To talk about the Antichrist is not so simple because I have to give you some background information. On the other hand, I don't want to speak about the Antichrist in some academic fashion. I want to show that it applies to your life. I want to speak to start by talking about the Resurrection. What it has to do with the Antichrist will become evident to you in a little while.
There is such a thing as the Resurrection. And I'm not just talking about the future Resurrection, which will also take place, and I mentioned it a moment ago. I'm talking about the fact that when Jesus came into the world, something happened. A unique phenomenon appeared. A phenomenon of the Resurrection. You know, in the Old Testament, the word Resurrection — the Old Testament section of the Bible, the Jewish Bible — the word Resurrection doesn't even appear, not once. There are some hints and references to the Resurrection, but the word doesn't appear at all.
When you turn to the New Testament, a complete change. The word Resurrection, Anastasis in the New Testament, the Greek word, occurs 42 times. 42 times in the New Testament. Not to mention many other words referring to the Resurrection, like "He is risen," or "one is raised up," and other such related words. It runs into hundreds of times. The Resurrection from the dead — it's a key idea. A key fact, in fact, in the New Testament.
Some years ago, when I was in England in student days, I met somebody called Dr. Lowe. In fact, I think Brother Jeffrey, who is on duty today and cannot be here — Brother Jeffrey also knows Dr. Lowe. Dr. Lowe was a very fine brother, a doctor from China, who went to England to do his medical examinations, because his medical training in China was not recognized in this part of the world. And so he had to take his exams all over again. And he shared with me on one occasion how, as a young doctor, he was assigned to a certain part of Guangdong, a certain village in Guangdong province. And there he had to look after a number of patients. He was known to be a Christian, because he everywhere proclaimed the glory of his Lord.
And he was looking after an elderly lady. And the worst thing that can happen to a young doctor in his first practical assignment — the patient died on him. The patient died. And he thought to himself, this is a little village, and everybody knows I'm a Christian, and my patient dies on me. He was desperate. He didn't know what to do. He tried everything he knew from his medical training to revive his patient again. All in vain. All in vain.
He was so anxious and so desperate. He ran to one — there was one local doctor there — and he rushed there. He told me that in his anxiety, he stumbled and fell over a few times, picked himself up from the ground, and came panting to the doctor, and said, "Please, please help me." And the doctor said, "Well, what happened?" He said, "My patient died." And the doctor said, "Well, what are you asking me for?" He said, "But she's dead. You've got to help me." He said, "Don't you understand? She's dead. What are you asking me? Do you think I'm a magician? Do you think I'm God? I can raise the dead? If she's dead, she's dead." He said, "But please, you've got to do something." He said, "Well, what do you expect me to do?"
So very dejected, the young Dr. Lowe went back, crying out to the Lord, went back to his patient, checked his patient, and she was still dead. He said, "Lord, what am I going to do? Please help me. What's going to happen to my witness in this village? What's going to happen to me?" He fell on his knees, the tears running down his face, crying out to the Lord, and he prayed and he prayed. And suddenly he heard a cough and a groan, and he looked at the woman, and there was some movement in her eyes, in her eyelids, and there was some color coming back into her face. And he said, you know what happened? She came back to life.
Now this is a doctor. If you and I thought somebody was dead, maybe we might be wrong. We don't know how to tell the difference between somebody being dead and alive, perhaps. We've got trouble even telling that spiritually. We have a hard time telling whether a Christian is dead or alive spiritually. And some Christians don't know whether they are dead or alive spiritually. But at least you expect that a doctor knows whether his patient is dead or alive. She came back to life.
This kind of occurrence, by the way, is not at all unique. When I was in the States, you know, I have a habit. Everywhere I travel, going to a conference, or coming back from a conference or somewhere, every town, every major town I pass through, I look where there's a Christian bookshop. And so, of course, I go to these Christian bookshops, and Helen used to find that quite trying in the beginning, but she's become such that now she even outstays me in the bookshop, because she goes to the music section and looks for the tapes and music thing. So now I have to drag her out of the bookshop when I'm finished.
But anyway, I go to these bookshops, and I saw a book on sale. Mostly I only look for relatively serious theological works. And this book was not a theological work, but it was going for $1.99. And I thought, for $1.99, this is rather irresistible. So I took this book back. And it proved to be very interesting. The whole book was describing the things that God has been doing in the lives of various people, the testimonies of various people of what God has done in their lives. All kinds of things are reported in there, cases of cancer being healed, and this and that happening.
