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- [00:20]
Caleb
Are you worried about the Antichrist? Do you want to know when he's coming, who he is, what he's doing, or what the Antichrist even means? Well, today on the Thinking Fellows podcast, we are going to talk about a subject that I don't think in 10 years of doing this show we have ever talked about, which is the Antichrist. It's sometimes hard to do new topics.
- [00:42]
Adam
But we've done shows on Muhammad and.
- [00:47]
Scott
Mormons and Morgan Mormons.
- [00:49]
Caleb
Oh, boy.
- [00:50]
Adam
Sorry to interrupt your point. It's starting off interesting already, isn't it?
- [00:53]
Scott
We've done shows on the Pope.
- [00:54]
Caleb
We've done shows on the Pope. That's actually. We did a show, it had to be four or five years ago, I think, titled the Pope is the Antichrist. I think.
- [01:03]
Bruce
Yes.
- [01:05]
Caleb
Oh, maybe it wasn't even four years ago. So if Bruce was on it. Yeah, I remember that. Oh, okay. So we've done an episode on an Antichrist, but today I want to talk about the whole idea of Antichrist. Where does it come from? And where does some of the, I don't know, like Christians in America specifically, really looking or finding Antichrists kind of in odd places. One of the ones I remember from growing up is, you know, Antichrist will get mixed with all other sort of demonic or evil symbolism in the Bible. So the Antichrist and the beast from Revelation or the Antichrist and the man of lawlessness or the Antichrist and, you know, figures from the Book of Daniel or something like that. Right. Even though those other books don't use the word Antichrist, that comes up in first and Second John, for instance. But one of the ones I remember from growing up was that monster energy drinks were. They're the Hebrew symbol for 666.
- [02:09]
Bruce
Supposed to turn it upside down.
- [02:11]
Caleb
And it was like trying to get the youth to worship the Antichrist. By drinking monster.
- [02:17]
Scott
By drinking sugary caffeine.
- [02:18]
Caleb
Yeah, by drinking sugary caffeine. Or today, for instance, I logged into the back end of the 1517 YouTube channel and one of our videos from earlier this week has exactly 666 views. Should I delete that?
- [02:33]
Scott
He knew we were going to do this show.
- [02:36]
Caleb
Should I delete that video quickly?
- [02:39]
Adam
When your dad and I were teenagers, Caleb, Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, who had like a big birthmark on his forehead.
- [02:48]
Scott
I think that was a hemangioma. Now that I knows what those are.
- [02:51]
Caleb
Yeah, it probably was. Oh, oh, like that.
- [02:56]
Bruce
They thought he was the Antichrist, right? They thought he was the Antichrist.
- [02:59]
Adam
Wait, no, I'm confused.
- [03:02]
Scott
About what?
- [03:03]
Caleb
Why? About what?
- [03:07]
Adam
Wait, who. What did you say?
- [03:08]
Scott
You said Mangeo a hemangiona instead of a birthmark? It's a.
- [03:13]
Bruce
No, I think it's a birthmark, though, for a Gorbachev.
- [03:15]
Scott
It's a cluster of blood vessels that cause discoloration in the skin, sometimes a lump.
- [03:19]
Adam
Yeah, but then Bruce mentioned some person, so I got confused.
- [03:23]
Bruce
I mean, Gorbachev, is he the.
- [03:25]
Scott
Funny, you had like a. Like a computer glitch there for a few seconds. It was like.
- [03:32]
Caleb
Oh, talking about computer glitches. Is ChatGPT the antichrist? I've heard that one AI.
- [03:39]
Scott
Might be the Antichrist.
- [03:40]
Caleb
And then even last year, maybe it was eight or nine months ago, our friends at Sola Media had like a standout video. I don't think the whole video was about this per se, but was it was the COVID vaccine the Antichrist?
- [03:55]
Scott
I mean, it might have been. Whoa.
- [03:57]
Bruce
Interesting.
- [03:58]
Caleb
So you have people assign this phrase or word Antichrist to just about anything that they don't like happening in society. So I thought, why don't we look first at the verses where the word Antichrist comes up and then we can talk about how can somebody actually identify if something is Antichrist? Our numbers in the world, let's even give the benefit of the doubt. Let's say monster energy really? Is the monster clause really are 666, does that mean it's Antichrist? Does a symbol. There's a birthmark on some menacing figures face meaning? Is the Antichrist? Even if those things were true, what does that mean? What would the implications be? And then let's talk about what the Bible actually means by Antichrist. So I'm going to read those verses and then we can just go in. So we have one John 2:18 children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. And then you have first John 2:22, a couple verses later, who is the liar? But he that denies Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son. Then you have 1 John 4:3. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and now is in the world already. And then 2 John 7. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver. And The Antichrist. So those are the direct verses. You also have, like I said, you have Jesus in the Gospels talk about false Christs who will be coming or have come. And then you also have the man of lawlessness and things like that that. So from here, where do we actually go? Not a lot of like symbolism in these verses. There's no warning about numbers or signs or anything. It's all about Jesus Christ himself. So where do we go from here when it comes to how do you find. Or the Antichrist?
