The majority of American evangelicals believe that the Antichrist system must be exclusively European, yet this view is changing after the last few years with the rise of Islam. Amos37 takes this view into account when we consider Daniel Ch. 2. The image of the empire King Nebuchadnezzar saw the infamous ten toes. The Roman Empire was divided into East & West. The composite beast Daniel 7 & Revelation 13 is both Eastern & Western in it’s description. Worth looking at since bible prophecy will be fulfilled mostly in the Middle East and Israel. We greatly respect Walid’s scholarship in this study.
And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. Daniel 2:36-45
Kingdom of the Antichrist Alterante View
So, could Islam play a role in the end-times scenario? You might think to yourself—so what? Why should we care? Well, why then did the Almighty give us Daniel and Revelation? Even better still, why did God give us all the Messianic prophesies regarding Jesus’ first coming? Careless followers that missed these ended up without salvation, regardless of whether they sacrificed lambs in the Temple or obeyed the law—when it comes to the issue of Messiah, they missed the most crucial event in history. All for not paying close attention to Bible prophecy.
And what about the Second Coming? Are we to be careless with respect to the evidence presented in the Bible? I am not saying that you could lose your salvation, but if you end up on the side of Antichrist, you never had salvation in the first place.
Challenge #1
Did traditional prophecy scholars teach that Europe is exclusively the Antichrist kingdom?
Many of our best Western scholars on Bible prophecy believed that Islam would be a major player and would revive in the end of days as part of this end-time beast. John Wesley interpreted the Iron in Daniel 2 as Islam (Works, 1841). Hilaire Belloc foresaw Islam’s rise.2 Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica interpreted the martyrdom of Christians during the Great Tribulation to come from Islam. Josiah Litch interpreted Revelation as the ushering in of Islam.3 He even described the magnitude of Islam’s role being Antichrist to the extent of calling it the “general agreement among Christians, especially protestant commentators.”
Cyril of Jerusalem (315-368 A.D.) in his Divine Institutes believed that Antichrist proceeds forth from the region of ancient Syria,4 which today extends from Syria well into portions of Asia Minor(Turkey). Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (560-638) and Maximus the Confessor (580-662) identified Is-lam with Antichrist and lived through Islam’s invasion of Jerusalem. Maximus, who was also an important theologian and scholar of the early Church who helped defeat the Monothelite heresy, referred to the Muslim invasions as “announcing the advent of the Antichrist.”
John of Damascus (676-749) was another very important figure in the early church. In his famous book, Concerning Heresies, he identified Islam as the forerunner to the Antichrist. Eulogius, Paul Alvarus and the Martyrs of Cordova (9th century) believed Muhammad to be a false prophet and the precursor to the Antichrist.5 Many are not aware that while Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation, believed that the Papacy played the role of the spiritual harlot, he also believed that the Muslims were the Kingdom of Antichrist.6
John Calvin interpreted Daniel 2’s “eastern leg” as the Eastern-Roman Islamic Empire and that Daniel 11:37 applied to the Muslims.7 Even Jonathan Edwards, the great American congregational preacher, revivalist, and president of Princeton University, like Luther and Calvin, saw Islam as one of the premier elements of the Antichrist Kingdom.8 Calvin even interpreted Islam’s fall at the sound of the great trumpet.9 Islam falling at the sound of the great trumpet even carries Islam into the Great Tribulation and not as many of our contemporary prophecy analysts believe, who allege that Islam must be removed prior to Christ coming.
Even Sir Robert Anderson, perhaps one of the best prophecy experts who unlocked the seventy weeks of Daniel, in his remarkable book, The Coming Prince, insists to focus on the Levant (Eastern) parts rather than the Adriatic (West).10
Countless other Bible commentators warned about Islam being the kingdom of Antichrist—Selnecker, Nigrinus, Chytraeus, Bullinger, Foxe, Napier, Pareus, John Cotton, Thomas Parker, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, and George Stanley Faber.11
Also added to the list is Rev. Professor Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, who sums up the traditional view in his excellent work, Islam in the Bible: “…from the seventh century onward – [the two legs] would degenerate respectively into the Papacy (which progressively took over the West) and Islam (which progressively took over the East).”
While contemporary prophesy analysts trumpet the idea that the fourth composite of Daniel 2’s iron metal as strictly European, traditionalist views differ. Dr. Matthew Henry comments: “Who is this enemy—whose rise, reign and ruin are here foretold?”
Interpreters are not in agreement. Some will have the Fourth Kingdom to be that of the Seleucidaeand the “little horn” to be Antiochus. Others will have the Fourth Kingdom to be that of the Romans, and the “little horn” to be Julius Caesar and the succeeding emperors, as Calvin says. The Antichrist is the Papal Kingdom, says Mr. Joseph Mede. Others make the “little horn” to be the Turkish Empire [Muslim], as do Luther, Vatablus, and others. Now I cannot prove either side to be in the wrong. Therefore, since prophecies sometimes have many fulfillments, we ought to give Scripture its full latitude (in this as in many other controversies): I am willing to allow that they are both in the right.”12
North Africa
Most students of prophecy that ascribe to a revival of the Roman Empire ignore that North Africa (Phut) encompasses five Muslim nations historically part of the western wing of the Roman Empire, and already mentioned literally in several end-times references. In order for the exclusively European model to fit, the whole of this Muslim region must be irrelevant. So what part of the Roman pie do we slice off and what parts do we include?
Contemporary Vs. Traditional
So what happened? Why do we have such a variation be-tween contemporary and traditional views? The problem be-gan in 1981, when Greece joined as the tenth nation in the European Union and many sounded a false alarm that announced they unlocked the mystery and proclaimed the fulfillment of Revelation 17 with its ten horns, to later be embarrassed when the European Union mushroomed into twenty-some nations.
According to Fruchtenbaum, the European model comprises only one tenth, a mere slice of the whole pie. Jamieson Fausset & Brown insist that, “the ten toes are not upon the one foot (the west), as these interpretations require, but on the two (east and west) together, so that any theory which makes the ten kingdoms belong to the west alone must err.”
Part 2.
©2009 Walid Shoebat. Reprinted by permission of the author. For more information see Walid’s book, God’s War on Terror, on www.Shoebat.com.
Notes:
1. Reagan, David, Lamplighter, January 2009.
2. Belloc, Hilaire, The Great Heresies, Chapter 4, March, 1936, pages 127-128.
3. Litch, Hosiah, The Three Woe Trumpets, Fall of The Ottoman Empire, August 11, 1840.
4. Cyril of Jerusalem, The Epitome of the Divine Institutes, 7:17.
5. Alvarus, Paul, Memoriale sanctorum 2.4.
6. Luther, Martin, Tischreden, Weimer ed., 1, No. 330.
7. Lee, Dr. Francis Nigel, Calvin On Islam, Lamp Trimmers, El Paso, 2000.
8. Edwards, Jonathan, The Fall of Antichrist, Part VII, page 395, New York, published by S. Converse, 1829.
9. Ibid, page 399, New York, Published by S. Converse 1829.
10. Anderson, Sir Robert, The Coming Prince, page 273.
11. Froom: op. cit., II pp. 323f, 325f, 331, 340f, 412f, 458 & 518f and also III pp. 40f, 74f, 125-31, 149, 183, 240f, &352f.
12. Henry, Matthew, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, with Practical Remarks and Observations, London: Marshall Bros. Ltd., n.d., IV:1270f.
13. Fruchtenbaum, Arnold, Footsteps of the Messiah, page 36.
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