Islamic Horse and Rider of Jihad

The END comes AFTER the tribulation of those days.

Let us see it all in context:

Matthew 24:9-14 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. 12 Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

This consideration of context is not enough to prove that the first horseman of the four represents the preaching of the gospel before the conclusion of the age.

1.) Why are the Jewish disciples delivered up to persecution ?
They are delivered up because of the preaching of the Gospel. This is indicated in the book of Acts.

2.) Why are men hated because of the name of Jesus?
They are hated by the opposers of the Gospel of Jesus.

3.) Why do some fall away and betray one another ? They do so because of the trouble of association with the preaching of the Gospel.

4.) From what do many false prophets lead others astray? False prophets arise because true prophets have preceded them, preaching the gospel. The true preceded and the false followed after.

You see all this confirms that in history the preaching of the gospel causes these things to happen. It confirms that the best understanding of the four horses of the Four Seals is LED by the preaching of the gospel.

5.) The love of some grows cold because of increased lawlessness. This is in unbelieving society's' cynicism about believing the Gospel.

To be a follower of Jesus today in many places is to invite the slanderous term of "bigot". You now can be labelled a "bigot" just because you love Christ and believe the good news of salvation.

This causes some to crumble under accusation and their love for the brotherhood becomes cold. They may become so cold that they dissociate themselves from the Christian brotherhood preferring rather to cast their lot in with cynics, atheists and skeptics.

6.) Verse 14 says - This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

This doesn't mean that gospel preaching just started in the end times. It means that it started from the ascension of Christ and could not be terminated throughout the church age.

It agrees with the great comission that we preach with Christ being with us until the consummation of the age.

"Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age." (Matt. 28:19,20)

Examination of the context of Matthew 24:9-14 , I think, reinforces the interpretation of some teachers that the first rider of the four horses is the world wide preaching of the gospel down through the ages. I never heard this until I heard Witness Lee teach it.

It is a better understanding than that the first horseman is something related to Islam.

Originally posted by sonship
[quote] The END comes AFTER the tribulation of those days.

Let us see it all in context:

Matthew 24:9-14 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

[b] 9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate on ...[text shortened]... .

It is a better understanding than that the first horseman is something related to Islam.[/b]

I believe all four horses and riders are related to Islam and the great tribulation of beheadings and death on the Jews and Christians just before the coming of the Lord. I do not see it your way. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this matter until more information is revealed.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I believe all four horses and riders are related to Islam and the great tribulation of beheadings and death on the Jews and Christians just before the coming of the Lord. I do not see it your way. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this matter until more information is revealed.

I think this is too emotional a reaction to be reliable.

People of the US in the early part of the century could say the four horses relate to Al Capone and the crime world. Others around the Second World War might say they relate to Mussolini and Hitler and Herohito.

We have to be cautious of reactionary arbitrariness which assigns meaning to symbols just according to our contemporary issues.

We should consider a larger scope of meaning that just the current bad boy on the scene.

I could be wrong of course. But there have been many bad boy candidates that Christians would like to have assigned to label of history's final evil.

You can go ahead and read Islam all over Revelation chapter 6 if you wish. But I think many people will perceive this as superficially reading the current contemporary villains of your colloquial culture history's greatest evils.

The Antichrist, Paul says, will exalt himself above every religion and object of worship. He can be expected to totally oppose Monotheism and Islam rather than be an offshoot of it.

Now I could write a lot about the Antichrist. But I am more into encouraging Christians to look for Christ rather than to look for Antichrist.

But I will say this much. Someone exceedingly wise, intelligent, attractive will come along. He will be the kind of person everyone always wanted to be, seemingly possessing ALL the positive attributes of the best of the human race. This is his first appearance.

At this time this person will be a great hero with great answers for many problems. But he must be assasinated. He must be killed. And then he is resuscitated by a Satanic miracle imitating the resurrection of the Son of God. THIS one - seemingly competing with the very Christ of history in that his mortal wound is healed - this will be the final Antichrist.

You see, he dies or is mortally wounded a grand hero. He returns in Satanic miracle. He comes back to life a total monster. This is what the Bible predicts for us.