- [06:28]
Scott
Well, I didn't pay attention to each one of those verses that clearly where they were from. I think it was one of the. Or the first John passage identified the difference between the. And a. That was kind of interesting. But at the end of the day seems like that the. The Antichrist or an Antichrist can be anyone who is denying Christ. And so then does that. And I think there's probably a caveat there that does that publicly. A teaching way is convincing others to follow them. You could maybe even more broadly and I think Luther believed this somebody who's confounding the gospel of Christ Jesus, making salvation come through any other means other than Christ and does that in a public way where they're convincing others of the same. This is the Antichrist. Which is why we can kind of joke around and say Mormons and Islam and but Judaism, maybe even the Pope or the Pope. And you're not wrong. It's not wrong to say those things.
- [07:41]
Caleb
Yeah, there's a deny. I think what's the standout here is that it's about who Christ is and then his relationship to the Father is kind of repeated. So the nature of Christ as God or of Jesus as the Christ. So this promised Savior from God, his relationship to the Father. So we would say the doctrine of the Trinity here is at play and then the public denial and I think it would be the angle you are going from the context of these verses seems correct to me, which is somebody who is preaching something other than Christ. So preaching a replacement for Christ. So in one sense it could be all unbelief in Christ. But I think in the sense of these verses, it's really teachers and preachers who come and specifically deny Christ or get to try to place Jesus as something other than what he was. So if you have somebody coming teaching that Jesus was a great teacher or just a guru or, you know, a rebellious Jew murdered for his troubles or, you know, there's a whole list of things you would do or like you were saying with Mormons Somebody who would change the relationship between the Father and Jesus, or somebody who puts Christ in.
- [09:09]
Scott
A Mormon, too, isn't going to teach salvation through Christ alone. Sure, you have that, too. It was the first John 4. 3 passage. But if someone claims to be a prophet. So a teacher, right? Preacher. I just got an advertisement on that. Sorry. If someone claims to be a prophet and denies the work of Christ, denies the truth about Christ, they are the spirit of the Antichrist.
- [09:39]
Caleb
Bruce, you looked like you were going to chime in before I started talking.
- [09:42]
Bruce
No, no, I was just going to say I agree with everything Scott said. I don't have anything to add. I think a lot of people who only know about the idea of the Antichrist, sort of from Christian culture or TV or just sort of haven't really done a study of it, don't even know that there are antichrists plural. And they're pretty common. They're literally just those who are against the Gospel and against Christ. And then there is this man of lawlessness, which is usually like the capital a Antichrist, which is talked about in Thessalonians, and I don't know of a period of church history interpretation where that was not associated with the Antichrist. That appears as early as any commentary on Revelation that the early church has. So it doesn't directly say that that guy, like in Thessalonians is Antichrist, but he fits the definition of the little ones. But even more, he's even more overtly evil.
- [10:37]
Scott
Is that the second Thessalonians? Two.
- [10:39]
Adam
Nine.
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Bruce
Yeah, two two, really? Through ten is the whole section.
- [10:43]
Scott
This man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfe and signs and miracles.
- [10:47]
Bruce
Yeah, he's got signs and miracles and lying words. And it says essentially that he puts himself in God's temple and makes himself God to the world. So this is probably what M.O. in most people's imagination, I think, when they say AI or something else, they're not thinking of these little antichrists, lowercase plural. They're thinking of this character, the man of lawlessness that's found in second Thessalonians. And then there are kind of. That's read into parts of Revelation to identify him there and stuff like that.
- [11:20]
Scott
It was definitely when I sometimes feel like I give my grandma a bad rap on the show. I mean, just for clarification, as of late, you have. My grandma was great. She was amazing. After my father died, my mom moved back to our hometown. Without my grandfather's help, my mom would have had a really hard time with raising my Brother and I. And so, I mean there are many meals I wouldn't have eaten if it weren't for my grandma growing up. Many of nights I would have been alone as a youngster and she was a lifelong Lutheran, which is kind of what always make this kind of interesting. Most of what I knew about the Antichrist was from watching TBN at my grandmother's house. That was like constantly on. I always say it's kind of like an old guy with Fox News these days, you know, it's just kind of on in the background. It's just the, it's just the audio commentary of life in the house. And that was TBN at my grandma's house when I was growing up. And man, were they obsessed with the Antichrist. I mean they could, they could have had you convinced that like, you know, you could be walking down the street and all of a sudden walk by a TV shop and the Antichrist, Antichrist was going to be on the TV taking over all the political powers of the world the very next day. And that if you didn't fall in line and get the mark of the beast, which was going to be like an actual tattoo or some of their more forward thinking commentators would have said like an embedded microchip type thing, you know, towards the 80s.
