As I've mentioned before, one of the main charges that was brought against the leaders of Israel was that they failed to warn the people of the terrible dangers that are ahead. And so when these dangers came, when the catastrophe of national disaster came, when Israel was to be wiped out because of their sins, they were unprepared because they had not been warned. And it came as a thief in the night. The judgment of God came as a thief in the night and caught them unprepared, and they were wiped out as a nation. And that happened more than once. And I don't wish to be guilty of such a failure. And that is why in these series of messages I have been speaking about the danger that is coming to the church, the danger from somebody that in the Bible is called the Antichrist. So that on that day, when I stand and when you stand, we together will stand before the Lord, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, it will not be laid to my charge that I had not warned you of the dreadful danger that is before us. Frightening danger. And that is the reason for these series of messages that I have been preaching on for over a year now, every month.
Now, last time it was interesting that I spoke about the cold, long winter of the Antichrist. And I also mentioned how in Canada we know how to prepare for the winter. Because the winter, if you are not prepared for it in Canada, it's not just you will be feeling cold. It could cost you your life. And every driver in Canada knows the danger of driving on the interstate highways, the intercity highways, when if the car breaks down, you may have only 20 minutes in which to live. Because if that car breaks down and nobody comes to your rescue in 20 minutes, the engine stops working, the heating goes off, you may not have much more time left. And therefore, I mentioned last time too, that in Canada we are well prepared, or ought to be well prepared for this.
And there are a number of things that we do. One of these things is to have a radio in your car. That is not a luxury, it's a necessity in Canada. And yet it's an amazing thing that many Canadian drivers do not carry a radio in their cars. It's called a CB radio, a citizen band radio, from which you can call for help. Usually the police tune in to the emergency channel of that radio. And yet I know many drivers in Canada who drive intercity and carry no radio. Now you can hope for the best if your car breaks down and you can't call for help in the middle of the night when few cars are on the road. In the daytime, you might be able to flag another car down and ask for help. But what if you are in some part where there are very few cars coming by, and Canada is a huge country with relatively few people. And if you are not able to flag a car down for help, you are gone. You might have 20 minutes, you may have 30 minutes. So the radio is an important thing.
In the long winter of the Antichrist — and it will seem very long to those who have to endure it — to endure 20 minutes of cold is a very long time. 20 minutes by your watch is not very long, but 20 minutes of suffering is a very long time. In the long winter of the Antichrist, we must have our spiritual radios going if we are going to survive. The important thing is that you have a radio at all, and a radio that works. And the radio symbolizes for us prayer, communion with God. Let me say this to you: when the Antichrist comes and you don't know how to pray, and you don't pray, you are gone. In some spiritual equivalent of 20 minutes, when the Antichrist turns his attention on you. Do you know how to pray? Now if you want to start learning to pray then, it might be a little bit late in the day. These are things we have to prepare now. You've got to get your radio into the car before the winter starts. There's no use trying to look around and try to get a radio going and find that in the middle of the winter, your car breaks down and you turn on your CB radio, and the shock to discover that your radio is not working anymore. It has long since packed up. And you can shout all you like into the radio, nobody will hear you. And it will be getting colder and colder. At minus 20 degrees, as is a quite constant temperature in Canada, say in December and January, that is no way to prepare for disaster if your radio is not working. We must learn to pray. That is the way to be able at all times to draw strength and help from the Lord.
A second thing that every Canadian driver who knows the Canadian winter should be doing is that once it's beginning to get cold, you change your tires on the car and you put on what I call snow tires. You just cannot drive in a Canadian winter with ordinary tires. The kind of tires that cars use in Hong Kong simply cannot drive in Canada in winter. That car will be off the road and into the ditch long before it can go anywhere. You need special kinds of tires that are really like weapons. They knock into the snow and the ice and they grip the ice. It's amazing how they can grip that ice. I sometimes wonder how it's done. And yet it can hold on where other tires simply could not make any impression at all. A wheel would just be spinning on the ice. But the snow tire is like a weapon. It seizes the ice. It seems to knock or bash into the ice and give the car some kind of a grip.
