The nicest thing I can say about it is that it is highly original and provocative. The convoluted reasoning it employs is authoritative-sounding enough to the average Christian. Since they cannot disprove it, it leaves them wondering if it could be true or not knowing what to make of it. So they forward it to a friend to see if they know.

Then read this rebuttal in case several things do not jump out immediately at you when you hear his reasoning and after you read the verses in question yourself like a good Berean (Acts 17:11). Reading the verse alone (Luke 10:18) should suffice since you can immediately see it has nothing to do with the Antichrist nor is it a prophecy:

Luke 10:18 (HCSB) He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a lightning flash.

If the sound of Obama’s name did come off Jesus’ lips, it would only be an insignificant coincidence. It’s not the proper way to build accurate doctrines. See my previous post as to why no American can be the Antichrist.

Last month I attended and spoke at my first Bible conference keynote. (Previously I had spoken at Borland Conferences during my previous career as a programmer). While researching for my keynote, I happened upon a profound quote:

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few”—Shunryu Suzuki.

As an expert on Bible prophecy, I can attest to the applicability of that principle in my field. I constantly hear beginners pose Bible prophecy theories that are frankly impossible. Usually there is a clear and plain verse that nullifies the beginner’s theory. One clear verse is all that it takes because of the principle Jesus taught that “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). We are not to believe a doctrine that would contradict the Bible. The Bible is a big difficult book that takes years to become expertly familiar with so false doctrines are commonly passed around and accepted.

Barrack Obama Antichrist Rumors

Case in point: is Obama the Antichrist? Lately, this is the question I receive most frequently since he became President of the United States.

Besides questions, I receive plenty of emails from people trying to convince me that Obama is the Antichrist. I think people send them because of the article on my website that uses Revelation 13 to identify someone else as the Antichrist. Obama Antichrist theorists naturally view the article as wrong and just have to correct me. One person even told me to take the article down so people are not “mislead” by it.

The article is still up even though I admit it is possible that the suggested candidate is wrong. We just will not know he is wrong until that person dies or the real Antichrist appears, whichever comes first. In the meantime discussion on the topic is good and one of the best ways to get people to actually study the Bible for themselves.

As for Barrack Obama, we can disqualify him as an Antichrist candidate today. This theory is about as valid as the common Christian belief that “Jesus can come back at any moment” (the secret pretrib rapture). To the beginner both theories seem possible. An expert can tell you that both theories are contradicted by plain clear Scripture. Barrack Obama does not fulfill a single major identification requirement for the Antichrist, especially not from Revelation 13.

Moreover, he cannot possibly be the Antichrist because he is a national of the wrong country. As I have covered in my free newsletter (simply email eatt-news@aweber.com to sign up), Daniel 9:26 tells us the nationality of the Antichrist is the same as those who destroyed the Temple in 70 AD: the people of the Roman Empire. The New American Commentary – Volume 18: Daniel 9:26 on page 267 confirms this is the meaning:

The “people” who would destroy Jerusalem and the temple were the Romans, but v. 27 makes clear that this “ruler” will be the future persecutor of Israel during the seventieth seven. “The people of the ruler” does not mean that the people “belong to” the ruler but rather that the ruler will come from these people. If the text is to be taken literally at this point, this future ruler will come out of the peoples and nations that made up the ancient Roman Empire. Daniel already had divulged in chap. 7 that the Antichrist’s origin will be from the fourth empire, Rome.

The country that Obama is from and rules did not even exist as country until 1700 years later. Therefore, a US Citizen cannot be the Antichrist because they are from a country that was not part of the Roman Empire who destroyed the Temple.

Proving Rumors With Conspiracy Theories

When I tell this to Obama Antichrist proponents, they usually ignore the evidence and invoke the “birther” conspiracy theory you may have heard in the news. It states “Obama was not born in the USA”. I suppose one wild theory deserves another to back it up. Anyone who would believe the first could easily entertain the second.
But even if this argument were true, it would make no difference because Daniel’s prophecy was not referring to the nation the Antichrist comes from. He was referring to what nation he is from. Making Obama a Kenyan does not help since Kenya was not part of the Roman Empire either.

Let’s be reasonable. If it were true that Obama was not qualified to be president, then the McCain campaign would have pounced on this Anyone who was willing to make the risky move of choosing Sarah Palin for vice president certainly would have used this angle if it had any solid evidence behind it. In fact, it recently came out that the McCain campaign did investigate this angle before the election. They found it to be unsubstantiated and the proof of Obama’s birth in Hawaii to be well-documented.

