The Islamic Antichrist

The Internet has been abuzz with varying views and reviews of Joel Richardson’s book promoted by World Net Daily titled, The Islamic Antichrist. The book offers interesting comment and some insightful observations but seeks to challenge and reverse the popular teaching of Babylon the Great being related to either Roman Catholicism or a revived Roman Empire, but instead belonging to the Islamic world.

In Joel Richardson’s thesis, Gog and Magog are neither nations nor individuals arriving from Russia but represent the Antichrist (Gog) and the Islamic world following him. The author identifies him with the Mahdi, the Islamic messiah cum Antichrist (not to be confused with the Islamic doctrine of the Dajjal, the one-eyed Antichrist whom they associate with the ancient Egyptian sun god and with Jesus), and not as Islam understands Him (which is that Jesus was a mere prophet inferior to Mohammed and not God).

Joel Richardson’s arguments are that Rome never conquered Babylon, that Russia is not specifically identified as the “uttermost parts of the North”, that the Gog and Magog conflict and the battle of Armageddon are one and the same, and that Israel will turn to their God and the Lord’s Name will no longer be profaned with the destruction of Gog. Hence, since the Antichrist will cause the Name of God to be profaned and Gog’s destruction ends this, Gog must be the Antichrist cum Mahdi.

Let us be clear that biblically Islam is certainly an Antichrist religion and Mohammed was a type of Antichrist/ false prophet. By the scriptural definition of 1 John, Islam denies the Father and Son relationship and is categorically Antichrist. Moreover, Islamic decapitation and Shari’a law plainly meet the descriptions of the ordeal many will experience when the Antichrist will brutalize those refusing to take his mark and so forth.

Islam has demonstrated a capacity to deceive on two fronts – a political and economic front and a religious front. And it has been able to mobilize global forces and governments against Israel and the Jews. And both have been aimed, no less, at deceiving saved Christians. This deception however has spread from the political realm and into the church with pseudo-Evangelical figures such as Rick Warren, Tony Campolo, Robert Schuller, and above all Emergent church guru Brian McLaren (who celebrates Ramadan). There is no doubt these trends are of prophetic significance and are helping pave the way for the Antichrist and false prophet. Even in an age of apostasy and spiritual degeneration within the church, it is still a fairly distant stretch however to believe that a purely Islamic figure can mislead Christians into accepting him as a returned Christ.

The problem with Joel Richardson’s approach is that he is playing baseball instead of billiards. His eye is one ball and he is ignoring all of the other balls which are no less important.

Joel Richardson’s first problem is that he all but ignores a fundamental principle of biblical exegesis: the Old Testament is interpreted in light of the New Testament of Christ. The New Testament focus (and indeed the only mention) of Gog and Magog is the post-millennia unleashing of Satan followed by Gog and Magog where they are identified with the nations of the earth. It makes no mention of the Antichrist or individuals. Joel Richardson ignores this, violating a foundational tenet of hermeneutics.

This issue presents another consideration which Joel Richardson likewise ignores. Given the fact that by common consensus there are two battles of Gog and Magog, and Ezekiel 38-39 points to two future events, there is every possibility of a predictive double reference so that there is a partial fulfillment in one instance and a total fulfillment in the second. The precedents for this in biblical prophecy, especially eschatology, are multiple. Isaiah 9:6 predicts both the birth of Christ (First Coming) and the government being on His shoulders (Second Coming) in one breath. In the Olivet Discourse Jesus speaks of the 70 A.D. events first predicted in Daniel 9 and then in the same discourse jumps ahead to end time events. The Ezekiel 38-39 prediction that defilement and infidelity will cease will have an obvious and definite fulfillment in the New Testament Gog and Magog. Joel Richardson’s thesis, at least as he presents it, fails because his exegesis fails.

Another problem for Mr. Richardson is that in examining these prophecies in light of the New Testament, is that the New Testament in a spiritual sense identifies Rome with Babylon (1 Peter 5: 13, Revelation 17: 9, 18). The early Christians certainly identified Rome with its Pantheon as the custodian of the false religion s having their ontogeny in ancient Babylon. While we would never use Patristic tradition as a basis of any doctrine or doctrinal interpretation (and we hold a rank disapproval of the post-Nicean fathers theologically), the church fathers do constitute an important historical source to understand the mindset of the early church. Jerome’s De Viris Illustribus, and Augustine’s City of God reveal how earlier sources viewed Rome as another Babylon. Moreover that the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision, which conquered the Grecian conquerors of the Persians who conquered Babylon, is incontestable along with the fact that the typological descriptions of Daniel and Revelation are the same.