But I noted with particular interest a number of testimonies, and I put only those — I give you only, there's time only for one or two instances. In each case, I'm going to cite, since it has to do with the Resurrection, the testimony of doctors or surgeons. Because I presume that they actually know the difference between whether a person is dead or alive, as I mentioned. I hope they do, at least.
But anyway, there was here in this book the testimony of Dr. William S. Reed, a surgeon in the United States, who tells a story about his two-year-old son who died of acute viral pneumonia, and died so suddenly and so quickly that — he went out, the son was suffering from fever — he went out to perform an operation, and when he came back, he found his son was already dead. He picked up his son, found, tested him for any sign of life, and he was dead. And this is what Dr. Reed tells us. He tried everything he knew according to his medical training to revive his son, but all in vain. He fell on his knees and he prayed and he wept before the Lord, crying out to the Lord. And as he wept and cried, as in the case of Dr. Lowe, there was a sign, a sound of movement, and the little boy, being dead for some ten minutes as far as the doctor was able to ascertain, came back to life. He put his stethoscope to the son's chest, and indeed, the son was back to life again. In fact, he tells his own story in a book which some of you may have seen. In fact, I have seen that book in Christian bookstores called The Surgery of the Soul.
Not long after his own son was resurrected, brought back to life by the power of the Lord, this surgeon was called to the pediatric section of the hospital in which he worked, and the nurse asked him to certify the death of a little girl. This is pretty routine, I guess, for doctors to be doing this all the time. And so he went into the bedside of this little girl who had died. He made the usual checks upon the girl for any signs of life. The girl had already died for a little while. And so he stopped the resuscitator and removed the IV from the girl's arm, the IV, the intravenous drip, removed the drip from her arm, and was about to sign the paper, the certificate of her death.
And then he saw the mother of that little girl, the mother of that little girl beside the bedside, heartbroken, sobbing and weeping. And Dr. Reed looked at the mother, and then it came back to his own mind how he himself had wept with the death of his two-year-old son a few weeks earlier. And compassion — the compassion of the Lord came into his heart. And he felt, I can't just sign the death certificate. I can't just close the book like this. The Lord had mercy on me, and will I leave this mother weeping by the bedside of her little daughter?
And so he cried out to the Lord when he looked upon the dead girl lying there in the bed. And the words of the Lord came into his mind: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And he that lives and believes in me shall never die." He put his hands on the little girl's head and he started to pray, calling upon the name of the Lord and saying to the Lord Jesus, "Lord Jesus, you gave me back my little boy. Will you not give back this little girl to her mother? Who else?" And the Lord did that. The little girl who had been dead for some time came back to life and was reunited with her mother.
These are witnesses, not fairy tales, not stories that we have drawn up from somewhere else. These are by responsible people who are living today. I have even mentioned his name a couple of times — Dr. William S. Reed. There are many such cases, and time hardly allows me to go on. Let me just mention quickly one more case of a well-known Bible teacher whose books you may have also seen in question.
# The Cross and the Antichrist (Part 2)
...or S.S. or whatever. It's spelled E-S-S-E-S. And you may have seen, if you are a frequenter of Christian bookstores as I am, you may have seen some of his books in the Christian bookstore. And he relates this account of his own experience. He was on holiday with his family in Mexico. And it is very popular in North America to go on holiday with your own trailer. You know, you have a car that tows a big trailer along at the back with your own sleeping facilities and cooking facilities. And it gives you the freedom to go where you want to go if you tow this trailer along with you. And it's very common in North America.
And he went with his wife, his son, and his 12-year-old daughter called Kathy, and they were holidaying in Mexico. And Mexico is a popular place for people in North America to go on holidays, because the currency exchange is very favorable. You can get a cheap holiday in Mexico. And so he went to this place in Mexico where they parked their trailer. And because this place apparently was tended to be easily flooded, the trailer park was — the trailers had to be parked on a high concrete block.
Now during the holiday, one day his daughter Kathy was leaning against the trailer door. Very dangerous to lean against the door of anything. And as she leaned against the trailer door, the trailer door suddenly opened and she fell out of the trailer and fell down eight feet onto a concrete block below. And she fell right on her head. And that split her head open. A long way to fall. Eight feet down. Almost from the ceiling down to the floor here. And to drop right on your head onto concrete. Her head was split open. The blood was just pouring out, and they wrapped her in a blanket, and the whole blanket was quickly soaked with blood.