- [12:56]
Adam
Via a shot.
- [12:58]
Scott
Yeah, via shot, yeah. You know, that you were going to that this always quasi political figure, their henchmen, they were going to find you and it was going to be death. And only the real Christians would have the power to stand up against this. Both political and spiritual haranguing that was inevitably coming your way. And I remember as a somewhat young person kind of just thinking it seems like this might have already happened a couple times. I'm thinking how would you sort of identify ever that this is the one from the time of Jesus until now in various parts of the world. You could sort of align political movements, cultural movements, cultish movements that would fit this bill pretty nicely, except for sort of the whole world aspect of it.
- [14:04]
Bruce
There is a interpretation of revelation that's popular mostly among scholars. It hasn't really made its way into I think popular imagination yet, but it's a pretty significant bunch of scholars. Hold it. I think it starts with a P, like the preterist view or something. I can't remember the word now, but essentially what it says is that the way to one, one way to interpret revelation is to see it as a series of cycles that have already historically take place and repeat themselves until Christ comes again. That's a very condensed Version of essentially what it says. But so, for example, Nero. Nero would be an Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, capital A, maybe you could say Hitler was one. These people that rise up, make themselves out to be God, bring great suffering to the church and to people, and. And then their time ends. And that this is part of the cycle of the end until Christ returns. I think it's a plausible view. Most people have never heard of it, and so they think it's kind of crazy. But even like the numerology of 666, and I don't know all the Greek and everything, but I've read multiple times that that can spell Nero, depending on how you want to do that numerology. A lot of scholars think that that just spells Nero. It's a code for Nero, which would make sense. The early church thought that the Antichrist, the church fathers, right, that the Antichrist was Nero. And then they. When he dies, they start saying it's the Roman Empire itself until the Roman Empire converts. Then they find new figures to say. But they do believe. The early church seems to try to identify it, the man of lawlessness in their time. I mean, they don't think he's like coming. They think he's here.
- [15:41]
Scott
Well, it's even the issue with some of the Bible passages Caleb read is that they're trying to identify it in their time. Right. And I struggle with those passages and I've heard great explanations and I ascribe to those great explanations, but any passage that talks about we know the end is here and they're talking in their time, I think everybody has the tendency to look for. Again, this was tbn, right, to look for sort of the eschaton in their time because things are worse than they've ever been. We all fall into that trap. And once you've fallen into that trap, if you are sort of your eschatology is such that you think an actual one, a physical person, that is the Antichrist, has to emerge and show themselves before this, the end can be fulfilled. You're going to start looking for that person, and you'll probably find somebody that you can. Or that you can identify as that person in your own time.
- [16:53]
Caleb
Yeah. It's a big distinction, obviously, between sort of the different eschatologies, but for us and for the Lutheran view and I think the sola scriptura view, that really looks at this. If the end of times were here for the apostles. Right. So John says this in these epistles, right. That the end is here. And you have more accounts throughout The New Testament too, of talking about this as the end. If the end was there for the apostles, the end times were for the early Church, it was for the Reformation and is now. You have to have sort of a more complete view that we, yes, after the ascension of Christ, we are in the death throes of this world. This is already here happening the moment in time where that's final, where Christ returns is known only to the Father. But we live in the end times. And so did the generation before us and so did the Reformation church and so did the early church and the church of the apostles. This is just not.
- [18:01]
Scott
And I totally agree with that. I'm just saying people's brains struggle with the fact that it has been the end times for 2000 years.
- [18:08]
Caleb
How could it be the end for 2000 years?
- [18:10]
Scott
Yeah, their brain is like, what the heck? You know, and so that's why I think people are always looking for it's this person, it's that person. It's this person, it's that person. I mean, even if Luther was being kind of hyperbolic in his time with his life circumstances, saying it's the Pope makes a lot of sense if you think like you're in the in throws of time right now.
- [18:33]
Caleb
I mean it totally is the Pope, but. Yeah.
- [18:36]
Scott
And so can I nerd out?
- [18:38]
Adam
I've been kind of quiet because I have all these historical figures in my head and you made fun of me the other day for referring to historical figures.
- [18:45]
Scott
Can't take a little razzing. We've known each other for like 30.