We need to have a grip on the road — on the road, or the way as it is called in the New Testament. The road to life. To be on the road is one thing. To have wheels that spin on the ice and cannot grip the road doesn't take you anywhere. You may be on the right road. Your car may be facing the right direction. But you're going nowhere. And especially not if you get into a ditch. So that's the important thing — to be able to hold fast. Hold fast in the most adverse and difficult conditions. Can you hold fast even in good conditions? When a tire is worn and its tread is gone, even in good road conditions, the car will not perform very well. And once it starts raining like today, the car will be sliding off the road. It hasn't got enough grip. We need special grip upon the road to hold fast. And that road is the word of God. Jesus is the way and he is the word. And we must keep a grip on the word of God. The word of God, the Bible, is not just printed words. It is true to say that Christianity is Christ. It is summed up in the person of Jesus. He is the word. It is not a religion. It is not a philosophy. It is a person. To stay in the word of God is to stay in Jesus. To stay in Jesus is also to stay in his word. Abide in me and my word abide in you. You must abide with the word. Do you know your Bible? Do you know the word of God? Now if you will start on that day when the Antichrist is here to try and start learning the Bible, you are a bit too late. You don't start putting on snow tires when you are in the middle of nowhere in the ice. You put on the snow tires in Canada before it starts to snow. Once it starts to snow, you might not get to the garage at all.
The third thing that we need to do. First is prayer. The second is the word of God. And the third thing is this. In cold weather, what do you do? I spoke last time of the cold of winter. And look what happened. Today we got winter, as though to illustrate my point. The winter has come suddenly upon us and we are feeling it. My hands even now are cold and my feet are cold, and I won't tell you how much clothing I have on right now. I feel quite embarrassed, especially with Calvin there. He sits there as though it's still in the middle of summer. But I'm dressed so much I got some of his clothing on here and I'm still cold. And I see some of you don't look that warm either.
The Bible tells us a very interesting thing. It says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on. The Lord Jesus Christ is portrayed as clothing that we need to put on. Clothing does a lot of things. It protects us. It beautifies us. Especially the sisters, of course. We spend a lot of time studying the mirror because they want to see if their clothing is the right color and it matches properly. It's not too long. It's not too short. Not too broad at the shoulders, not too narrow. Everything has to be right. It beautifies us. It protects us against the cold. It does a lot of things. I could preach a whole message simply on clothing, not that I'm a clothing expert, but simply to tell you, to illustrate, what it means to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go out on the street, you see some people wearing uniforms. You realize that they are policemen. Just now they seem to have changed to their winter uniforms. They were wearing a lighter color, now they are wearing darker color. But how do you know he is a policeman? Well, you look at his clothing, you know he is a policeman. His clothing tells you something about him. It tells you that he is a person with some authority. Maybe he thinks too highly of his authority sometimes. But he has some authority because he has got a uniform on. The same way, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ means all of these things. He protects us. He keeps us in the cold winter of the Antichrist. He beautifies us and glorifies us. And he gives us authority as his people, authority against the power of the enemy. And so we can see that we must be prepared for the winter of the Antichrist in these three important ways.
Now I must rush on with my message because I am trying to wind up this series, which as I have mentioned has gone on over a year already. And by the way, I should also mention that next month I shall not be preaching here because, as some of you will know, I shall be away with our church in Singapore because they will be having a Christmas camp in Malaysia. So this message, this series will be discontinued next month and I shall resume again in January and I hope very soon to wind up this series of messages.
But what I also have to warn you about concerning the Antichrist, which I have been trying to warn you again and again, but I think this message sinks in with great difficulty, is that it is relatively easy to prepare for an enemy that we can recognize, but it is hard to prepare for an enemy that we cannot recognize. Now what happens with winter? Well, it may come very suddenly, like the Hong Kong winter, right? You remember the day before it suddenly got cold, it was still very warm. It was quite hot, in fact, and suddenly the next day the temperature started to plunge. We had so little preparation, and look at how cold it is. Two days ago it was still warm. Two days later we are freezing. So we had to rush to get our winter clothes out, get our clothes on to keep warm. Well, we can still watch a certain change of events that prepares us for the coming of the cold. Well, we are trained to do this because winter comes for most of us every year, so we are well trained. But we are not so well trained when it comes to the question of the Antichrist, because the situation is such that the Antichrist doesn't come every year. In fact, we have trouble knowing when he has come and when he hasn't come. And although there have been some minor Antichrists in preparation for the great coming Antichrist, we have trouble even recognizing the minor Antichrist, let alone the great Antichrist who will come. So that means that the coming of the Antichrist, the great Antichrist, may take us as much by surprise as the cold weather that has come upon us now.