And they rushed her to the nearest government hospital. And she was pronounced dead on arrival. But the government hospital in Mexico told them that they could not give a death certificate, that they had to take their dead daughter to the civil hospital seven miles away in order for the doctors there to issue a death certificate. So when the daughter was pronounced dead, Dr. Esses — he's not a medical doctor, this one, he's a doctor in terms of theology — he looked to God. And he remembered the scripture verse which says, "In everything, give thanks." Give thanks. We are on holiday. My daughter dies such a terrible death. How to give thanks?
But he determined in the midst of this most tragic circumstance to praise God. He said, "I shall praise Him. I shall praise Him even in this most terrible situation. I will give thanks to His name." Have you ever tried that, when you have had some disaster striking you? To know that God cares for us, that if this thing happens, this tragedy happens, there must be some reason. I don't know what the reason is, but there must be some reason. And so Michael Esses decided he was going to praise God. Praise Him in the midst of death.
And after having praised Him, he decided to do more. He decided he will pray for his daughter with her skull split open. He will pray all the same. He will pray. He said, "Lord, if you want to take my daughter, thanks be to your name. But if it is your will to restore her again, her life is in your hands. Let it be according to your will. I submit my life to you, my will to you." He prayed. He prayed for Kathy. After he prayed for her, nothing happened. Kathy was dead. Still dead.
They took her seven miles in the ambulance to the civilian hospital for the death certificate. In order to do that, she had to be ushered into the examination room. And she was brought in there, and the parents, of course, had to stay outside. She was given a final examination before the certificate was signed. And then Michael Esses saw the doctor coming out of the examination room shouting, saying, "Loco Americanos!" Well, he didn't know too much Spanish, but he did know what loco means. There is a phrase used even in English. "You are loco" means you are nutty, you are crazy. So "loco Americanos" is easy to understand. Of course, you don't have to know Spanish to understand that. Loco Americanos means crazy Americans.
So he said to the doctor, "Why are you saying crazy Americans?" He said, "Well, why did you bring your daughter here?" "Because the government hospital asked us to bring the daughter here because it signed the death certificate." "Death certificate? What death certificate? There is nothing wrong with her." "Nothing wrong?" He said, "I can't believe my ears. Did I hear you say nothing wrong?" He says, "You come into the examination room and have a look." Well, he came into the examination room, and Kathy was sitting up looking perfectly well. And in order to examine, they had shaved her head to see what was this alleged smash on her head. There was not even a scratch. Not a bruise. Not a scratch from falling eight feet. There was not a scratch. The blanket that she was still wrapped in was soaked in blood. The doctors looked at the blanket and it was all full of blood. They looked at the patient. There was not even a scratch on her head. "You crazy Americans. What's the matter with you? Why do you bring your daughter here wasting our time? Nothing wrong with her."
Amazing. These are not fairy tales, brothers and sisters. We are not talking fairy tales. We are talking about the power of Jesus. Oh, there are many more cases here. We don't have time to go into this. My time is almost gone and I haven't gotten to the Antichrist yet. And you are saying to me, "Well, why are you telling us all this? What has this got to do with the Antichrist?" It has everything to do with the Antichrist. Two main things. And with those two points I will have to leave to the next time to elaborate. But I'll tell you what the two points are.
If Christians don't know that the sign of the Resurrection is the sign of the New Testament — when Jesus went into his ministry, you know what happened? He kept raising the dead. It happened several times. We have it in the New Testament. We have it happening today. If you think this is only in the New Testament, that is why I'm telling you about occurrences within the last ten years. I'm not talking about what happened 50 years ago. I'm talking about people who are alive today. People that you can go to the United States and talk to them and find out from them. Is this true? Did my pastor back home tell me stories? Tell me fables? Well, go and find them. I've given you their names. If you want to locate them, I'll help you in that too. Make a trip to the United States and talk to them and see whether I'm telling you stories or not.
I glory in my God. I stand here preaching Jesus today not because I couldn't find myself some other job. I stand here preaching about Jesus because He is real. "I am the Resurrection and the Life." You think when Jesus said those words, He was just saying some fancy words that we have to try to figure out — well, what does resurrection mean? We have to find some theological, mythological interpretation for this? When He says He's the Resurrection, He means exactly that. He raises the dead.