Mr. Richardson’s contentions further fail to add up due to considerations of geography. As an example, with the possible and debatable exception of Libya (Put), no Arab countries are even listed in the nations among those involved in the Gog and Magog war in Ezekiel 38-39. His assertion that Russia is not specifically named in Scripture must be co-equally applied to the absence of Arab Moslem nations regarding Gog and Magog. The Armageddon conflict, however, speaks specifically of the nations surrounding Israel and Jerusalem in Zechariah 12. His case, at least as he proposes it, just does not fit and fails to add up. This is to say nothing of the omission of a comprehensive theological argument to reconcile or explain how to resolve the 7 month clean up of the battlefield unless one takes the license to extend the task into the Millennium when in fact the bulk of Scripture, especially in Ezekiel, rather indicate that the biosphere itself will undergo a divinely reconstructed restoration to a pre-Adamic state without participation of human agency.

An additional consideration is that major areas of Arab Moslem Jordan will escape the domain of Antichrist (Daniel 11:41). Moreover, one would be hard pressed to picture Saudi Arabia, the seat of Islam located directly to Israel’s South and an Islamic world mainly to Israel’s South, East, and West (apart from Turkey and half-Moslem Lebanon) as being “the uttermost parts of the North”. It just doesn’t work.

A final problem with Joel Richardson’s scenario is that it avoids addressing central theological facts Scripture asserts regarding Arab Islamic nations. To begin with there are the curses found in the book of Genesis of Ishmael’s seed being divided and Esau’s sword drawn against his brother.

Arab tribes fought each other in pre-Islamic Arabia for centuries. Mohammed believed that by means of monotheism he could bring about a pan-Islamic and pan-Arab unity called “ummah”. It failed and continues to fail to this day. Since the 8th Century Battle of Carballah, Sunni and Shia Moslems have hated each other all the way to the Sunni-Shia and Arab-Kurdish war in Iraq to this day. There is no “ummah”. Indeed, this is a reason why Islam must murder Christians and Jews; without a common enemy they will always kill each other. If Mohammed , Abu Bakir, and Ali could not unite Islam neither will the Mahdi; the union will fail and break down as usual just as the Fatah-based Palestinian Authority and Hamas massacred each other in Gaza, as Iran and Iraq killed 1.5 million of each other, as Sadam Hussein raped Kuwait, and as King Hussein of Jordan exterminated 18,000 of Yassir Arafat’s followers in Black September of 1970.

The curse of Genesis prevents Islamic unity from developing a united empire over-running the West. Islam needed Christianized Britain and America to liberate Kuwait and protect Saudi Arabia from Sadam Hussein just as they still need the West to protect them from their Persian Moslem brothers in contemporary Iran. Indeed, the greatest Islamic Empire was strategically dominated by Ottoman Turks who subjugated the Arab Moslems as serfs and slaves just as Black African Moslems are enslaved by Arab militias today. This is the true face of Islam – a colossal ideological and religious failure, just as it has always been and always shall be.

It is additionally true that the Book of Daniel indicates that the Antichrist is coming in the character of Antiochus Epiphanes, recapitulating the exploits that brought him to power. When the Kings of the North (Western powers) fought the Kings of the South (nations which are today Islamic), the Kings of the South lost and will lose again.

Joel Richardson simply avoids dealing with these issues. Ignoring an issue will not make it go away. He also does not explain how Jesus’ prediction that the Antichrist will come in his own name and whom unsaved Jews will believe (John 5: 43). How will Jews be deceived by an Islamic messiah? The issue of John 5:43 must be examined carefully.

All in all Joel Richardson, while raising some valid points that warrant consideration, constructs a weak case deficient hermeneutically, geographically, and historically. His exegesis is not solid and there are simply far too many questions he does not even address let alone answer.