Now if your ISIS personality is killed and comes back in a miracle that imitates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then I'll confess that you were more right than I was.

But, just saying this much, that is what we can expect of the final Antichrist.

"And one of his heads was as it were slain to death, and his death stroke was healed. And the whole earth marveled after the beast." (Rev. 13:3)

The recovery from a death stroke will be a big indication of the Antichrist. This resuscitation of a slain leader will cause the world to marvel that someone has come along who seemingly offers competition to the resurrected Jesus Christ.

Again, we see his false prophet causes an idol to be made of this beast who was slain and recovers -

"And he [the False Prophet] deceives those who dwell on the earth on account of the signs which he was given power to do before the beast [Antichrist], commanding those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the best, who had the stroke of the sword and revived.

And power was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast that the image of the beast might even speak and cause whoever would not worship the image of the beast to be killed." (Rev. 13:14,15)

A death stroke and a reviving - a Satanic miracle - a idolatrous image of some type which can cause people to die if it is not worshiped - which seems itself to be alive ... these are the signs the prophecies have foretold of.

Originally posted by sonship
I think this is too emotional a reaction to be reliable.

People of the US in the early part of the century could say the four horses relate to Al Capone and the crime world. Others around the Second World War might say they relate to Mussolini and Hitler and Herohito.

We have to be cautious of reactionary arbitrariness which assigns meaning to symbo ...[text shortened]... shiped - which seems itself to be alive ... these are the signs the prophecies have foretold of.

There are many that still stick to the idea that the Roman Emperor Nero is the 666 antichrist of Revelation. We can choose to change our view as more information comes to light or we can stubbornly stick to an older belief regardless of how out of date it may be. At this time, I believe the information available reasonably supports an Islamic connection. I do not dismiss the possibility that more information could come available that would change my opinion on this, but right now the Islamic connection seems to make good sense.

Originally posted by RJHinds
There are many that still stick to the idea that the Roman Emperor Nero is the 666 antichrist of Revelation. We can choose to change our view as more information comes to light or we can stubbornly stick to an older belief regardless of how out of date it may be. At this time, I believe the information available reasonably supports an Islamic connection. ...[text shortened]... would change my opinion on this, but right now the Islamic connection seems to make good sense.

Remember. He dies and comes back to life.

Nero is indeed dead and gone. But extraordinary opposition from the Devil will call for extraordinary measures from Satan's deepest occult powers.

The spirit of Nero will inhabit the body of the slain and resuscitated coming Antichrist. He dies one person. He is revived with the spirit of another person from the ancient past - Caesar Nero.

It is a gruesome business. Praise God Christ is the Victor.

Originally posted by sonship
Remember. He dies and comes back to life.

Nero is indeed dead and gone. But extraordinary opposition from the Devil will call for extraordinary measures from Satan's deepest occult powers.

The spirit of Nero will inhabit the body of the slain and resuscitated coming Antichrist. He dies one person. He is revived with the spirit of another person fro ...[text shortened]... the ancient past - Caesar Nero.

It is a gruesome business. Praise God Christ is the Victor.

Maybe it is the spirit of the devil, Allahu akbar.

YouTube

Originally posted by RJHinds
Maybe it is the spirit of the devil, Allahu akbar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDv8P4gmQg

For Hank Hanegraaf, he identifies Ceasar Nero as the antichrist.
http://www.equip.org/articles/who-is-the-antichrist/

Originally posted by Kevin Lee Poracan
For Hank Hanegraaf, he identifies Ceasar Nero as the antichrist.
http://www.equip.org/articles/who-is-the-antichrist/

Hank Hanegraaf also believes the great tribulation was during the time of Nero according to that article. He may be a very nice man, but I believe he is wrong and there is a greater tribulation just before the coming of the Lord puts and end to it.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Maybe it is the spirit of the devil, Allahu akbar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDv8P4gmQg

But the number 666 calculates to the name Caesar Nero.

And the Bible says that he comes up out of the sea on one hand.
And he comes up out of the abyss on the other.

The Devil is not in the abyss.
The Devil is not in the bottomless pit or in hell.