You know about Jairus' daughter, don't you? It's in the New Testament. "Jairus' daughter, get up." And she got up. There was a funeral procession in Nain. And the widow, the mother, was weeping. It was her only son that was dead. She was weeping all the way to the graveyard to bury her only son. The Lord Jesus looked — just like this doctor I mentioned, Dr. Reed — looked upon the weeping mother and He had compassion upon her. He stopped the funeral procession. Have you ever seen a certain thing like this? All these people crying at the back, all these people crying at the front, and the Lord Jesus says, "Stop." "What, stop?" He said, "Open the coffin." "What? Open the coffin?" And He says to this young man lying there, "Get up." One word of life from Him and that man got up. The dead son got up. Can you imagine that? A funeral procession turns into a feast of joy. That is my Lord.
And recently, just a few months ago, when I was in Israel together with Helen, I made a special point to go to Nain one more time to remember this account. The little village of Nain in Galilee. And I said to Helen, "Look at this place. This is where it happened. Where the Lord Jesus turned the funeral into a feast of joy." He can turn your life, which may be a funeral right now, into a feast of joy.
And then of course you know the case of Lazarus. He was dead for four days. Four days. And his sister was saying to the Lord, his body is already rotting in the tomb. The Lord said, "Open the tomb anyway." "Open the tomb? I have to hold my nose. How can I even open the tomb? You know that this is the hot part of the world. Four days, he'll be rotting." The Lord Jesus said, "Open the tomb." And then what did He say? "Lazarus, come out." "Lazarus, come out?" Dead four days. Can you imagine what the people thought? Here comes Lazarus walking out of the tomb. I think many a woman there just collapsed on the ground. I mean, this is too terrifying a sight. I think some people are frightened by the Resurrection. It really scares them.
I remember Brother Joe, when his father died — three years ago, is it? Two or three years ago, I think many of you know. He phoned to me and said to me, "Shall I pray for my father to be raised from the dead?" I say, "You do whatever the Lord leads you to do." And his mother said — you know what his mother said? "I can't stand it. I can't stand the thought of it. You mean my dead husband is going to rise from the dead? I think when he rises, I will die." It is such a terrifying thing for many people to think of it. It's easy to think about the widow of Nain and the funeral procession long ago. But imagine this happening to you. I mean, the shock of this is too much. His mother said, "I wouldn't be able to take it. My heart won't be able to stand this."
What glory! What power! The dead shall be raised. This is what the Lord Jesus will do. But how do we know all this? Were you there to see it? No. Let me tell you something. I have experienced the power of the Resurrection in my own life. You said, "What? You died physically?" No, I didn't die physically. But I was dead spiritually. And I have experienced what He can do. I know of a resurrection to my mind even more wonderful than raising the physically dead. The power of the Resurrection is such that God can take a sinner who has committed all kinds of sins, dead — as Paul says — in trespasses and sins, and raise him to new life, to make a new person out of him.
I wonder which is more wonderful — to raise a physically dead person, or to raise a spiritually dead person and turn him into a new man? That's what happened to me. I was dead in trespasses and sins. If you knew me as a non-Christian and you know me now, you will wonder whether you are talking to the same person. And of course you will be right. You are not talking to the same person. I have become a different man. And I have shared with some of you before. My father knew me before I became a Christian. My father also saw what happened to me after I became a Christian. And it was he who said to me one day when I visited him three years after I became a Christian — I hadn't seen him for many years. After I came out of China, he was in Singapore at the time. I visited him for a short time in Singapore, and when I was leaving, he said to me, "Before you leave, I want to tell you one thing. I have watched you for the past three days when you have been in Singapore. I want to tell you something. You are a totally different person from the son that I knew before. You were a very bad man. But now you are a totally different person."
That is the power of the Resurrection now. Now. I have seen many dead people raised — spiritually dead people raised. I have seen sick people raised too. But to me that is not so important. I have also prayed for cancer patients and people like that, and they have been totally healed, not a trace of cancer left to be seen after the prayer. I am less impressed with that, I can tell you, than with the transformation of lives that I have seen. The power of the Resurrection to produce a new man.
You say, "Fine, our time is almost gone and you still haven't talked about the Antichrist." Very quickly I have to sum up as we close. You see, the Antichrist knows perfectly well that the sign of the new age, the sign of the Christ, is the Resurrection. He knows that perfectly well. And therefore the Antichrist, in order to deceive — to deceive all the phony Christians, I am sorry to use this phrase, I am sorry, but there are a lot of phony Christians around — and these are the people that the Antichrist will deceive first of all, because they can't see, they can't discern the truth. And when the Antichrist comes they will think, "Ah, this is the Christ." This is the Antichrist, not the Christ, but they say, "Ah."