I have also warned that there are two ways in which the Antichrist has been taught today, and I hope by now you are beginning to be clear from previous messages what that is. But I see that for many there is still a great deal of difficulty. Now I have mentioned again and again that I am not alone in warning that the Antichrist will be from within the church, not from outside the church. That is the most shocking part of the whole thing. In fact, the pastor's wife who was here recently and listened to the message was quite astonished, indicating she had not heard such teaching before, an admission that her husband was not prepared to make in front of me. But unfortunately it is true. There are many pastors today who are not even aware of this teaching. They neither prepare their congregations for the coming of the Antichrist, nor do they even know how to go about preparing. They don't even know enough about the Antichrist to preach on it. But I notice that more and more books are being published on this subject now.
A few months ago, when we met in the Lutheran church — you recall, because this place was closed for a holiday, we met in the Lutheran church — I mentioned to you a book with a very shocking title, and the title was "Condemned Through the Church." And you remember I mentioned to you that the author said that he wanted to use a much stronger title than that, but the stronger title frightened even the publisher, the Christian publishers, who begged him to modify the title and make it less shocking. But even then the title is shocking enough, called "Condemned Through the Church."
Now if you get the notion that these books that are coming out more and more in these days — and I thank God that God is raising some of his servants to see the danger and to warn the church — but if you think that these books are written by some fringe people, people on the fringe of the church who do not represent the proper leadership of the church, who are just over-enthusiastic and over-anxious people, who are a certain type of spiritual quacks, that is, people who don't quite know what they are saying, theological and biblical ignoramuses, ignorant people, you are quite mistaken. This book with the title "Condemned Through the Church" — in fact, I brought it here with me. This is the — oh, in fact, I used the wrong term, just as well I looked at the title of the book again. It's called "Damned Through the Church." Very strong. "Condemned" is even too intellectual and too nice. He uses a much rougher word: "Damned Through the Church." Quite offensive, isn't it? It is written by somebody called John Warwick Montgomery.
Now if you are inclined to think that books like this are written by nutcases on the fringe of the church, you would be surprised. John Montgomery is a minister of the Lutheran church, and it didn't strike me at that time that I was preaching in the Lutheran church that Sunday. It says here at the back that he has seven earned degrees. Seven of these seven earned degrees — if this kind of thing impresses you — two of them are doctorates, one a PhD and one a doctor of theology. Not quite written by an ignoramus, is it? Not quite by some nutcase on the fringe of the church. But recently the church
# Antichrist Means Pseudo-Christ (Part 2)
But this time, with another shocking title. This one. A bigger book. I know I'm not selling books, but I'm holding up the book so that any of you who want to read this book will get an idea what it looks like. And in fact, I do encourage you to read these books. You will see that the title says, "The Subversion of Christianity." And who is it written by? It is written by Monsieur Jacques Ellul. I said Monsieur because you'll guess that he's a Frenchman. It is, of course, the translation of a French work called "La Subversion du Christianisme," which is exactly translated as "The Subversion of Christianity."
And who is Jacques Ellul? Well, if you don't frequent the bookshops too much, or at least not the theological section of the bookshops too much, then you might like to know that he is, until recently, Professor of Law and the Sociology and History of Institutions at the University of Bordeaux in France. Professor of Law. But he has been writing mostly on Christian subjects. Many of his books are on Christian and theological subjects. And this is his 40th book. Quite a lot of books to write for one man. 40 books. He's already very well known in theological circles. And in fact, the measure of importance that is given to this book, which was published in English last year only, it's as recent as that, is the fact that it is translated by a leading evangelical theologian.
Now, most books are translated from German or French by relatively unknown people. But this book was translated by a leading English-speaking theologian. Many of you who frequent the bookshops will know the name of that theologian called Geoffrey Bromley. Now, Geoffrey Bromley has translated — he is one of the translators, I think, one or so translator, I'm not too sure — but he translated the theological dictionary by Kittel, as well as very many other important theological works. That shows how much importance now even theologians are attaching to this book written by Professor Ellul.