It is inaccurate religious literature like Dante's Inferno or the Divine Comedy which popularized the concept, erroneously, that the Devil presently rules in hell.

But the spirit of past dead men are in the abyss. And the sea symbolizes the Gentile world many times. And the abyss is the place of some awful people who have died, and apparently some awful demons.

The beast who is Antichrist comes up out of the Gentile world - the sea (Rev. 13:1) on one hand, and on the other comes up out of the abyss (Rev. 17:8).

He WAS before John wrote Revelation, being once alive.
We WAS NOT while John was writing Revelation because he was then dead.
And he will come up out of the abyss, from death FUTURE to John writing Revelation.

"The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to come up out of the abyss and go into perdition." (Rev. 17:8)

The beast, who is Antichrist, "was" in the person of Caesar Nero before John wrote this book. He "is not" at the time of John's writing, because Nero had died by that time. That he "is about to come up out of the abyss" implies that Nero's spirit is now in the abyss and is about to emerge from it to take possession of the body of the slain and resuscitated Antichrist, as indicated in 13:3.

[Footnote 8(1), Revelation 17:8, Recovery Version ]

The name of the one who is king of the demonic locusts in the bottomless pit is provided to us in Hebrew and in Greek.

"They [demonic locusts] have a king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon; and n Greek he has the name Apollyon." (Rev. 9:11)

This hint may indicate that Hebrew letters and Greek letters are needed to calculate the name given to us in the code 666. And low and behold that seems to be the case. I do not have Greek and Hebrew fonts on my PC. But the name Caesar Nero is derived from numbers embedded in the numeric value of the letters of that name using Greek and Hebrew -

50 + 200 + 6 + 50 = 306
100 + 60 + 200 = 360

306 + 360 = 666.

Revelation 13:18 says "Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty six."

Because the Apostle John wrote this book during the time of the Roman Empire he did not clearly mention the name of Nero who is the coming Antichrist. He coded it in a calculation employing a combination of Greek and Hebrew letters which is difficult to show here without these fonts.

Wisdom is needed to see the scheme. And with the other details of this beast we can see that he is both killed and brought back to life. So it is that the eighth king both the combination of the coming 7th king and the dead 5th king according to a way of numbering the Roman emperors.

Here is a mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are the seven mountains where the woman sits. [Rome the city]

And are seven kings: five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain only a short time.

And the beast who was and is not, he himself is also the eighth and is out of the seven and goes into perdition." (Rev. 17:9-11)

The seven kings are seven Caesars of the Roman Empire. The first five "have fallen", which means they died unnaturally (Judges 3:25; 2 Samuel 1:10, 25, 27).

Those five kings are Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. All of them were either murdered or committed suicide before John wrote the book of Revelation. The sixth, Domonition, who was also murdered, was living while John was writing Revelation. Therefore, it says that he "is".

"The other" is the seventh king to come. This coming seventh emperor of a restored Roman Empire is Antichrist. He had "not yet come" at the time of John's writing. When he does come, he will remain only a short time and then will be slain. This is the mortal wound. However, he will be resuscitated by the spirit of the fifth king who is Nero.

So the spirit of the fifth king invades by Satanic power, the slain body of the coming seventh king, to become the eighth king. Antichrist will be the coming seventh king, killed, come back to life with the spirit of the fifth king Nero to be the eighth king.

In this way the dead Nero is the Antichrist - "And the beast who was and is not, he himself is also the eighth and is out of the seven and goes into perdition." (17:11)

You can see that he is both coming as a new Caesar but at the same time is OF the number of Caesars of the past ages.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Hank Hanegraaf also believes the great tribulation was during the time of Nero according to that article. He may be a very nice man, but I believe he is wrong and there is a greater tribulation just before the coming of the Lord puts and end to it.

It is neither an issue of him being nice or of being accurate in everything.
He can be partially right with the light that he has.

Henry Morris (pioneer YECer) tried to calculate how many people could fit into the New Jerusalem. I think this is silly. I think it is silly for him to try to take the measurements of the New Jerusalem laden with symbolism, and attempt to predict how much average space per person the New Jerusalem will provide.