- [18:49]
Adam
Years, but this isn't such an oddball historical figure. But Luther, you know, he famously identifies the, the institution or the office of the papists or the Pope as Antichrist later on in life. Talks about the internal and external Antichrist. The internal is the Pope, the external is the Muhammadan Empire. And what's fascinating to illustrate, like Bruce's point and Scott, the point we've been making about this being sort of a just part and parcel of like the history of Christian, a Christian view of history and concern of Christian history. Like where are we in God's timing? That sort of question. Even a guy like Luther thinks he's living. I think you said this, Caleb. We're living in the last day. He writes in the Table talk. One point says that he wrote on the wall the number 1600 saying that the world's not going to last until 1600. And the second time here I am nerding out a bit. The second time that he wrote A preface to the Book of Daniel. He says something like, if the world were not coming to an end, we'd be in deep. He didn't say doo doo, but I'm going to say doo doo because it's going to go Mohammedan. But thank God. Thank God we're at the last days because that gives us assurance, actually, that we're not going to be forced to embrace Islam and stuff, because the Son of Man is going to return at any point within a century or so. So if a guy like Luther, who's always. Who is kind of. He's mostly suspicious of people predicting things and so on, even he. He's not predicting things, but even he's speculating on, like what. Where history's marching towards. So I mentioned Joachim of Fior two days ago. That's where Scott hurt my feelings, made fun of me. He's a big figure in this whole history. Like Bruce mentioned, this sort of preterist, this sort of cyclical view of last day. You can trace that all the way back to the 12th and 13th century where this guy living in the southern tip of the Italian peninsula, where all sorts of weird things happen in the Middle Ages, lots of weird figures come out of there. But he, in a way, he is not a premillennial dispensationalist, but he's kind. If you look at what he writes about history, as he's trying to understand history through the lens of the Scripture, it looks very much like the premillennial dispensational charts that Scott, you probably saw these on TBN or maybe on the walls of church. It's just like breaking down the different dispensations and then finding other patterns in history. There's just a long history of this that goes back at least a thousand years. But I don't know among the church fathers whether it's that exacting. But even the church fathers are quite concerned about that. Irenaeus, I know, in particular talks a bit about the Antichrist or what the Antichrist or how we should understand those passages from Scripture. So though. It's always odd to me, though, that this Rod used to talk about this, how it's always funny when you go to. Let's just pick on Moody Bible Institute.
- [22:03]
Caleb
Please do. One of the worst interactions I've ever had in my life was with a professor from Moody. So please pick.
- [22:12]
Adam
Moody has changed. I do jiu jitsu with the guy who's a prophet. Moody, great dude. Not what. He breaks the stereotypes. He's not some raging. He's just a good New Testament scholar. But it used to be, though, at a place like Moody and I assume Dallas Theological Seminary, this might still be the case. And those other sort of dispensationalist schools, the one concern they had for you as a faculty member or student wasn't how robust your confession of the Trinity is, or the one theological concern was that you were a premillennial dispensationalist. What that means, that's a loaded thing because it's not just a view of the future, but a whole view of church history. That is, and I don't mean this in a mean way, but very autistic approach to understanding history through the lens of Scripture, where everything's exactly acting and mapped out perfectly.
- [23:14]
Caleb
And don't you think it's also like an anxiety inducing approach? That's where I. Oh, yeah, I see a lot of this going.
- [23:21]
Scott
That was the stock in trade of things like tbn. That's half of how they got money, man.
- [23:27]
Caleb
Yeah.
- [23:28]
Scott
And I wouldn't give Moody too much credit. Like, Moody could be great. I don't know.
- [23:32]
Adam
I'm not giving it credit. I'm just saying it's been a little.
- [23:35]
Scott
Dispensationalism just in general is like, you know, off a cliff. I mean, they're just. Well, there aren't many New Testament scholars, even from their own traditions anymore that hold to it. And it's more sort of the scholarship that has been fixed in a way along dispensationalism in general at all these institutions where it's just not. It's becoming an unding in a lot of ways.
- [24:03]
Adam
Look at him with this German.
- [24:04]
Caleb
Even the interaction I had that I said was like one of the worst ones I had was this person basically was like, oh, you're a Lutheran. You are the worst people on the entire planet, is what he said. You're the worst people ever.
- [24:17]
Scott
Because of our amillennialism.
- [24:20]
Caleb
Well, he said because of your strict view of infant baptism being salvation, you have gotten rid of all necessity for somebody to commit to Christ, to be watchful, to do all this. And you can put that into their view of the eschaton, which is if you're a Lutheran, and this may be why we haven't done this episode. You're just chilling on this issue.
- [24:42]
Scott
Right.
- [24:43]
Caleb
You're like your comfort.
- [24:44]
Bruce
Meanwhile, there's irresistible grace on the other side. So it's very interesting.
- [24:51]
Caleb
And I am. I'm just comfortable when the Antichrist comes and destroys this world or what happens or takes People, I'm chilling.
- [24:59]
Scott
If you would listen to Caleb talk about eschatology and sanctification, you would actually get the impression that he's a chill person, which is kind of funny.
- [25:09]
Adam
You know.