In fact, before I put it down, I should like to read to you his opening line. Because if you think my preaching at all times, and especially in this series, is really hard-hitting, it's even in the words that I use — wait till you hear what he has to say. In the beginning, just before his first chapter, he quotes the words from Kierkegaard, the great Danish thinker. Let me read to you the words of Kierkegaard that Ellul quotes here. This is what Kierkegaard says: "The Christianity of Christendom transforms Christianity into something entirely different from what it is in the New Testament, yea, into exactly the opposite. And this is the Christianity of Christendom of us men." Powerful words. Kierkegaard is saying that Christianity today has transformed — notice the word he has used — has transformed Christianity into something that is totally different from the word of God, from the New Testament. In fact, he says, has transformed it into its exact opposite. Oh, those are powerful words. In fact, I have never said anything quite as strong as this up to now. If you think I have been dishing it out really hard, listen to that.
Now, I have said that we must keep a grip on the word of God like the winter tires. The problem is that Kierkegaard is telling us that the church has long since slipped off the road and turned in the opposite direction. Some of you from Canada will know Uncle Don. In fact, he was at our camp this year, the Easter camp. I always remember how he was driving me home from the church one Sunday evening. And suddenly — and that shows you how dangerous the Canadian winter is, and Uncle Don is a very experienced driver in the Canadian winters — as we were driving along, turned the corner and were going up an incline, the car in one split second spun around. And all of a sudden, we were facing the opposite direction from which we came. But don't think Uncle Don was driving without winter tires. Even with winter tires, the car lost its grip and spun 180 degrees around facing the opposite direction. And it was a good thing no car was coming behind us, otherwise we would have had a head-on crash. That is how dangerous things are in the world today for Christians.
And Kierkegaard warned us that the church has already made 180 degrees and gone in the opposite direction. We are completely off the track, he is telling us. If we are talking about the Antichrist, we are talking about subversion of the church. And Kierkegaard, in the last century, already warned us that the church has already been subverted.
Ellul quotes Kierkegaard, and let me read to you the first few lines of this book that Ellul writes. And he says this: "The question that I want to sketch in this work is one that troubles me most deeply. As I now see it, it seems to be insoluble. Cannot be solved. The problem cannot be solved. And assumes a serious character of historical oddness. Something strange has happened. It may be put very simply like this." And I read this because it sums up the whole purpose of this book that he writes. "How has it come about that the development of Christianity and the church has given birth to a society, the Christian society, the European society, the American society — a society, a civilization, a culture — that are completely opposite to what we read in the Bible, to what is indisputably the text of the law, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul? I say advisedly." As a lawyer, he is very careful with his words, you will notice. "I say advisedly, completely opposite. There is not just contradiction on one point, but on all points."
What he is saying is that the church and Christian civilization and society contradicts the Bible, he says not on one point, but on all points. Now you are my witness. I have never said anything quite as strong as any of this. But this is written not by irresponsible, fringe nutcases, but by Christian leaders who have prophetic insight. We live in dangerous times. The work of the Antichrist has been cut out for him because the subversion has already taken place in the church. And Professor Ellul is saying here the society in which he lives, in France, in Germany, in England, all these Christian or socialized, Christian societies as they are called, don't bear the least resemblance to the New Testament. Not even its churches, which have become state churches for the most part, where secular heads of states become heads of the church, as in the case of the Church of England. What's happened? What's going on?
Let me come very quickly then, as our time is fast running out and I have to close. We must, in today's message — this is all I can say because of the shortness of time — we must sharply distinguish two things, and I want to say this, I hope, for the last time. The word Antichrist has two possible meanings, and these two possible meanings can be subdivided. And it is clear, it is important for us to clearly bear in mind this distinction.
Early on in this series, I said that the word Antichrist can mean "anti" in the sense of "against," like an anti-aircraft gun is a gun that is used against aircraft. An anti-missile missile is a missile used against other missiles. And so it has the meaning of "against" or "contra," and therefore I use the term contra-Christ for this particular idea of Antichrist. But the second meaning of "anti," and this is the meaning of the word "anti" particularly in most uses of Greek in the New Testament, is "anti" in the sense of something that replaces something else. A well-known term in the New Testament is "Christ died for us." The Greek word there is "anti," for us, in our place, as our substitute, or our representative. And therefore the word "anti" is used in this sense — for those who are only English-speaking are not familiar with this word "anti" — this word "anti" in the sense of replacing something else. And therefore, to clarify our thinking, we must distinguish this meaning as "pseudo" — pretending to be Christ, standing in the place of Christ who is not Christ.