There may be other things which he taught which one should well pay some attention to.

Some things Hanagraaf passes on are of reliable use too. His work on the local churches was very good compared to the junky "research" of his predecessor Walter Martin.

Originally posted by sonship
But the number 666 calculates to the name Caesar Nero.

And the Bible says that he comes up out of the sea on one hand.
And he comes up out of the abyss on the other.

The Devil is not in the abyss.
The Devil is not in the bottomless pit or in hell.

It is inaccurate religious literature like Dante's Inferno or the Divine Comedy which populariz ...[text shortened]... s both coming as a new Caesar but at the same time is OF the number of Caesars of the past ages.

There are other interpretations as well. I am not counting on Caesar Nero coming back to life.

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

(Revelation 9:11 KJV)

One interpretation is that this "star who falls from heaven to the earth that is given the key to the bottomless pit" is Satan because he is later identified as a ruler king of the earth over the demons and is identified as the angel of the bottomless pit, called "Abaddon" meaning "the destroyer" which also means murderer. Notice that it does not say Satan was in the bottomless pit at this time, but that he was given the key to it and he was the ruler king over those in the bottomless pit.

Originally posted by sonship
It is neither an issue of him being nice or of being accurate in everything.
He can be partially right with the light that he has.

Henry Morris (pioneer YECer) tried to calculate how many people could fit into the New Jerusalem. I think this is silly. I think it is silly for him to try to take the measurements of the New Jerusalem laden with symbolism ...[text shortened]... local churches was very good compared to the junky "research" of his predecessor Walter Martin.

Walter Martin was pretty good at identifying cult groups. Hanagraaf not so much.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Walter Martin was pretty good at identifying cult groups. Hanagraaf not so much.

Just the opposite.

Walter Martin depended on influencing people with racism. He displayed a racial chip on his shoulder in dealing with the Black Moslems which was more like stirring up "good-ole-boy" prejudice than scholarly evaluation of their teaching.

He also suffered from turf jealousy and a petty ego which hindered objectivity. He had a personal agenda to put the local churches out of business which backfired. He was hired by Southern Califonia's Melodyland Theology School to do just that, much like Balaam was hired by Balak to curse Israel in the book of Numbers. Nothing much new under the sun.

He also was partial to his Catholic backround which made him inconsistent because of childhood sympathizes with his Catholic upbringing.


In spite of these weaknesses, I got something out of his work on the Jehovah's Witnesses. And I am sure that Walter Martin is clear about many things now that he was unclear about during his reign as "The Bible Answer Man."

I read Kingdom of the Cults in the early 70s on Jehovah's Witnesses, 7th Day Adventist, Black Moslems, Father Divine, and I think Bahai was in there also.

The work was uneven. And he seemed more interested in inflaming racial resentment with the Black Moslems rather than dealing with doctrine.

His mentor, the late Donald Barnhouse, I have to say engenders a lot more respect from me.

Hank Hanagraaf definitely inspires more regard from me than his predecessor. Far less petty ego and "king of the hill" attitude. And after several years of serious research was willing to admit that their former evaluation was wrong.

Originally posted by RJHinds
There are other interpretations as well. I am not counting on Caesar Nero coming back to life.

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

(Revelation 9:11 KJV)

One interpretation is that this "star who falls from heaven to the earth that is given ...[text shortened]... but that he was given the key to it and he was the ruler king over those in the bottomless pit.

There are other interpretations as well. I am not counting on Caesar Nero coming back to life.

Of course there are other opinions.

Now you may not count on Nero coming back to life. But you probably should count on SOMEONE doing something like that if the prophecy is true.

"And one of his heads was as it were slain to death, and his death stroke was healed. And the whole earth marveled after the beast." (Rev. 13:2)

So while you may reject that Nero makes another appearance on the earth as the spirit within the body of another person, I think you have to expect SOMEONE will have a death stroke and be healed.

As for me, Nero is not unreasonable. If the two witnesses Elijah and Moses make another appearance in chapter 11, then it is not too difficult for me to believe that someone ELSE from the past on the negative side REQUIRES such a counter balance.