We do not maintain, however, that there is no merit to the alarm that Joel Richardson, and similarly Brother Walid Shoebat, are attempting to sound. Islam is most certainly an Antichrist religion, but so is any religion that places another in the place of Christ. Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, Sun Yung Moon’s Unification Church and a host of cults are Antichrist and the World Council of Churches dominated by theological liberalism is controlled by an Antichrist spirit. As Moslem’s await Mahdi and Jews a Messiah, so too Buddhists await the 5th Buddha and New Agers await Matriyeh. Could it not be that the Antichrist will be diabolically empowered to cover all bases, of being satanically animated to represent all things to all people?

There is, however, one saving grace in the proposal of Joel Richardson which appears to echo the emphasis of Walid Shoebat. The book of Acts and the Epistles mainly trace the growth of Christianity and the expansion of the Gospel message to the Greco-Roman world in the direction of Europe climaxing in Rome. From it the source of Western civilization springs politically just as it springs from Macedonia and Athens culturally. This is the biblical record of the New Testament.

However, the Gospel, although having its spiritual origins in eternity, was in historical and theological terms born not in the West but in the East out of Old Testament Pre-Talmudic Judaism during The Second Temple Period. The strength of Joel Richardson and of my dear friend Walid Shoebat is that they seek to redress an imbalance which fails to view eschatology (and biblical dogma generally) from an Eastern as well as Western perspective.

It is a further truth that the dangerous threatening and Antichrist nature of Islam must not be understated as it too often has been. Here too we are also indebted to Joel Richardson. He is drawing attention to an evil paving the way for the Antichrist more than any other religious trend with the exception of the ecumenical/ Inter-Faith deception. While much of Joel Richardson’s arguments are implausible and predicted on theologically abject suppositions drawn from faulty exegesis, we must at the same time acknowledge that there is a beneficial dimension to attributing the demonic disease of radical Islam and the need not to limit our perception of Scripture, by reading it through a Hellenistic cultural prism.

Nonetheless, Joel Richardson’s proposition is, in my estimation, fundamentally flawed. If his position is credible, his book categorically fails to package and present this position and to furnish a comprehensive apologetic for it. The source deficiency in Joel Richardson’s book is bad exegesis, which bequeaths the rest of his case a shallow and wobbly, if not hollow, foundation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Will the Antichrist be a Muslim? - Lamplighter Mag. - Lamb & Lion Ministries (Dr. David R. Reagan) Does Daniel Debunk the Assyrian Antichrist? - Prophecy Depot (Bill Salus) Joel Richardson’s “Gog” Challenge Met and Overcome - Eschatology Today (Sean Osborne) Israel, the Church and the Jews - James Jacob Prasch (Book)

Twenty-Year Plam: Islam Targets America
by Dr. Anis Shorrosh

When we immigrated from Jerusalem, Jordan* in January, 1967, little did I imagine that Islam would become center-stage in world news. As my sincere interest in the growth of Islam in America intensified, I began to discuss, dialogue, and then debate Muslim leaders throughout the world from an Arab Christian’s view of Islam. So far, I have had the privilege of participating in over 20 debates and discussions on every continent plus T.V. and radio. “Islam Revealed” was released in 1988 and is now in its 8th printing.
The True Furqan is now in its third printing in the three years it has been published. It is the only book which challenges the Quran in substance, style, language and contents. “The True Furqan” can be located on http://www.answers-to-islam.net/ or http://www.islam-exposed.org/.

This is my analysis of the Islamic invasion of America, the agenda of Islamists and visible methods to take over America by the year 2020! Will Americans continue to sleep through this invasion as they did when we were attacked on 9/11?

1. Terminate America’s freedom of speech by replacing it with hate crime bills state-wide and nation-wide.

2. Wage a war of words using black leaders like Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other visible religious personalities to promote Islam as the original African-American’s religion while Christianity is for the whites! Strange enough, no one tells the African-Americans that it was the Arab Muslims who captured them and sold them as slaves, neither the fact that in Arabic the word for black and slave is the same, “Abed.”

3. Engage the American public in dialogues, discussions, debates in colleges, universities, public libraries, radio, TV, churches and mosques on the virtues of Islam. Proclaim how it is historically another religion like Judaism and Christianity with the same monotheistic faith.

4. Nominate Muslim sympathizers to political office for favorable legislation to Islam and support potential sympathizers by block voting.

5. Take control of as much of Hollywood, the press, TV, radio and the internet by buying the corporations or a controlling stock.