- [25:10]
Bruce
You know, when I was, when I was a pastor, this was a continual thing. All the time with people is, you know, and it kind of came in one of two forms. Either they would be watching way too much 24 hour news and just, you know, things would start to circle in their brain and they would come in and go, do you see this? What do you think about this? Is this, Is this the end? Is this, do you think this is the Antichrist?
- [25:33]
Scott
You really, you would get that in a Lutheran church this month.
- [25:35]
Bruce
Oh, all the time. And the other one was people just being fascinated, fascinated with revelation, but not really being guided in their research, I'll call it of revelation by kind of trusted guides, just sort of like amalgamating stuff from all over the place and forming their own theology of the end times. And as you said, Caleb, it was always. I pretty much always. I can only think of one exception with a guy, bad news. You know, it was like, you, you gotta make sure you're alert. You gotta make sure you're prepared. You gotta make sure. I mean, I had people, you know, prepping in their basement because they thought that Covid was the end. And literally, like reading, I would argue.
- [26:26]
Scott
In a lot of ways, I mean.
- [26:27]
Caleb
It was pretty much the end of society.
- [26:28]
Bruce
Well, no, but I'm saying. Okay, you can say that practically, but I'm saying they were reading direct theological prophecies coming true into everything.
- [26:35]
Scott
Oh, I just mean the end of Western culture.
- [26:38]
Bruce
But, but I had a lot of people who were, who are prepping and I have a lot of people who were afraid they'd miss the rapture. It's so funny.
- [26:46]
Scott
Really? In a Lutheran church?
- [26:48]
Bruce
Well, yeah, because so many people get influenced by evangelical culture, so.
- [26:54]
Scott
Wow.
- [26:55]
Bruce
It's just. Yeah, a lot of people believe in the Rapture. A lot of people were upset when I told them. I don't really think that that's.
- [27:02]
Scott
You're not going to be driving your car and look over and your wife's going to be gone and you're still driving. Or worse yet, you're going to be driving your car and your wife looks over and you're gone and the car's careening off the road, but your clothes are still there. They just can go to heaven naked. So I had a question.
- [27:18]
Adam
Can I out a person real quick? Yeah, I'm not going to name his name, but I have a brother who's a Lutheran pastor who back in the day had a bumper sticker on his car that said, in case of rapture, this car will be unmanned. He's cleaned up his theology since then.
- [27:30]
Scott
Well, so have you since then. So that's okay, you won't use his name.
- [27:33]
Caleb
But I've got exactly this one brother who's a pastor. Easy to look up on LCD church finding.
- [27:39]
Adam
He's gonna listen. He listened to this. So I'm gonna get a phone call here soon.
- [27:42]
Bruce
I have a question here, which is when the, when the trumpet sounds, I'm out of here. Those bumper stickers are everywhere out here.
- [27:48]
Scott
Oh my gosh. So, okay, I think some of this, it's only a four minute question. Do you think that some of our sort of ability to look at the 2000 years of history since Christ and say, well, you know, it hasn't happened.
- [28:07]
Caleb
Yet.
- [28:09]
Scott
Kind of makes us a little more wary to make predictions about when it's going to come than say, like Luther, you know, I mean, I'm not saying Luther didn't know anything about history, but the, the study of history wasn't sort of as developed as it is now, although one might argue it went through a stage of development and now we're in sort of, yeah, we in major development, the other end of that curve. But do you think you can be.
- [28:38]
Bruce
Watchful like Jesus says, and not form some predictions?
- [28:44]
Caleb
Absolutely.
- [28:46]
Bruce
I don't know that you can be watchful and not be like, oh, okay, what he's saying, that might, that might be there, that might be there, that might be.
- [28:55]
Scott
But everybody thinks they're at, I mean this, I for there is a word for this. And I looked it up years ago and I have forgotten it since. And it drives me crazy because, but everybody believes that where, when they live is the worst time ever. Like, they just believe this. It's a thing, like, it's a, it's a thing in our, in our DNA, our psychology that we, we look at now and we go, gosh, man, it's never been worse than this. Until you look at history, you go, well, you know, this refrigerated food is so bad.
- [29:27]
Adam
Yeah.
- [29:28]
Scott
You, you actually look at like the best time to be born is like a day before yesterday. Right. So, and it's just an interesting phenomenon. So I don't actually ever blame people like Luther for thinking like, oh, 6, 1600, because from his perspective, oh yeah, we're really bad.
- [29:50]
Adam
Yeah, you've got people being Impaled just to the east of Austria, tens of thousands of them by the Turks. You know, head.
- [29:57]
Bruce
It looks like Christianity is waning in his context, you know.
- [30:01]
Adam
No, it all makes sense why they would be sense.
