan’s drive to enslave every human on earth. Certainly, we are witnessing efforts to bring that enslavement into being even at this moment, just prior to the Rapture.

Speaking of which, you don’t want to be here when Big Brother of the Tribulation comes on the scene. Rather, you want to go to Jesus when He Calls from the Clouds of Glory, where there will be Great Joy and Grand Reunion at the same time Antichrist turns the planet into something worse than portrayed in 1984.

Here is how to go to Christ when the Rapture happens.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

The Prophesied Regathering of Israel

The Bible tells us that in the last days, the Lord will regather His people from all over the world back into the Land that He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Today, many tell us that this covenant no longer applies, but Psalm 105:7-11 reveals that it’s an “everlasting covenant.” God has not rejected His people (Romans 11:1-2).

Because the Land still belongs to the descendants of Jacob, we know that the rebirth of Israel in 1948 and the flow of the Jewish people to the nation is not a fluke but the fulfillment of prophecy.

Ezekiel wrote about the reemergence of Israel as a nation in the last days and, in doing so, predicted God’s regathering of His people to the Land He promised to them. The Lord spoke these words to the prophet concerning this pledge.

“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24).

In the same context, He later spoke these words of reassurance concerning Israel’s future:

“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever” (Ezekiel 37:24-25).

God has not yet fulfilled His specific promises of restoration. Nothing since the time of Ezekiel even comes close to what he wrote concerning Israel’s future in chapters 36-37.

However, as with so many other Bible prophecies concerning the last days, we see the beginnings of their future fulfillment. Israel is a nation again, and even amid much warfare and terrorism, the Lord is bringing the Jewish people back to the Land He promised to them. Most remain in unbelief concerning the true identity of their Messiah, but someday that will change.

His Methods Are Not What We Would Expect

Even though what we see today doesn’t represent the complete fulfillment of Bible prophecy, we surely see God’s sovereignty in Israel’s existence as a nation, His protection of her, and the beginning of His regathering of the Jews back to their homeland.

We live in biblical times.

To accomplish His purposes in repopulating the Land, the Lord’s methods so far differ widely from what we might expect. He used the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe to cause a great many Jews to migrate to the Promised Land. At its start, the Russian invasion of Ukraine became another impetus for many Jews to flee from the region to Israel.

He has allowed their current environment to become so hostile that they feel safer in a country that continues to fight off enemies that seek to destroy them. As unlikely as this scenario seems, it continues to play out before our eyes. Is this happening in America, too?

What’s Next?

According to a Times of Israel report from the Fall of 2023, the total worldwide population of Jews is 15.7 million, with 46% of the world Jewish population now living in Israel.

Though estimates vary, one website places the total Jewish population of the U.S. at almost 7.4 million and breaks down that total by state. New York alone has almost 1.8 million, with California and Florida also having significant numbers.

With the most sizable number of Jewish people outside of Israel now residing in America, it begs the question as to what might lead to their exodus from here to the Promised Land.

The rise of anti-Semitism in the U.S. in recent years is far beyond anything I thought possible in my lifetime. The recent incidents at Columbia University in New York and at Yale highlight the accelerating trends of violence toward Jewish students. If one does an Internet search on “anti-Semitic incidents in NY,” one sees numerous reports pointing to the dramatic increase in their number.

I believe the exodus of American Jews to Israel will mostly happen after the Rapture, even though it could start very soon as the result of current hostilities. I say this for a couple of reasons.

First, life in the U.S. will rapidly deteriorate after Jesus removes His Church. The economy will completely collapse while lawlessness and violence, already at obscenely elevated levels, will become far worse. God’s judgments via war and famine will add to the widespread devastation of the nation, which I believe will make many places uninhabitable.

Second, the Tribulation period will begin with a seven-year peace covenant that the antichrist will make with Israel, which he will break at the midpoint.

Why will he wait for three and half years before turning against the Israelites with deadly rage? Could this initial time of peace for the nation be a lure to bring Jews from other lands back to the Land? Those who might hesitate now because of the warfare might change their minds after a powerful force guarantees the end of attacks against Israel.

I’m speculating here, of course, but I believe it’s quite possible that God will use the horrific conditions that will prevail in America soon after the Rapture, along with the antichrist’s guarantees for peace to continue the regathering of His people back to the Land.

I’m greatly troubled by the open displays of ravenous hatred for the Jewish people on the streets of America. I know, however, that the Lord will keep His promises to Israel, which include the continued regathering of His people.

-Jonathan