Now there is an important distinction between these two meanings of "anti." And so many books written about the Antichrist never clearly distinguish between these two meanings and end up talking complete nonsense sometimes, utter confusion. To think clearly, we must clearly distinguish the meaning of words. There is therefore the contra-Christ and the pseudo-Christ. And the remarkable thing is that most writers on this subject today talk about Antichrist as though the only meaning of the word is contra-Christ, against Christ.
Now let me try to sum up very quickly why this is incorrect. But first I have to tell you how this meaning comes about. Why do people talk about the Antichrist as though he was solely the contra-Christ? All these books have one thing in common. They all base their case on Daniel, the book of Daniel, the prophecy of Daniel in the Old Testament. Now in this series of messages I am not going to go into Daniel because it is much too complicated for messages preached in this way. To study the book of Daniel we have to do a Bible study together. That would be the right place to analyze Daniel. But not in a series of messages because as I have said it is simply too complicated to handle this from the platform.
But let me try to give you briefly the notion. They rightly see that in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 15 the Lord Jesus speaks about the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel. Now the Lord Jesus does mention the prophet Daniel, but he mentions only one thing in connection with the prophet Daniel, and that is the abomination of desolation. Now the mistake of all these writers on this subject is to assume that because the Lord Jesus mentions one thing about Daniel, that therefore he is talking about the whole book of Daniel. Very common exegetical and logical error. If I refer to one particular verse in the Old Testament, I do not particularly want to suggest that I am referring to the entire book from which I derived that verse, much less that I am referring to the entire Old Testament, do I? Of course not. So why do these writers on the subject of the Antichrist assume that because there is a reference to the abomination of desolation which is referred to in Daniel, that the Lord Jesus means to refer to the entire book of Daniel and every prophecy in Daniel? But when they do that, total confusion begins to take over.
Why? Well, they depend mostly on Daniel chapter 7 and chapter 8. These are the two chapters that all these writers depend on. Now in chapter 7 there is a reference to four beasts which are the four kingdoms that Daniel wants to speak of. And this is where the confusion begins to come. What do these four beasts correspond to? Which four kingdoms? There begins something very interesting. For our purpose we don't even have to go into all of this. But if you do go into it, you can begin to see why.
You see, the book of Daniel prophesied the coming of a great enemy of the people of God who was a historical person, and this prophecy was fulfilled in 164 BC. In fact, the whole period of the desecration of the temple from 167 to 164 BC took place because of Antiochus Epiphanes. Now I have briefly mentioned this before and I will not go into detail on this again. So the prophecy of Daniel was already fulfilled because Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the temple. He offered a pig upon the holy place, and as you know, to the Jews, a pig, a swine, is unclean. So he polluted the temple. He polluted the altar. He desecrated it. He made it abominable, and therefore he put in there the abomination which makes desolate. Now all this was already fulfilled. The book of Daniel, the word of God, was fulfilled in prophecy.
But you see, all these writers about the Antichrist because they take the meaning to be contra-Christ, take Antiochus, this Greek king who tried to force the Jews to accept Greek religion, as the model of the coming Antichrist. You know, I would say — and we need to pray for the fact — pray that God will raise up among the leaders of the church people who can both have clear spiritual insight and clear thinking as well as have the gift of biblical exegesis. These three things. And I lament the fact that many of our church leaders, unfortunately, unfortunately I would say, don't seem to have been trained to think very clearly. Nor do they seem to be well trained in biblical exegesis.
Now, the Antichrist being a sort of super Antiochus Epiphanes, the fourth, this Greek king of which Daniel prophesies, is an attractive hypothesis until you examine the matter more closely. Let me just give you a few points. First of all, if Antiochus was the Antichrist, or a model of the Antichrist, one can't make much sense of that. First of all, Christ had not even come. So how could Antiochus be an Antichrist, that is, to be Antichrist, somebody he didn't even know existed. And being a Greek, it is very doubtful he had the least idea that the Jews were expecting some coming Christ in the future. And if they did expect some coming Christ in the future, that would be to him an odd idea not yet realized. And why on earth should he have to oppose such an idea which he must regard as probably quite ridiculous if not comical? In other words, how can he oppose somebody who hasn't even come? Antiochus was a great enemy of the Jews, but being an enemy of the Jews is not the same thing as being an enemy of Christ. Those are not identical terms. So how can Antiochus, a Greek who knows nothing about Jewish religion, be an Antichrist? Can anyone explain this to me? But none of our Christian writers even see a problem there. They haven't even noticed the problem. So carried away are they with their theories.