But you see, he also knows that Christians who have been to church for a little while understand that the sign of the Christ is the Resurrection. In fact, the Lord Jesus said to the leaders of the Jews, He says, "No sign will be given to you except one — the sign of the prophet Jonah." And you know what is the sign of the prophet Jonah? The Resurrection, of course. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man will be three days dead. And as Jonah of course came back to life, as it were, he came out of the fish again, as you know, so the Son of Man will be raised again. That is the sign of the prophet Jonah. He says, "I will give you no other sign." But I tell you, there is one sign of the Christ. If you want to know whether I am the Christ or not, whether I am the Savior King — because the word Christ means the Savior King — I will tell you there is only one sign: the sign of the Resurrection. And you will be witness to it.
Jesus rose from the dead, and the Antichrist knows that too. And this is why the Antichrist will try to perform the same thing in his own life. Let me read to you Revelation 13 before we close. Revelation 13 tells us about this Antichrist. You will read this in chapter 13 of Revelation, verse 3: "And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed, and the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast." Here the Antichrist is called the beast. We have a saying in Chinese: "Ren mian shou xin" — the face of a human being, the heart of a beast. The Antichrist is exactly like this: "Ren mian shou xin."
And he says, "I saw this beast which seemed to have been slain, as if it had been slain." Very interesting. The phrase "as if it had been slain" is exactly the same phrase as is applied to the Lord Jesus in verse 8, the last line of verse 8: "The Lamb who has been slain." The other word "slain" is exactly the same. You see, the Antichrist is trying to imitate Christ. The word "Lamb" there describes the Lord Jesus. As the Lamb was slain, so the Antichrist as if He had been slain. Now notice — not that He had been slain, but as if He had been slain. He is going to try to imitate the Resurrection. He is going to try to show that though He has been fatally wounded, people will not know that He hasn't actually died. But it will be given out as though He had died and He would be raised again from the dead.
Look at verse 12 of the same chapter: "And he exercises all authority of the first beast." This is concerning the second beast now, the false prophet. And as we go on in this series I will explain these things more. And the false prophet exercises all the authority of the first beast, that is the Antichrist, in the presence of the Antichrist, and he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the Antichrist, the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. You see again an imitation of the Resurrection. And then verse 14, it repeats one more time so we get the picture: "And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given to him to perform in the presence of the Antichrist, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast, the Antichrist who had the wound of the sword and had come to life."
I've been talking about the Resurrection because the Antichrist knows this too. And in order to be able to try to deceive you, to deceive the church, he too has to try to show the sign of the Resurrection. But that brings us to the second point that I mentioned. How will we be able to tell the true and the false? Not unless you have also experienced the power of the Resurrection in your own life.
But the world — the whole world will be deceived. Look at verse 3: "The whole earth," it says in the second part of this verse, "was amazed and followed after the beast." And verse 8 tells us, "And all who dwell on the earth will worship the Antichrist." All who dwell on the earth. The whole world will be amazed. He will startle the world with a marvelous imitation of the Resurrection. How are you and I going to survive? I say again, not unless you have experienced in your own life the power of the Resurrection to transform you, to open your eyes, to be able to tell the truth from the falsehood.
In this verse twice it refers to the saints. The only people who will not be deceived are the saints, the holy ones. Look at that in verse 7: "And it was given to the Antichrist to make war with the saints." Why does he make war with the saints? Because the saints are not deceived. The saints will not follow the beast. The saints will not worship him. And so he makes war on the saints, the holy ones. The holy ones. Remember, I've been talking about holiness. The word "saints" simply means "holy ones."
And he makes war on the saints and overcomes them. Brothers and sisters, you and I will be overcome. What does it mean to be overcome? It means we will be suppressed, we will be persecuted, and we will be put to death, just as the Lord Jesus warned in Matthew 24 concerning the last things — saints. We see the same thing in verse 10, about the saints there as well. The last line says, "Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints." What is about the saints? These saints are the ones who will be faithful unto death.
Chapter 12, verse 11 tells us this: "And they overcame Satan because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death." Do you love your life? If you love this world and you love this life, you will not survive the deception and the persecution of the Antichrist. I pray that God will grant you to experience the power of His Resurrection here and now. Let us pray. Amen.