I told you above that the Antichrist is the beast that comes out of two sources - the sea and the abyss. I told you that the sea probably symbolizes the Gentile nations.

But the false prophet, on the other hand arises not out of the sea but out of the earth -

"And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon." (Rev. 13:11)

Now if the first beast Antichrist comes up out of the Gentile world - the sea, the other beast coming up out of the earth means that he arises out of the Jewish world.

Now I admit, when I first heard that the false prophet, the beast out of "the earth" will be Judas Iscariot, I was a bit skeptical for many years.

It is only in the last approximate half decade I came around to seeing that the logic of this was not unreasonable. The scheme is TWO bad witnesses from the past matched by TWO good witnesses from the past. It makes sense that on one side you could have -

Nero and Judas - a Gentile and a Jewish false prophet of terrible deception matched by Elijah and Moses standing for God.

Extraordinary deception is met with extraordinary witness to the truth.

It makes sense to me, lately, that TWO ancient men of God come back to bear witnesses would be matched by TWO most evil persons come back to do Satan's special work.

Anyway, the beast out of the earth, the false prophet working on behalf of the Antichrist, will be a Jew, I think.

That he has "two horns like a lamb" may indicate his closeness and imitation to Jesus the Lamb of God. That he speaks as a dragon signifies that despite his deceptive appearance, those with spiritual discernment can detect in his speaking the voice of Satan.

The death of Judas is shrouded in some mystery. And it says that he went to his own place (Acts 1:25). This could mean a special reserved destiny was appointed to him for a future work for his leader Satan.

Originally posted by sonship

There are other interpretations as well. I am not counting on Caesar Nero coming back to life.

Of course there are other opinions.

Now you may not count on Nero coming back to life. But you probably should count on SOMEONE doing something like that if the prophecy is true.

[b]"And one of his heads was as it were slain to death, a ...[text shortened]... ld mean a special reserved destiny was appointed to him for a future work for his leader Satan.

Another Interpretation

Author, historian and Bible prophecy expert Michael D. Fortner's latest book, The Beast and False Prophet Revealed, presents new and enlightening discoveries from over 30 years of research into Bible prophecy.

This new look at Bible prophecy presents strong evidence that the coming beast and false prophet of the book of Revelation are based solidly in Islam and Muhammad. When the head of the beast has a fatal wound, it represents the death of the last Islamic empire, the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, in World War I—which means another Islamic empire will come back to life again to wage jihad upon the world.

The book claims the second beast of Revelation is Islam, the two horns representing the two factions: Sunni and Shiite. Islam has encoded in its teachings—murder, lying, plunder, slavery, rape, warfare and even terrorism as part of its official religious doctrine.

Jesus said that the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, and this is exactly what Islam has done from its beginning. No other religion so completely fits the description in the Bible of the beast and false prophet than Islam.

Islam is different from all the other religions that do not believe in Jesus, because Islam officially declares that Jesus is not the Son of God (Quran 4:171; 18:4-5), which is the biblical definition of Antichrist: "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:22).

Islam ruled the second largest empire in history that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of China. Millions of Christians have already suffered and died under Islam's armies of conquest, and Christians are still dying today in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Sudan and many other places.

The spread of Islam has left a trail of blood, suffering and destruction like no other ideology in world history. History, and even this present age, shows us that Islam is a very violent and fascist religion, full of hate for Christians and Jews. No one could invent a more evil cult.

For hundreds of years the Muslims of North Africa captured European ships, and then American ships, and enslaved the crews. They even raided coastal towns and dragged people out of churches and into slavery where they were beaten and abused in order to pressure them to convert to Islam.

This new book presents the history of Islam to show how and why it is the beast of Revelation, and how the beast is even now clawing at the edges of the Abyss, trying to get out. It also includes Daniel 11. The details presented are like no other book.

For example: The verses of the Quran are called, "miraculous signs," and Revelation 13 says that the false prophet deceives people with "miraculous signs" (NIV).

http://www.charismanews.com/world/44330-bible-prophecy-author-claims-islam-tied-to-revelation-beast