17) And on the antiChrist – are all the references to the same? The man of lawlessness / Beasts (Revelation) / antiChrist (1 John)? Do they all refer to one (future) world governor? 1 John is very ambiguous – ‘you have heard it said’ could mean and many have come and one will finally come / or it could mean this is what you have heard but the coming will be through many coming. So for me I am agnostic about such a manifestation. The value of believing in such a figure does not seem a factor, all such warnings about such figures was to stir believers now to hold fast to Christ – not inform them about some future event / person.
18) What is certain is if Christians withdraw there can only be a one-world government etc. In other words the salt of the earth is to do just that – the salt was the salt of the Dead Sea: used as a fertiliser and a sanitiser on the dung heap. To promote right growth and stop bad growth. I see the warnings as that – the battle is real. We already have a one-world government. Called the world / governed by the devil etc. I see the warnings about not buying and selling / 666 in that context. To be truly Christian will mean limitations when society oppose us – compare alien cultures such as Islam, communism, Nazism etc. We don’t have to look too far for 666!!!! 666 = number of humanity three times over, personified by Nero (the first of many clear antiChrist rulers) who fiddled why Rome burned and then blamed the Christians for it.
Wait a minute Martin, hold on! A one world government!!! I haven’t read the books but doesn’t the Left Behind series show that we already have that – in the UN? I guess you could say the devil is behind all of that. Yup, that must be right. Oh no, if we are going to plot who has real power around the world, the power of deadly force then it isn’t the UN at all. No, its the good ole, Christian USA. The USA has somewhere between 700 and 1000 military bases (depending on how you define a base) located in numerous countries all over the world (some say 191 countries). If there is a global cop, with the potential for military force and violence (surely such violence is a sign of being under the control of the devil isn’t it, afterall Jesus is the Prince of Peace) then the one world government isn’t the UN at all, rather it is the USA. Oh my, here is where my end times theology breaks down. It just isn’t possible that such a Christian nation would be under the control of the devil so how is it they are the closest to being the one world government? Oh boy, now I am really, really confused. Please explain this to me.
I do take heart from something I read the other day. When the president of Ecuador was asked by the USA if they could locate a military base in that country he said sure, as long as, he could locate an Ecuadorian base in the US. Great answer and such policies of reciprical military bases would solve tons of problems.
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Cheryl… UN etc., is only the beginning. We (lucky we) will be raptured out of here then the full extent of the UN, EU, RC renegade church and all the other ‘baddies’ will find a level of unity and be extremely bad. As you say… rather misses the point. The one-’world’ government has been here all along. We live in it – and are supposed to – but not be off it. We cannot deify the West / democracy nor demonise the East / socialism (though I have always voted that way!!) / Islam etc.
Systems make everything easy. I am good, what I do not like / do not understand / is different to my values is bad.
Some days I feel heavy, other days I think if only we could re-imagine what Jesus meant and not try and capture him for ‘us’ there is such hope.