Secondly, they see the Antichrist, of course, in these terms, the contra-Christ, as a political figure and perhaps also a military figure like Antiochus, if that's their model. And therefore they see the Antichrist basically as a persecutor and oppressor. Now there would be nothing unusual about that whatsoever. The church has been persecuted and oppressed from the beginning. In fact, in the early days of the church, the church endured worse persecutions than we have experienced for the most part throughout the world in this century or in most other centuries. So what's new? What is the coming Antichrist going to do? Even if he can produce persecution on a world scale, then who is he going to persecute? Christians. But then let us get this definition clear. Is he Antichrist or Antichristian? Let's not confuse two different terms. There is, of course, an inseparable relationship between Christ and Christians, but though inseparable, they are not identical. They are not one and the same thing.
How can the coming Antichrist, if he is understood as a contra-Christ, persecute Christ who is not on earth now? Christ has risen from the dead. He is at the right hand of the Father where no Antichrist can reach him. No enemy of his can even touch him. The Antichrist is, in other words, powerless against the person of Christ. He cannot touch the Christ of God at all. Of course he can touch us. He can touch us Christians. But that is not the same as touching Christ. In other words, we would, on this view of Antichrist, have to dilute the term Antichrist to Antichristian. We would have to give it another definition. Antichrist no longer really means Antichrist; it simply means Antichristian. And the Bible tells us that when the Lord Jesus comes again, he will destroy the Antichrist. Antichrist cannot destroy Christ. Christ will destroy the Antichrist. The only people that the Antichrist can destroy is Christians. And in that sense he is hurting Christ, but not directly. Only indirectly. So the Antichrist term on this definition has only an indirect meaning.
But let's pursue the matter further. Is there any sense ever to speak of a political military figure being an Antichrist at all? Christ is not a political figure. He is not a military figure. So why would any politician want to attack Christ? Christ is a spiritual figure. "My kingdom," the Lord Jesus said, "is not of this world." And so the enemy may attack us politically, may attack us sociologically in some way, but cannot attack us spiritually if he is only a political figure. Only a spiritual person, a spiritual Antichrist, can attack us spiritually. Can you not see? A political Antichrist could only attack us politically. He can persecute us for our faith. Yes, he can. And to that extent it affects us spiritually. But a spiritual attack is to attack us on the spiritual level, that is, at the things that we believe, to attack our relationship to Christ at the spiritual level.
Now for this reason one of these writers rejects the idea of Antiochus as the model for the Antichrist. No, he thinks that Hitler is the Antichrist or the model of the Antichrist. Now that puzzles me again. Yes, we can say that to some extent Hitler provides some model of the Antichrist, but only to some extent. But elsewhere he is a very inappropriate model for the Antichrist. You know why? Think about it again. How can Hitler be an Antichrist? First of all, Hitler himself was a Christian. Yes, sad to say, but he was a Roman Catholic, a Christian. As an Austrian, he was brought up as a Roman Catholic. The other thing you should notice about Hitler is that Hitler never attacked Christian doctrines. He never attacked the church as a church. He only attacked certain leaders of the church, such as Bonhoeffer and others, who were opposed to his political policies. But then he attacked them as political enemies, not on the spiritual level, as I've noticed.
Now, if that is the case, once again, what is the point of calling a political figure such as Hitler an Antichrist? Hitler never said anything against Christ. He attacked the Jews. He hated the Jews. Yes, he did. He was a bitter enemy of the Jews. And that point, moreover, could not be said for Antiochus, for we have no record that he himself was ever against the Jews, but only against that part of their religion that caused them to reject his Greek or Hellenizing policy. But Hitler, in what sense was he an Antichrist? None of these writers who think of the contra-Christ give us any explanation. They don't even face the issue.