6. Yield to the fear of imminent shut-off of the lifeblood of America - the black gold. America’s economy depends on oil, (1000 products are derived from oil), so does its personal and industrial transportation and manufacturing -41% comes from the Middle East.

7. Yell, “foul, out-of-context, personal interpretation, hate crime, Zionist, un- American, inaccurate interpretation of the Quran” anytime Islam is criticized or the Quran is analyzed in the public arena.

8. Encourage Muslims to penetrate the White House, specifically with Islamists who can articulate a marvelous and peaceful picture of Islam. Acquire government positions, get membership in local school boards. Train Muslims as medical doctors to dominate the medical field, research and pharmaceutical companies. Take over the computer industry. Establish Middle Eastern restaurants throughout the U.S. to connect planners of Islamization in a discreet way. Ever notice how numerous Muslim doctors in America are, when their countries need them more desperately than America?

9. Accelerate Islamic demographic growth via:
a. Massive immigration (100,000 annually since 1961)
b. No birth control whatsoever - every baby of Muslim parents is automatically a Muslim and cannot choose another religion later.
c. Muslim men must marry American women and Islamize them (10,000 annually). Then divorce them and remarry every five years - since one cannot have the Muslim legal permission to marry four at one time. This is a legal solution in America.
d. Convert angry, alienated black inmates and turn them into militants (so far 2000 released inmates have joined Al Qaida world-wide). Only a few have been captured in Afghanistan and on American soil. So far - sleeping cells!

10. Reading, writing, arithmetic and research through the American educational system, mosques and student centers (now 1500) should be sprinkled with dislike of Jews, evangelical Christians and democracy. There are 300 exclusively Muslim schools with loyalty to the Quran, not the U.S. Constitution.

11. Provide very sizeable monetary Muslim grants to colleges and universities in America to establish “Centers for Islamic studies” with Muslim directors to promote Islam in higher education institutions.

12. Let the entire world know through propaganda, speeches, seminars, local and national media that terrorists have hijacked Islam, not the truth, which is Islam hijacked the terrorists. Furthermore in January of 2002, Saudi Arabia’s Embassy in Washington mailed 4500 packets of the Quran, videos, promoting Islam to America’s high schools—free. They would never allow us to reciprocate.

13. Appeal to the historically compassionate and sensitive Americans for sympathy and tolerance towards the Muslims in America who are portrayed as mainly immigrants from oppressed countries.

14. Nullify America’s sense of security by manipulating the intelligence community with misinformation. Periodically terrorize Americans of impending attacks on bridges, tunnels, water supplies, airports, apartment buildings and malls. (We have experienced this too often since 9-11.)

15. Form riots and demonstrations in the prison system demanding Islamic Sharia as the way of life, not American’s justice system.

16. Open numerous charities throughout the U.S. but use the funds to support Islamic terrorism with American dollars.

17. Raise interest in Islam on America’s campuses by insisting that freshman take at least one course on Islam. Be sure that the writer is a bonafide American, Christian, scholarly and able to cover up the violence in the Quran and express the peaceful, spiritual and religious aspect only.

18. Unify the numerous Muslim lobbies in Washington, mosques, Islamic student centers, educational organizations, magazines and papers by internet and an annual convention to coordinate plans, propagate the faith and engender news in the media of their visibility.

19. Send intimidating messages and messengers to the outspoken individuals who are critical of Islam and seek to eliminate them by hook or crook.

20. Applaud Muslims as loyal citizens of the US by spotlighting their voting record as the highest percentage of all minority and ethic groups in America.

* Jerusalem was held by Jordan from 1948 when it attacked Israel until 1967, when it again attacked Israel.

Dr. Anis Shorrosh, D.Min, D.Phil, and a member of Oxford Society of Scholars, has traveled in 76 countries. He is a Palestinian Arab Christian American, who is an author, lecturer and producer of TV documentaries. He is author of the best-seller “Islam Revealed” and his tenth book - “Islam: A Threat or a Challenge.” - was published in the spring, 2003.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/rob_nothink.htm

AND FIGHT THEM UNTIL THERE IS NO PERSECUTION , AND RELIGION SHALL BE ONLY FOR ALLAH 2:193

Quran 9:33 ISLAM WILL PREVAIL OVER ALL RELIGIONS

“ISLAM ISN’T IN AMERICA TO BE EQUAL TO ANY OTHER FAITH, BUT TO BECOME DOMINANT. The Koran ... should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth. Everthing we need to know is in the Koran. We don’t need to look somewhere else.” OMAR M. AHMAD, CHAIRMAN OF CAIR,the mainsteam Muslim advocacy group.