If only believers would consistently do likewise: investigate theories in the Bible themselves and only believe what is well-supported there. We would have a very different set of doctrines taught and widely believed if so. And we would have a lot more Bereans (Acts 17:11) than we do now.

Hope This Helps

Am I down on people who fail to do this and entertain or spread these weak Bible theories? Not at all. I remember some of the crazy doctrines I used to entertain when I was a beginner and had not learned clear thinking skills yet. I write what I do here to help those who want the truth and need a little help finding it just like I did when I was still a beginner. Although I am now an expert, I keep learning to grow in grace and knowledge and correct my own errors.

Here are more articles debunking Obama Birther and Antichrist conspiracy theories from Snopes.com. (BTW, Snopes is a great site to check before forwarding “Obama is the Antichrist”-type emails to avoid the embarassment when it turns out to be false as they usually do.)

• snopes.com: Is Barack Obama a natural-born citizen of the U.S.?
• snopes.com: Occidental College
• snopes.com: Barack Obama’s Passport

…I recall a South American country who honored Charlies envi ronmental work by erecting a statue that looks like a not so nice angel.
…And doesn’t the false shephard(antichrist), after his fatal wound end up blind in his right eye and have a withered arm?

Regards again
Bobbie

That amazing, seemingly prophetic statue of Charles is seen here: Image of the Beast?

The Prince of Wales is to be immortalized in bronze as a muscular, winged god dressed in nothing more than a loincloth. The inscription on the statue in Brazil will honor him as
“Savior of the World.”

It does appear that the Antichrist receives the fatal wound and is resurrected. This seems like the only way people would marvel after the beast and wonder who can defeat him if he has resurrection at his disposal as Revelation 13:4 says.

However it’s not completely clear to me that Zechariah 11:17 is a reference to the Antichrist. It probably is, and I have no better answer for who it refers to. I’m just saying that if the Antichrist does not have a blind eye or crippled right arm then I will not have a problem with it.

Shalom,

Just read your article on the False Prophet and Antichrist and why they are thrown into the lake of fire before the Millenium. Very interesting. I noticed you mentioned the fact that they could be hybrids, which perked my interest because I was at a prophecy club meeting the other day and listened to a fella named Bill Schnoebelen talk.

Mr. Schoebelen was in the Illuminati and supposedly they already have the antichrist picked out. He was supposedly born in 1966 and was supposed to come on the scene in 1996 but for whatever reason he didn’t. The reason I mention this is because Bill said that what he was told is that this “antichrist” must come to power or by 06/06/06 or by the end of 2006 or he would start to “decompose”. The reason he would start to decompose or whatever is because he is a hybrid from a fallen angel. I thought this was pretty wild and outer limits type stuff but after reading your article now it kinda makes a little more sense.

I don’t know if any of this stuff is true or even relevant but felt compelled to share it with you.

Shalom,
Levi

Yes Bill Schoebelen has some great information, we have a few of his tapes in fact.

But the thing to remember is that not everything he learned from the dark side is as accurate as the Bible. The Bible says that the Antichrist comes to power at the Abomination of Desolation, for 42 months or 3½ years of Great Tribulation. It’s impossible for that to happen this year as there are a number of prerequisites we’re still waiting for, such as (in no particular order):

• The 6th seal – 4th trumpet (Wormwood must arrive first)
• The antichrist cuts off the sacrifices at the Temple Mount but here are as yet no sacrifices yet started for him to stop, let alone a temple or an altar
• The Middle East Conflict between Israel and her neighbors spoken in Isaiah 17; 29, Psalm 83, Zech 12, et. al. This for sure a pretrib ( pre-antichrist) event

Once you know the framework of Revelation and sequence of events it’s easy to discern the many false ideas repeated even by good teachers like Bill Schoebelen (and admittedly I surely have some errors of my own that I have yet to examine and ferret out, which is why I enjoy receiving questions like yours that continually cause me to reconsider my ideas). The Illuminati have many plans but only the plans that fit the outline in Bible prophecy will come to pass.

These things are surprisingly literal (just as I have found over the years is the case with the rest of Revelation). Read here yourself to find out who is the Antichrist.

Greetings,

I am a Elem school teacher in OK. I teach 6th grade Science. I had a student ask me today what I thought was going to happen on this date 06-06-06? He asked me if it was the devils #, I said “Yes”. I told him I couldn’t answer his question, but I knew who we could ask. We are asking you. Do you have any info about the coming storm around this date?