No, the really great danger — and I want you to clearly grasp this — is the pseudo-Christ, who comes from within the church, a church that has been subverted and perverted, as these writers warn us. There is where the danger is. When we are deceived, and deceived even without our knowing it. Somebody points a gun at my head and says, are you going to believe in Jesus? And if you do, I will shoot you. If you don't believe in Jesus, I will let you live. That is a threat, in a way, to my faith. But it is not so dangerous because I can perceive the danger and I have only to make my choice. I can say, no, I will not deny Jesus. You go ahead and pull the trigger. There is always a danger, but the danger is not so great as a false teacher who comes along and tells you this and that and the other thing, and you are misled, and you think you're on the right path, but you're on the wrong path. You have lost the way to life without your even knowing it. Is that not terrifying? Certainly that is far more terrifying than somebody who just crudely threatens you with death.
The contra-Christ idea doesn't give us much for which we can prepare. You see, the world has always been contra-Christ. The Lord Jesus said in John 15 and verse 18, "If the world hates you, it has hated me before it ever hated you." The world is always contra-Christ. So the contra-Christ idea, of course, is true. I'm not denying that it is true. I'm simply saying that it is not an exposition of the biblical meaning of Antichrist. Of course there were rulers in the past that oppressed the church. There will be rulers in the future who will continue to oppress the church. There are rulers right now and systems in the world right now that are contra-Christ in the political sense. Of course it's true, but it's not adequate.
You see, what we must clearly grasp is that the contra-Christ idea does not include the pseudo-Christ idea. But the pseudo-Christ idea includes the contra-Christ idea. That's why we have both. We don't lose either. The pseudo-Christ, of course, is against Christ because he wants himself to be the real Christ and the real Christ to be the false Christ. That is why, in holding to the pseudo-Christ idea, we still accept the contra-Christ idea because the world is always contra-Christ. And when the church is conformed to the world, even the church becomes contra-Christ in the sense of opposing Christ.
Let me try in closing to illustrate this point. And I hope that my illustration will not shock you too much. I hope it doesn't worry you too much or make you anxious. But I am so anxious to get this point across to you that I am going to give you this illustration even at the cost possibly of shocking or offending you. Now I have come up onto this platform, and this being a winter day, it has proved particularly convenient. I almost thought the Lord arranged the weather so that I could provide you with this particular illustration. And I am not talking about the jacket I am wearing, but something that is inside my jacket. Now I hope again that it doesn't shock you too much. I am holding in my hand a handgun. This handgun is known as a Beretta. A powerful gun. Beretta .36 caliber.
Now when I was in China — we lived in very turbulent days before the communists came — and my father and myself, both of us, had a gun like this. And I thought I would bring in this gun because it looks almost exactly like the gun that we had at home. My father had a gun with a much nicer handle than this one, but mine was like this, exactly like this. The same kind of handle. The only difference was that the gun we had at home was a Browning .38. I don't know if anyone has had police training here or other types of military training, but you will know what a Browning .38 looks like. It looks quite similar to this. But this one is quite popular with detectives and other people of that kind because, you see, its size is very convenient. You notice that — maybe you didn't even notice — when I came up on the platform, I was carrying this gun in my jacket. It is small enough to fit conveniently into my vest pocket without too much of a bulge because I put it far back enough so that it comes under my armpit, which is where many detectives carry their holsters. My father used to like to carry his at the back, in the small of his back, so it's covered by his jacket. You know your back curved in, so if you put the gun there, it can't be seen. It's small enough to put away, but powerful enough to be deadly.
It's a deadly weapon. It's an automatic. You push your bullets in from here, and to load your bullets you do this. You pull the gun back, you heard the click. When you do that, the bullet jumps into the firing chamber. Now if I call this a contra-gun, what would I be saying? I wouldn't be saying anything of significance at all. After all, all guns are contra-guns. Guns are all designed to protect you against other people's guns. In the United States, there are probably more guns than people. Everybody carries guns. If I did pull this out in the United States, nobody would bat an eye too much, except they would be surprised that a pastor carries a gun.
But if I say this — you have two choices. This is either a contra-gun or a pseudo-gun. I wonder what you think. Do you think this is a pseudo-gun or is this a real gun? Many of you are already convinced that this is a pseudo-gun. Pastors don't go around with real guns. Do you know in Hong Kong every year how many bank robberies are carried out by this type of gun? You would be very foolish indeed to risk assuming that this is a pseudo-gun. If this gun were pointed at you in your bank, if you are working behind the bank teller, or in your shop — if I walked in with this gun, of course, you didn't know who I am, if you didn't know who I am, and I pointed this gun at you — you should never point a gun at people — but if I pointed this gun at you and I said, okay, hand over the cash. You would be very foolish to risk assuming that this is a pseudo-gun.