- [30:04]
Scott
Yeah, yeah, but you can, you can sort of also just now you have so much information about not only his time, but the times before his time. Like how much do you think he actually knew about Jan Hus and what he went through or how much did he actually know about the details of some of the suffering of Christianity? I think they knew a certain amount, but the study of history wasn't such that they knew every detail. I don't think of the things that had happened before that we have such a glut of information now that it's very, when you start to think about it rationally, it's very hard to say we live in the worst time ever now.
- [30:50]
Adam
That's why I call you periodically because I get black pilled really easily.
- [30:54]
Caleb
Yeah.
- [30:54]
Adam
And I think it's the end, the beginning of the end. And you're like, stop Adam.
- [30:58]
Bruce
Stop Adam. That's why I personally though like that cyclical view of reading Revelation because like if you think about Revelation is that the bulls and the different seals are opened and like a quarter of the earth gets famine and a quarter of the earth gets war and a quarter of the earth gets. Well at any given time.
- [31:15]
Caleb
That happens all the time.
- [31:16]
Bruce
Like those cycles are repeating themselves since Jesus ascended. And so there's some logic that I find comforting in a strange way with that cyclical read. Meaning I don't necessarily think it as a line that things are just progressively all around getting consistently worse for everybody at all times. Times I see it as a, as a cycle and at any given point in that cycle, for some people it's way worse than it was, but for other people it's relatively better. But that wheel spins. And so you know, you, tomorrow's not guaranteed. You know, the prosperity of today isn't guaranteed tomorrow. You just don't know.
- [31:55]
Scott
So like as a for instance, you could, you could say in a, in a certain way, maybe not right now, but let's say like a year ago it was, it felt like it was getting harder to be a Christian in the United States. Right. Like if you were a conservative, trinitarian, like inerrancy of scripture kind of Christian, that wasn't going to go along with all of the weird cultural moves around homosexuality and transgenderism and fornication and all this other nonsense. If you were, if you were kind of Stemming the tide against that in America particularly, you felt like it was a difficult time to be a Christian, more difficult than you remembered. And you wouldn't be wrong about that necessarily, but you would be wrong to say this is the hardest time it's ever been to be a Christian anywhere. You'd actually have to go. Give me a break, Seriously. Like, somebody made fun of you on Facebook and this is the hardest time ever to be a Christian. Or somebody said, you know, something horrible about you on Twitter and this is the worst time to be a Christian. Give me a break. But I can see. I can see both sides of that. I can see, like, from your perspective, it sucks. Now let's start looking for the end. Let's start looking for the Antichrist.
- [33:14]
Caleb
It might have even been more real than social media. You could have had people saying, like, you know, I lost my job over these beliefs. Right. Or teaching something. I mean, Stephen Paulson lost his job over teaching the truth of these things at a university.
- [33:32]
Scott
But you're never going to hear the end of it.
- [33:34]
Caleb
Yeah, it's still not the worst time ever. I also think the question that Bruce asked just a little bit ago could be answered in the affirmative. That you can totally be watchful, waiting, concerned, without making specific predictions in the sense that if we can answer the question sort of back directly to the Antichrist again, what does the Antichrist actually aim to do? Then you can be watchful for those aims. And in some ways, it's a little less secretive than, like, it's hidden in numbers or it's hidden in this TV show or this album artwork or this thing which is. The Antichrist is trying to get people to deny that Jesus Christ is the son of the Father who took on human sin, died for those sins, and has forgiven and brings life. And those who are united to him in faith will be saved. He's trying to get you to deny major portions of that. And so I can be watchful in society, in teaching amongst other world religions, worldviews. There you go. Adam philosophies.
- [34:52]
Adam
Good job.
- [34:54]
Caleb
For things that are going to try to get me to deny this. And it means that I might even then be able to have a serious conversation with somebody who believes that.
- [35:08]
Bruce
The.
- [35:08]
Caleb
Latest Internet meme or trend is the Antichrist. Because I can say, okay, you're watchful, you're concerned. I can respect being concerned for you and your children and stuff. Let's look at it. In what way, shape or form could this possibly get somebody to deny Christ? In what way, shape or form can consuming monster energy drinks get you to deny Christ? Or driving a car where the VIN number ends in 666 get you to deny Christ and start asking that question? And you can do that with the capital A, Antichrist too, where it's like, if somebody thinks political figure XYZ is the Antichrist, start asking questions, is this person's political work, speeches, public influence, an aim to get you to deny Christ. And if it is, or if it is working to deny Christ, then I can probably positively affirm, yeah, this is an Antichrist. Or even in this particular time, it's not even unfair to say the Antichrist of this era, of this period of the eschaton, or whatever it may be. Which is why it's fair to say something like both the Pope and the Papacy as an office being the Antichrist. If you actually take serious the doctrine of justification, or when I read these passages from first and Second John, it's probably offensive to a lot of American Christians today. But I literally cannot unsee the Jewish religious establishment of the time of the Apostles, which is preaching that Jesus Christ was not who he said he was and is teaching against the apostles. And even the Apostle Paul, before he's converted, is killing Christians while denying who Christ is. And so I think you look at that and you go, okay, yeah, the time of the apostles, Judaism, post Christ is producing Antichrists and preaching Antichrists. The Pope and the Papacy produce and preach Antichrist. Prosperity Preachers in America today preach and produce Antichrist Islam. Muhammad is the capital, a Antichrist. He's a figure who comes in, asserts himself as God and a prophet, and does all these things. Joseph Smith and then his church, these things are the Antichrist. And Scripture totally affirms it. And so I should be watchful because the next lds, the next Mormonism, Islam, the next Pope could be coming and establish a new Antichrist system.