First, 666 is actually not the devil’s number, but the number of the Beast of Revelation 13 who receives his power, throne and authority from Satan (Rev 13:2). This Satanic help enables him to rule the coming one world government / NWO for 3½ years / 42 months / 1260 days. But more specifically, it says that 666 is only associated with the this man once you calculate it from his name.

Count the Number of the Beast?

For Western Gentile English speakers, this is a foreign concept. However, to the Hebrew John who wrote the Book of Revelation, this instruction would have been readily understandable. Not having Roman numerals for numbers, Ancient Hebrew has a different value assigned to each letter for representing numbers. Thus, by adding up the individual letter values of any Hebrew word, you could “count its number” or find its numeric representation. See here for details: Antichrist Identified

So, since this is explicitly given as the number of the name of a man, not the number of a date on any calendar, we should not be afraid of the date 06-06-06 or otherwise watch and expect anything on it except maybe extra Halloween Eve-type mischief from people trying to fulfill a misapplied prophecy. In all probability that day will come and go without event. If you haven’t noticed, it always seems that the unpublicized dates are the days that big things happen on (like 9-11, for example), whereas every time someone puts a specific date to watch and it spreads across the Internet so everyone is watching it, nothing happens. In fact, it seems to almost guarantee nothing will happen on that day if everyone is watching it, like a kettle on the stove =).

The True Biblical Prophetic Watch Day Is…

In conclusion, we should not pay attention to 666 appearing in any context other than the result of the calculation of some prince’s name (Dan 9:26). Moreover, that person had better also already literally fit the other face value criteria given in Revelation 13 to identify the Antichrist since focusing on 666 and ignoring the rest of the prophecy of the Beast is sure to lead you to misapply the prophecy as well.

06-06-06 is a counterfeit of the true prophetic day we should be watching. There are seven prophetic feast days given in Leviticus 23. Jesus fulfilled two completely of them in his ministry and through a partial fulfillment showed us how the next one would be fulfilled. In 2006, this day occurred only 2 days before 06-06-06, on 06-04-06. It was the Day of Pentecost. Click here to find out what disaster is predicted to happen on a soon future Feast of Pentecost

I feel Daniel 9:27 is one of the most troublesome passages in the Scriptures, not in and of itself, but because of the numerous different orderings of words that appear in the various translations. Further, the pronoun, “he” that appears twice in the verse lends even more confusion because most translations do not make clear whether the entire verse is in reference to Christ, the antichrist, or both.

First, notice three different readings in my possession of the third (last) clause:

1. And for the overspreading of abominations…
2. And on the wings of abominations….
3. And on the wing of the temple….

#3 is particularly troublesome because it suggests that a statue of the antichrist will be placed on a “wing” or section of the temple. Is that what the verse is implying? But that is in no way implied in versions 1 & 2.

#2 is confusion because “wing” begins to sound metaphoric, eg. “On Wings of Song”

#1 makes absolutely no sense to me. “For” sounds like “because of” eg. “And because of the overspreading (maybe the translator means far-reaching) abominations…

But the confusion does not end there. The New King James makes a distinction in the first sentence of v.27 by giving the “he” a small h, implying that Daniel are referring to a human, probably antichrist. But then in the second clause NKJ states, “But in the middle of the week, ‘He’ shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering”. Now the capital H in “He” supports the theory that Christ (and not antichrist) fulfilled the first half of Daniel’s 70th week by ending the need for animal sacrifice with crucifixion. This, of course, would shoot full of holes the theory that antichrist will confirm a peace treaty with the Jews and then break it in the middle of the 70th week. But then we come against another perplexing question: why would Daniel  refer to the antichrist in the first clause of v.27, then jump to Jesus in the second clause, then jump back to antichrist in the third and last clause. hence:

• “Then he (antichrist) shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week;”
• “But in the middle of the week He (Christ) shall bring an end to sacrifice and oblations;”
• “And on the wing of abominations shall be “one” (antichrist?) who makes desolate…”

Has anyone who knows Hebrew actually gone back to examine the “he” of v.27 to see if there is some sort of distinction readily apparent in the text, similar to how we capitalize He in reference to Deity, and a small h in he for ordinary humans? This would go a long way to properly interpreting v.27 but, absent that, I’m afraid the controversy over a 3 1/2-year or 7-year tribulation will continue until Jesus returns.

Jim raises some great questions about confusion over the correct reading of what is considered possibly the most important prophetic verse in the entire Bible.

1. Who do the three he‘s refer to here? Does one of them (capitalized in NKJV) refer to Christ?
2. Which reading of the variations is correct: abominations or temple?
3. And how long is that tribulation anyway?
4. What is the covenant made about?

Does He refer to Messiah or Anti-messiah?