In fact, the police tell us that there is no way to tell whether this is real or false. In fact, even if I bring this gun up closely in front of you, I think you wouldn't be able to tell if this is a real gun or not. I might just surprise you with the real thing. And this is the reason why, in fact, every year in Hong Kong, bank robberies are committed with this type of gun. And so worried are the police about this, as you have recently heard, that today they are pressing for legislation that this kind of gun should not be sold in the shops if they are model guns, because nobody can tell the difference.
Now, there are some very expensive model guns, which even if I put it in your hands and you know something about guns, you wouldn't be able to tell if it's real or not until you try to fire it. Because the only difference is that it has not got the regular firing chamber inside. The gun is made to the last detail exactly like the real thing. Now, of course, if I pull the trigger of this gun, you will know whether there is a bullet inside there or not. But you wouldn't know if it's a real gun or not. I pull the trigger. You say, ah, now I know it's a phony gun. Not so fast. Not so fast. It would be foolish to assume that that is a phony gun. You only know now that there is no live ammunition in this gun. But it doesn't mean that it is not a real gun yet. Because you know that even when you fire a real gun without a bullet, it will make a click just like that. It only means I haven't put any live ammunition in.
Now, the fact that I was able to load it in this way might warn you that it still could be the real thing. Now, there are two possibilities — even if it is a pseudo-gun, there are two possibilities. And we must subdivide this carefully. I could say that this is not a real gun, and that means it doesn't fire real bullets. Or I could say that this is not a Beretta, but it is a real gun. You see, a Beretta is a certain type of gun. And when I say it is not a Beretta, that it is not a real Beretta, it means that this is a real gun, but it was not manufactured by the Beretta company.
I think those of you who are in Hong Kong are very familiar with this distinction, or should be. For example, you can go to a computer shop, and you can buy an Apple, or you can buy a Pineapple. Now, the Pineapple, I am told, is exactly the same as the Apple. And in fact, it looks like an Apple, it behaves like an Apple, it uses the same software, it's an exact copy of the Apple, but it is not an Apple. But it is still a real computer. It is not a phony computer. It's a real computer, and it works exactly like an Apple, or like any real computer, though it is not of that make. That's why when I say if this is not a Beretta, it doesn't mean this is not a real gun. It only means that this is a gun, although it's made to look exactly like a Beretta, and perform like a Beretta.
Well, I can put you out of your suspense now, because you will be thinking, well, what is it after all? This one is a model gun, which I think some of you thought might be. It's not a real gun, it doesn't fire real bullets, it's not even a real Beretta. But if even in broad daylight he would be a fool to risk assuming that this is a false gun.
Now, that is the point that I would like to get clearly into your mind. When we say that the Antichrist is a contra-Christ, we haven't said anything very significant. This is the point I would like you to grasp. The world has always been contra-Christ. All guns are contra-guns. If I say that the Antichrist is a pseudo-Christ, I'm saying something very important because that's what the Bible teaches in 1 John and everywhere else. That the coming Antichrist will claim to be the real thing, but he is not the real thing. But that does not mean he is harmless. He is very, very dangerous, precisely because he pretends to be the real thing when he is not. And he has power. He will not be like a phony gun of this kind. He will fire the real bullets, I can tell you. But he will claim to come under another trademark. That's where his danger is.
In closing, let me simply say that in the New Testament — and I challenge you to search through the New Testament — you will find nowhere ever stated that the Antichrist is a contra-Christ. Nowhere. The Lord Jesus uses the term pseudo-Christ repeatedly in Matthew 24. He never speaks of a contra-Christ. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, the man of sin is not contra-Christ. He is contra-God. Read carefully. In fact, he claims himself to be God. He never says a word against Christ as such. And as far as Revelation chapter 13 is concerned, I hope to expound on this in a future message.
How can we prepare? How can you tell the difference between the true and the false? Let me say again, you need to learn to pray so that you have spiritual discernment. Secondly, you must be prepared by getting a firm grip on the word of God. And thirdly, you must put on Christ at all times. And say that he is your bulletproof jacket, if you like. You take Christ off and you have no armor, you have no protection. You put on Christ and he is your armor, your protection, your beauty, your power, your glory. You must live a life that glorifies God.
Let us pray.