- [37:38]
Scott
Yeah, I mean, that is the reality. And I think you're right. It's not wrong to look at, in Luther's day, the Pope and say he is the Antichrist. It's not wrong even in his day or ours to look at Islam and say that is the Antichrist. It's just if you take their doctrine seriously and they are preaching against Christ and him crucified as the only hope for your salvation, that is the Antichrist. And that is what you need to guard against.
- [38:09]
Caleb
I mean, funny enough, TBN is the Antichrist. I was in a hotel room and I turned on the TV and it was on tbn and I was like, oh, my gosh, get that off, get that off, get that off. Why?
- [38:17]
Scott
Because that's the Antichrist.
- [38:18]
Caleb
I'm not worried that some numerology on my chip bag is the Antichrist, but I am worried that TBN is actually preaching Antichrist. Yeah, yeah.
- [38:31]
Scott
Word. Can I just, before we end, say something about studying Revelation? Boy, you know, Bruce, you talked about the perils of it. One of the things I've sometimes told people who want to study Revelation or who have wanted, like me to do a study on Revelation, which I'm always wary to do, is that I think that. And Caleb said this to me at one point, and it's really stuck with me, that Revelation, both written by the apostle and the Book of John, the Gospel of John, both written by the apostle John, the disciple that Jesus loved. They can be seen in tandem. And probably the healthiest way to see them is to see sort of revelation as just the Book of John in a sort of more lyrical and prophetic and eschatological style of writing. And if you do that, a lot of sort of the things that you try to ascribe to it fade away into the teachings that come from the mouth of Jesus and the Gospel of John. And at the end of the Gospel of John, in John 20, what does John say about the purpose for writing any of these things down, any of the Scriptures down? That these things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. To me, that's the key not only to the Gospel of John, but to all the Gospels. That's the key to all the epistles, and that's certainly the key to anything written down in a book that can be as confusing as the book of Revelation, that if you sort of take that key, you apply it to it. A lot of the sort of the strange things you might be looking for out into the world get absorbed into John trying to teach you the same lesson that the Holy Spirit inspired him to try to teach you and to give to you in the Gospel of John that these things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God.
- [40:29]
Caleb
Yeah, well, that's the most anti. Antichrist thing there is this scripture or that this preaching or this teaching is delivered or is for you so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ. And so I think with that, there's sort of just a final question for people that we've hit, but it's basically, do Christians need to fear the Antichrist? Are we to be Afraid of the Antichrist. And I feel like we talked about preaching this for anxiety, preaching this for fear. There's money to be made in doing that. I'll be charitable. I'll be eighth commandment. Everybody who's doing that is making money, obviously doing that. But to what extent do Christians, should they fear the Antichrist or what does it mean to fear the Antichrist or to not be afraid?
- [41:26]
Bruce
I would say yes and no. I think it depends. So the obvious no is you don't fear the Antichrist because of the promises you have in Christ and that his defeat is certain and that. That, you know, any power he has is given to him from above and all that wonderful gospel stuff. But I think there's a. There's a practical side where it's just appropriate to fear him, which is the same fear that we would bring to any evil. Like, he can do real harm to our neighbor. He can hurt our families. He can. He can destroy the churches. And I think that that's just a fear of evil specified into this one character. And I think that's. That's natural. But that fear can drive us once again to the hope we have in the gospel. So should you ultimately fear him? Like, can he really. He can't undo God's plan and purposes. He can't get rid of your salvation. He can't defeat the church. The gates of hell can't do that. So in that sense, no. But can he make life really miserable? Can he tempt the church to apostasize? Can he bring real harm and suffering to the people we love? Yeah, he can.
- [42:36]
Scott
I am a straight no on this one. Christians have no fear. They have no need to be afraid. They are baptized into Christ. And as soon as you asked this question, I looked up because I didn't remember it by heart. The third stanza to the hymn God's own Child, I gladly say it. I am baptized into Christ. The third verse is Satan, hear this proclamation. I am baptized into Christ. Drop your ugly accusation. I am not so soon enticed now that to the font I have traveled all your might has come unraveled and against your tyranny. God, my Lord unites with me. If you're afraid of anything going on in this world, I'd recommend learning this hymn and singing it, even if in your own head and reminding yourself that you are baptized into Christ and even Satan's power has no power over you.