This question troubled me for some time after hearing Michael Rood propose that the Messiah is referred to here, not Antichrist, a perspective I had never heard before. After looking at it both ways I’m more confident on this verse than I ever would have been before.

The old idea that the one who confirms the covenant is Christ (with his New Covenant) does not fit the context. The last eligible antecedent to the three he’s in v.27 is “the prince of the people who shall come and destroy the temple” of v.26 referring to the coming Antichrist, not “the Messiah.” The covenant is naturally understood to last only seven years, a limit that certainly does not fit the New Covenant which will be perpetual (Jer 31:31ff). The doom pronounced on this person matches what is pronounced on the Little Horn of chapter 7 as well as the Beast thrown in the lake of fire in Revelation 19.

By the way, I do know enough Biblical Hebrew to explain the deal with the he’s. Not only does Hebrew not have capital letters, but in this passage the verb conjugation automatically implies the masculine singular, so there are no separate personal pronouns to capitalize here anyway. Whenever you see a capitalization of pronoun, take it with a grain of salt because it is the added interpretation of the translator who could be wrong–which is the case here.

Which Translation is Correct?

I always recommend people refer to and use multiple Bible versions rather than rely on one, especially if it’s the old King James which is in hard-to-understand Old English, and 400 years behind in scholarship and manuscript discoveries. The rub here is, as we see in Jim’s questions, that it may take a while before you have the discernment to decide which of the several possible readings is probably the right one and not be left more confused instead of more enlightened.

The reason for the great differences Jim noticed are due to manuscript variations. The Hebrew Masoretic Text (MS) gives us the obscure “wing/overspreading of abominations” (yes, plural abominations) while the Greek Septuagint (LXX) reads “wing of the temple.” The Greek New Testament more often follows the LXX reading than the MS. Here the LXX fits better with Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 which refer to Daniel’s abomination being “setup” or “standing” in the “Holy Place” or “where it should not.” If you go with the obscure Hebrew reading, it’s hard to say what it means, but neither does it clearly contradict the NT understanding of this being about something set up in the Temple.

What is the Abomination of Desolation?

The noun here for abomination is always used in connection with idolatry (TWOT). Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the type of the Antichrist prophesied in Daniel 11:31-32, setup a altar and statue of Zeus in the Temple during the time of the Maccabees when he outlawed the reading of the Torah. Not surprisingly, Revelation 13 indicates that there will be a statue of the Antichrist himself commanded by the False Prophet to be worshipped. If the Beast will be setting up his headquarters in the temple declaring himself to be God (1The 2:4) it would make sense for the statue of himself to be setup there at his headquarters, exactly where Daniel’s abomination of desolation is to be setup according to Jesus.

What, then, is the desolation? The desolation referred to would be the desecration of the altar that putting such a detestable idol near would cause, a destroying of its true purpose. After Antiochus IV was defeated by the Maccabees they had to have a rededication of the altar.

How Long Is the Great Tribulation?

The question of how long the Tribulation is does not depend on any of the above questions. See this article for how to determine that with high confidence: How Long is the Great Tribulation?

Publicized Peace Treaty With Israel or Secret Conspiracy?

By the way, the theory that antichrist will confirm a peace treaty with the Jews and then break it in the middle of the 70th week is just that, a theory, not much better supported than Evolution. There actually is no plain text verse to support this. On the contrary, there is a plain text passage indicating that “the many” who the Antichrist makes a treaty with are those ten rulers who will already be pulling the world’s strings behind the scenes and therefore have power to make him the world ruler:

Revelation 17:16-17 — 16 The 10 horns you saw, and the beast, will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, devour her flesh, and burn her up with fire. 17 For God has put it into their hearts to carry out His plan by having one purpose, and to give their kingdom to the beast until God’s words are accomplished.

I am convinced that this is why Jesus never told us to “watch out for the seven year peace treaty between Israel and the Antichrist spoken of by Daniel because there shall be Great Tribulation 3½ years later!!” Instead he told us to watch for the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet as the sign the Tribulation was imminent (1290-1260 = 30 days later). The treaty that the Antichrist makes with “the many” (or “the mighty”,”the strong ones” as another possible rendering of the Hebrew HaRabim) by all indications looks to be a secret conspiracy to defeat (America) Mystery Babylon and then set up a one world government or New World Order in her place. If it’s a public treaty then why didn’t Jesus tell us to watch for it and thereby give us a very nice advance signpost? But if it’s secret Jesus would not have instructed us to watch for it knowing that we’d have to be an Illuminati, instead of his disciple, to be in on that signing meeting =).