THOSE WHO ARE IN OPPOSITION TO CHRIST
The Antichrist prophesied by Saint John is one of the least understood and most abused teachings of the scriptures used to form Christian doctrine. Most Christians preach that the Antichrist is the Beast in scriptures who will come in the end times and rebuild the Temple for the Jews and enter into the Temple, proclaiming himself to be God. All this will take place after the Christians rapture up into the sky.
Following is an example of this concept taken from the book The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey-a national best-seller with more than 30,000,000 in print! Mr. Lindsey has the Antichrist portrayed to be the future world dictator, the Beast:
This person, the Antichrist, is called the "beast" because from God's viewpoint that is exactly what he is. The passage is obviously talking about a person because the personal pronoun "he" is used. He is also described as a person of great authority (p. 92). ...It is said here that the beast (the Roman dictator, the Future Fuehrer, or the Antichrist) will be like a leopard, a bear, and lion. (p. 94)
Hal Lindsey has the Beast to be:
The leopard was the Greek Empire, a bear referred to Median-Persian Empire. The lion (Babylon) (p. 94).
The Antichrist will deify himself-just like the Caesars did. He will proclaim himself to be God. We will demand that he be worshipped and will establish himself in the Temple of God (II Thessalonians 2:4).There is only one place where this temple of God can be and that is on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, on the site where the Dome of the Rock and other Moslem shrines now stand. There are many places in the Bible that pinpoint this location as the one where the Jews will rebuild their Temple. The Antichrist is called by many names in the Bible, but in Thessalonians is called the "lawless one" (p. 98).
The above quotes from Hal Lindsey's book The Late Great Planet Earth give you an example of how screwed up the minds of the Christians can be. The above is nothing more than a bunch of rubbish, or should I say, gobbledygook.
To understand the meanings of these prophecies in the Bible, one must turn to the return of Jesus, for these things are not explained in the Baha'i Writings, and the Baha'is have no better understanding than do the Christians.
The "Beast" in Revelation 13:2:-
And the beast which I saw like unto a leopard, and his feet were of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. (Revelation 13:2)
To begin with, the "Beast" doesn't pertain to Babylon, Media/Persia, Greece, or Rome as the Christians believe, for everything in the book of Revelation are prophecies for the things to come after 96 A.D. when John wrote this book while he was on the Island of Patmos:
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John. (Revelation 1:1)
The above quote tells us that God gave Jesus this Revelation that was to take place in the future and Jesus sent this by an angel-after he had ascended-to John. Also in chapter four this is said a little differently:
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be here-after. (Revelation 4:1)
What is said here is that there was a door opened in heaven, that is, that the veil or curtain was pulled back so John could see what was in the plan of God, behind the veil, from the beginning of the Adamic cycle; and these things were to come after John saw them. So this prophecy had nothing at all to do with Babylon, Media/Persian, Greece, or Rome. So Hal Lindsey and Christian interpretations are all wrong. One of the things that John saw was a Beast that:
...was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the Dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. (Revelation 13:2)
Daniel saw the same Beast that is in Revelation 13, but as four separate beasts, with the lion having eagle's wings:
Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings; I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted from the earth and made stand upon the feet, as a man, and a man's heart was given it. And behold another beast, a second, like a bear, and it was raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, and devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. (Daniel 7:2-6 KJV)
These four beasts have nothing to do with anything that took place before 96 A.D. These beasts are symbols of several nations: the lion is the symbol of England. In 1776 with the Declaration of Independence, the eagle's wings were plucked off of the lion, and the 13 colonies of England became the United States of America. The symbol of the United States is the eagle (see the back of the dollar bill). The second beast, the bear, becomes the third beast, which is the symbol of Russia. The fourth beast, the leopard, is a contraction of two beasts, the leo and the pard. The symbol of France was, at one time, the pard (the French word for panther). When the French King, Charlemagne, conquered the Saxons, who had the leo (the Greek word for lion) as their symbol, the leo and the pard became united to form the body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was called the leo pard, or leopard. These four countries, when they became united as charter members of the United Nations, became the Beast of Revelation chapter 13. Being Christian nations, they are in opposition, or are against, Jesus being the Christ (his genealogy through Joseph back to King David), and thus they are the Antichrist.
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