- [43:32]
Caleb
Adam.
- [43:34]
Adam
You want me to top that?
- [43:37]
Caleb
Yeah, I want you to try.
- [43:42]
Adam
Is there a middle position between Scott and Bruce? I'M a pretty hard no. I'm a pretty hard no for the same reasons that Scott put it, but also Bruce's words. Thinking about what this might mean for our neighbor and so on. Just as a temporal concern, which isn't, you know, for me it's not a concern, but for my neighbors, whoever, you know, whether it's my own house or down the street or what have you, there's some concern there. It's not fear, though. I guess that's the middle road. Not afraid of the Antichrist. Concern for the neighbor, what Antichrist might bring.
- [44:27]
Scott
That's very Lutheran.
- [44:28]
Caleb
Yeah, I think.
- [44:29]
Scott
Thank you.
- [44:30]
Adam
I would say it's a compliment from you. I think sometimes you're suspicious.
- [44:37]
Caleb
He's a. What is he? I think concern and watchfulness, both sort of words from various parts of scripture, as we already pointed out, are appropriate. But that. Just like you were thinking of a hymn when this question comes up. I was thinking how smart are those who put together our Lutheran hymnal were for putting page number. Instead of just skipping page number 666, they put have no fear, little flock there. And I actually think that sort of declaration is a very good. I didn't advice here.
- [45:20]
Scott
I mean, I knew that him.
- [45:21]
Caleb
But him. 666 is have, have no fear, little flock.
- [45:25]
Scott
Good job.
- [45:27]
Adam
You know, it would be really stellar of you, Caleb, if for the bump music or whatever it's called, outro music or something great if you had the hymn playing. But I think the icing on the cake would be Eminem's song. Not afraid.
- [45:44]
Scott
I'm not Afraid. Both of those. I can both imagine Eminem, like pulled for copyright and cph.
- [45:54]
Caleb
We're gonna get sued by both of them. Did you know M is like great, great, great, great grandfather is like. His last name is Mathers. It's Cotton. Cotton Mather. Oh, really? Famous preacher.
- [46:11]
Bruce
Yeah. I didn't know that.
- [46:12]
Caleb
Interesting. That's kind of funny. You can't get rid of last names. The. But back to the serious question here. Yeah, I just don't think you need to be afraid. I will say that the legitimate concern that I see sometimes with the societal stuff for people is that they fear for their children or their neighbor or their family members who may be led astray by the Antichrist. And so I see it as like people who. They're not afraid for their own condition of the Antichrist. They think they're going to be watchful, but they're concern for the people in their life who they're not quite sure are as watchful. And I think the same thing applies where you actually need to proclaim to them the reason to have no fear. The thing that takes away the fear of the Antichrist for your neighbor is a proclamation of the gospel. It's a proclamation of the Christ. It is not to stop whatever sort of political force or social or popular force there is. It is to proclaim, proclaim Jesus Christ to them as their Savior and that he has died for them, for the forgiveness of their sins. And because I am certain of that, I have no fear. I have no fear of the Antichrist and all of the turmoil that he'll bring in the world. And I wish for that comfort for all people. And the only way that I know that that comfort can actually be produced and abound is by the proclamation of Christ and his gospel to sinners. And so if I am fearful for those around me, I think that is a call to proclaim the gospel. It is not a call to a bunch of different other societal actions. There may be vocational calls to other things, but if it is weighing on your conscience, if a fear of the Antichrist for other people is weighing on your conscience, begin proclaiming the Gospel of Christ to them. That is what is weighing on your conscience. And so I don't know. I think. I think that's where I'm happy ending this episode. Everybody else else good. Have no fear. Maybe I will try to find a way to get royalty free bumper music. If I succeeded, the listeners will know.
- [48:24]
Bruce
So I think there's amount of seconds that you're allowed to use, no matter what, that you can use for free. That's what I've heard.
- [48:32]
Caleb
We'll see what our legal department has to say about that.
- [48:36]
Adam
Huge team of lawyers.
- [48:37]
Caleb
Yeah, our huge team of lawyers. There's at least one. So we do hope that you enjoyed this episode. We hope that you found some clarity on the question of who is the Antichrist? What is he doing? How can you identify the Antichrist? If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to the show in your favorite podcasting apps. That is a huge help to us. You can also find this show on YouTube. You can go to Thinking Fellows on YouTube and find these videos and we also do short versions, recaps of these episodes on the main 1517 YouTube channel. Just search 1517 on YouTube and you can subscribe today to see these videos. We thank you for listening. We'll catch you next time. Bye.
- [49:29]
Scott
Sam.