The Preparation of the World
Christianity has entered the final stage of church history—the Laodicean Age. The West is rapidly deconstructing itself and is becoming increasingly barbaric, hedonistic, pluralistic, and pagan.
"How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! "But you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' "Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit. —Isaiah 14:12-15
Satan did not kill the Messiah; Jesus came into this world knowing what He had to do (Matthew 17:23; Luke 9:22–23). Furthermore, God already knew Satan would be true to his nature, as he was a “murderer from the beginning” and the “father of lies” (John 8:44). Satan would incite the Jews to crucify their Messiah through the Romans.
God used Satan to accomplish not just the redemption of Israel, but of the entire world. Thus, Satan’s defeat, in a way, was his own doing. By inciting the Jews and Romans to kill the Messiah, in effect, Satan’s actions triggered the events that would afford mankind the opportunity he (Satan) never had (redemption). He enabled God to redeem the creation he (Satan) hates with all his being by killing the perfect, sinless Sacrifice (on Passover, no less) and then watching Him arise from death three days later.
Since the first man, Adam, everyone who had ever lived had sinned. This is why Satan was so self-assured (presumably) that Jesus was still bound under the eternal laws regarding sin and death. As the Scripture states, “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Yet Jesus had never sinned, ever. Instead, He willingly went to the cross to take the wrath of God the Father upon Himself for our sins. In fact, He was the only person in the entire universe who could serve as our “Kinsman Redeemer” (Leviticus 25:47–55; Revelation 5:9–10).
Since Jesus Himself had never sinned, the sting of death (sin) could no longer hold Him in the grave (1 Corinthians 15:55–57). Death had to let Him go, but He did not come up from Sheol (the abode of the dead) empty-handed (Ephesians 4:8–9). He brought with Him to Heaven the Old Testament saints who had been in holding in Abraham’s Bosom (the Paradise side of Sheol).
Satan’s defeat was sealed the moment Christ rose from the grave, and he knew it. His plan had utterly and completely backfired. Therefore, he had no other choice than to try to destroy both the Jews and this newly founded Church.
By AD 70, the Romans, under General Titus, besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and killed and enslaved millions of Jews. Again, in AD 135, the Roman Emperor Hadrian reconquered Jerusalem, exiled the remaining Jews, salted the ground, and renamed the Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and Judea Palaestina.
After Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed, and after the Jewish people were killed and scattered, Satan went after the church. But persecuting the church only made it spread faster. Satan’s plan was again failing, and he needed to change tactics. He then began corrupting the church through the same lies and deceit he had successfully used in other endeavors. In AD 312, Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity across the empire, and something rather terrible happened.
Instead of the church going into the world to share the gospel, the world came into the church to spread its paganism. By the fifth century, the state-sanctioned Roman Catholic Church (RCC) became the Holy Roman Empire. Five hundred years after that, the RCC was so debased that Catholic leadership actually came to believe they were doing the Lord’s good work by persecuting, torturing, and killing Christians and Jews courtesy of the Crusades and the Inquisition.
To this day, the RCC has never apologized for the hundreds of thousands of Christians they tortured and murdered around the world. In fact, the RCC leadership will become the prime movers in the last days for the global, ecumenical push to combine all religions into one, vis-a-vis the False Prophet.
This goes back to the reality of how wrong things feel in the world today. It is not just that mankind is becoming more unrepentant and more wicked (it is), but the geophysical world itself has become so saturated with the blood of the innocent, it will no longer remain silent or stable. Nature is groaning and straining under the judgment (Romans 8:20–22).
Our increasingly violent and unpredictable weather is not because of human-caused “global warming,” but because of Satan-induced hardening of mankind’s hearts. In the meantime, the Bible depicts Lucifer as still having access to Heaven, but only to go there to accuse the brethren day and night (Revelation 12:10). The accuser Satan does not live in Hell now, nor does he even live underground. Paul calls him the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2).
