I'm not saying it's a sure thing he won't be, much of this is still unclear to me.
But what a face value reading of Revelation 13 without preconceived assumptions seems to tell me is that the whole world worships The Beast because if they don't The False Prophet will kill them. The Beast conquerors the world, his ability to rule it comes from Satan and from military conquest "who is able to make war with him?".
The whole world Wonders after the Beast when his Mortal Wound is healed. That means they're shocked and amazed, doesn't necessarily mean they like him. In Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice the whole world Wonders after Superman, some love him and some hate, the latter camp seems to be the majority till the end, but they are all wondering after him.
If Hitler's mortal wound was healed would everyone suddenly forget what we all hate about him? No, the wonderment would be one of horror, like we just saw confirmation that Vampires are real.
"By Peace he shall destroy many" in Daniel 8 refers to when Antiochus Epiphanies broke a peace agreement he had made. The Antichrist may or may not do something similar, but there is no basis for saying it clearly means he ushers in some global communist utopia based on world peace. The generally most indisputable type of the Antichrist in The Bible is Antiochus Epiphanes, who was anything but a popular ruler.
The warnings not to be deceived in the last days are to the Church not the World, the World is already wrong and already under Satan's control, he doesn't need an Antichrist or False Prophet when it comes to them.
The Christians who are observant and take their faith seriously and The Bible literally tend to be the ones who assume anything popular with the World is bad (I think we assume that far more absolutely then we should, and in the modern very liberal world, use that to justify being Pharisees, because the one thing liberals agree with the New Testament on is that the Pharisees were dicks). So really it's virtually impossible for someone who's as popular with The World as the Antichrist is currently assumed to be (like Obama) to deceive The Church.
This ties into my belief that there will be a Decoy Antichrist(s), that people who seem to fit one or many of the current trendy Antichrist views will pop up and the Church will be too busy being paranoid about them to notice the Wolf in Sheep's clothing.
I find it amusing when Rob Skiba acts like he's being a rebel within the Church with his Anti-Christmas rants. The majority of nominal Christianity may not care, but nearly everyone agrees with him and not me that the traditional date is wrong. Rob says he was raised an Independent Baptist and some of them may happen to be the only radical Christians who dismiss the Christmas complaints. But stuff about how Pagan Christmas is has aired on VCY, that's as mainstream as it gets within Evangelical American Christianity. It would take only 1% of Christians to disagree with Rob for him to get the hate mail he complains about.
As I've pointed out before The Beast will destroy Babylon, because it hates her. It is Babylon that is popular with the World, and the Beast is ultimately against Babylon, though it may use her system at first.
Not only do I think he'll seek to appeal to Christians, but maybe even specifically to Torah observant Christians. There are lots of hints people have noticed that suggest he'll actually enforce The Torah on the world, and claim to be Messiah Ben-Joseph. Even the Mark of the Beast could be based on an overly literal interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:8.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.The Rabbinc Jewish Tefillin custom that involves having texts bound to one's right arm or forehead during daily prayer. Is based on this very passage.
But what about how he will "think to change times and laws"? You may ask.
That's from Daniel 7:25, and I'm growing unsure that even is Antichrist relevant, I think it's possible the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is someone after The Millennium, possibly Gog, and may post on that in the future.
But either way Daniel 7 is Aramaic Daniel, it's about how he relates to the World not Israel. So it could very well be that from that POV his enforcing the Torah's Laws and Calendar on the world would fulfill exactly that. Because right now The World does not follow the Hebrew Calander, associating that detail with a rejection of the Hebrew Calander is basically a Preterist or Historicist logic, saying The Antichrist already did this when Catholicism was born.
Interestingly Daniel 2:21 attributed "changing Laws and Seasons" to the God of Israel (It is popular to assume Nisan was not the beginning of the year before the Exodus). So that could further back up the changing of times to being in favor of not opposition to the Hebrew calendar.
And there is this theory which has lots of assumptions I'm still not sure on but is interesting. And also my theory about a counterfeit Ark/Mercy Seat.
And in John 5:43 when Jesus says "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." That I believe was fulfilled by Barabbas.
He could even find a Hebrew Bible basis for Decapitation being his preferred form of execution in Jehu. Jehu is one of the more complex figures in The Bible, he has the best review of any Northern kingdom ruler, and fulfilled Prophecies of Elijah after being anointed by a Prophet sent be Elisha. An old movie was made called Sins of Jezebel that ignores the bad aspects of Jehu and simply painted him as a good guy. Not unlike that 90s Solomon movie which spent a lot of time propping up Jeroboam and stopped before his fall into idolatry.
Jehu specifically decapitated the Priests of Baal. And Baal is exactly who Hebrew Roots Christians accuse mainstream Christianity of unwittingly worshiping.
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