They’re coming, America:

As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone. In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:

Nation % Muslim
United States 1.0%
Australia 1.5%
Italy 1.5%
Norway 1.8%
Canada 1.9%
China 2.0%

At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:

Nation % Muslim
Denmark 2.0%
United Kingdom 2.7%
Germany 3.7%
Spain 4.0%
Thailand 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply. (United States).

Nation % Muslim
Switzerland 4.3%
Philippines 5.0%
Sweden 5.0%
The Netherlands 5.5%
Trinida and Tabago 5.8%
France 8.0%
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world but to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions (Paris –car-burnings). Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats (Amsterdam - Mohammed cartoons).

Nation % Muslim
Guyana 10.0%
India 13.4%
Israel 16.0%
Kenya 10.0%
Russia 15.0%

After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning:

Nation % Muslim
Ethiopia 32.8%

At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare:

Nation % Muslim
Bosnia 40.0%
Chad 50.1%
Lebanon 59.7%

From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:

Nation % Muslim
Albania 70.0%
Malaysia 60.4%
Qatar 77.5%
Sudan 70.0%

After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:

Nation % Muslim
Bangladesh 83.0%
Egypt 90.0%
Gaza 98.7%
Indonesia 86.1%
Iran 98.0%
Iraq 97.0%
Jordan 92.0%
Morocco 98.7%
Pakistan 97.0%
Syria 90.0%
Tajikistan 90.0%
Turkey 99.8%
United Arab Emirates 96.0%

100% will usher in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ — the Islamic House of Peace — there’s supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim: Nation % Muslim

Yemen 99.9%
Afghanistan 100.0%
Saudi Arabia 100.0%
Somalia 100.0%

Muslims in New York City desecrate the U.S. flag.
‘You see this flag, it’s going on the ground and we crush it beneath our feet...our loyalty is only to Allah’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO74GwUTZj4

Muslims in Michigan fighting U.S. citizens
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEPod-hxD7g&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fislaminaction08%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F2009%2F07%2Fmichiganmuslim%2Dmob%2Dsurrounds%2Dand%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

Barack Hussein Obama has banned the National Day of Prayer from the White House, now get a load of THIS!!
ISLAM ON CAPITOL HILL 2009 - islamoncapitolhill.com
http://islamoncapitolhill.com/Home_Page.html
As many as 50,000 Muslims may be congregating at the White House with the blessings of the usuper.
Read their plans for ‘Muslims on Capitol hill’!!
Alarming! Infuriating!!
Does THIS leave any doubt as to what we have sitting in the White House?
Be sure to read every page!
Every page ends with ‘OUR TIME HAS COME’!!

On February 27th, speaking to Kristof of The New York Times, Barack Hussein Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, “with a first-class [Arabic] accent.”
The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada:

“Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet? “

According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim’s complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam. Obama chanted it with pride and finesse.

From ‘The Audacity Of Hope, “I WILL STAND WITH THEM (MUSLIMS) SHOULD THE POLITICAL WINDS OF WAR SHIFT IN AN UGLY DIRECTION..”

Quote from Barack Obama’s book, Dreams Of My Father:
“THE PERSON WHO MADE ME PROUDEST OF ALL, THOUGH, WAS MY [half brother], ROY..HE CONVERTED TO ISLAM”.

From ‘Dreams of my Father’, “IN INDONESIA, I SPEND TWO YEARS AT A MUSLIM SCHOOL” “..I STUDIED THE KORAN..”

From ‘Audacity of Hope: “LOLO (Obama’s step father) FOLLOWED ISLAM....”I LOOKED TO LOLO FOR GUIDANCE”.

From The Audacity Of Hope, “WE ARE NO LONGER JUST A CHRISTIAN NATION, we are also a Jewish nation, a MUSLIM NATION, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”
.

http://www.examiner.com/a-536474~_Trapped_between_two_worlds_.html
http://www.examiner.com/a-534540~Can_a_past_of_Islam_change_the_path_to_president_for_Obama_.html?cid=dc-article-obama

“My Muslim faith..” Barack Hussein Obama

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