While many people use the names “Lucifer” and “Satan” interchangeably, we should never confuse the imagery of a red, pointy-tailed, pitchfork-carrying Satan with his true appearance. The fact that the Bible describes Satan as a red, fiery dragon is a depiction of his nature rather than his appearance. Lucifer approaches those he chooses to deceive by appearing as a beautiful, enlightened, “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).
He promises the world—and those who take the deal might get riches, power, and fame for a short season—but there will be hell to pay for it. An eternity in torment, darkness, and absolute misery is an impossibly high price to pay for a fleeting moment of pleasure. Furthermore, Satan is obsessed with becoming like God. Since Satan cannot create anything, he is limited to copying God’s triune nature. However, he still needs two others to round out his faux triune godhead. Satan is looking for the perfect man to assume the role of the son.
As far back as Nimrod, Satan has continually attempted to enshrine his candidate at the top of the geopolitical power structure. Since the Tower of Babel dispersion and scattering severely limited Satan’s options, he has had to labor intensely to bring mankind up to speed to achieve his dream of a singular, global, anti-God government. He has come close several times (Alexander the Great, Adolf Hitler), but even they could not pull it off.
It will take the Rapture of the Church and the removal of restraint to bring about the revelation of this final world leader, the Antichrist. Halfway through the Tribulation (at the three-and-a-half-year mark), there is an apparent assassination attempt, which seemingly kills this man, Antichrist. At the same time, Satan is officially cast out of Heaven and confined to the earth. Satan has to indwell this man to keep this Beast government going, and this is the point where the “man of lawlessness” transitions into the “son of perdition.” The only other person in the Bible described as the “son of perdition” is Judas Iscariot, and we all know what he did (see John 17:12, 2 Thessalonians 2:3).
Is the Antichrist alive today? It is very likely. However, we (the Church) will not be here to find out). The Antichrist will most likely be someone most people do not expect at all. He is called the “little horn” not because of his physical stature, but because he arises out of obscurity and dethrones three other rulers rather effortlessly (Daniel 7:8; 8:9). Moreover, because Satan is not omniscient and cannot see into the future, he doesn’t know when the Lord will return at the Rapture. There are probably numerous Antichrist candidates alive today; depending on the circumstances, Satan can activate those whom he thinks will most likely achieve his ends most efficiently.
Satan has seen the explosion of the interest in the Rapture of the Church from within Christendom with the likes of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth and the LaHaye/Jenkins’ Left Behind series. Satan, if anything, is a master of observation and probably senses long before most when the prophetic winds are beginning to shift. It would seem that with the surprise 2016 election victory of the longshot Donald Trump, Satan might have been caught off-guard. More likely, he wasn’t caught by surprise, but his human agents (the secular, Christ-rejecting world) were.
We would be willing to bet that he is currently scrambling to line up his frontrunners for the upcoming position of Antichrist.
What is interesting is that throughout the last two and a half years of Trump’s presidency, he was thwarted/obstructed/attacked at almost every turn, with the exception of his actions as they pertained to Israel. It’s as if Trump were being channeled into almost singularly focusing on that tiny nation in the Middle East.
He promised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and he did.
He promised to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and he did.
He stood with and supported Benjamin Netanyahu as a close ally during the Israeli elections. He officially recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel.
He was able to bring the “Deal of the Century”—the Abraham Accords—into reality.
None of these would have happened had Hillary Clinton won the election.
This has emboldened the Jews who want a Third Temple as nothing else could. President Trump turned the decades-old status quo on its head. What the Orthodox Jews lacked since 1948, they finally have in the form of hope—hope that now is the time to rebuild the Third Temple.
This is is likely why Satan moved earth and hell to get Trump dethroned from the highest political office in the world. Satan was not ready just quite yet; the conditions were not perfect enough for him to play his grand strategic hand that he has been dealt. Perhaps after four years of a Biden presidency? By 2022, we have certainly seen what just two years have accomplished.
###