The anti-Christ

I can not continue to talk about the anti-Christ without giving an understanding as to the nature and influence of the being.  I called him a being because in actuality he is a force of influence who has been at work in this role for over two thousand years.  Before Jesus came and after Jesus came, he has been known as the adversary or Satan.  He still is those, but after the Resurrection of Jesus, Satan took on another role.  Besides becoming the accuser of the brethren before the Throne of God, Satan became dedicated to attacking the Truth of the Gospel.  Satan attacks everything pertaining to Jesus and the whole Gospel message, which is:

1)Jesus was conceived by God - not the seed Adam so He was sinless
2)Jesus was born to a virgin
3)Jesus was crucified for the forgiveness of sin
4)Jesus resurrected from the dead to give Eternal Life
5) Jesus was taken up into the heavens to prepare His Kingdom in heaven
6) Jesus is returning to resurrect and call up all of His believers
7) Jesus then with His Saints, execute judgment on those who were destroying the earth and refusing to believe the Truth to be saved
8) Jesus then will rule over the earth from His Heavenly Kingdom for one thousand years with His Saints

Since after the Resurrection,  and the formation of the Church, ( which means the Body of Christ ), Satan has been maligning and attacking the Truth.  The apostle John wrote a few years after the resurrection of Jesus, that the spirit of the anti- Christ is already at work in the world.

In John's first letter, he wrote in the 2nd chapter,

           " Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming,
           even now many antichrist have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.......who
           is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ.  This is the antichrist, the one
           who denies the Father and the Son.  Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father;
           the one who confesses the Son has the Father also."

In the 4th chapter, John wrote,

           " By this we know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has
           come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from
           God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming,
           and now it is already in the world.  You are from God, little children, and have
           overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 
           They are from the world, they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 
           We are from God; he who knows God will listen to us; he who is not from God does not
           listen to us.  By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."

If you notice in these writings, John refers to antichrist as both a spirit and then one who will come.  The spirit of the antichrist has now influenced this world for over two thousands years.  His goal is to keep the Truth away from as many people as possible.  Every person who receives Jesus is transformed out of the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of Light.  Satan sees all of this happening in the spiritual realm and hates it.  He does a lot of  things to keep the Truth from people.  During the dark ages, he hid the Word of God from the people, but Jesus did not allow him to destroy it.  We are in a time again where he is trying to silence the Word of God again.  Many people are unaware that they are being influenced by him to help silence the Truth of Jesus.  You can not help but notice the animosity that is building towards Christianity and Israel.  If Satan is to be successful in leading this world, he has to be successful in getting people to mock and despise Christians and hate Israel.  You can notice in the world a lot of unlikely bed fellows united with a common purpose of trying to deminish the influence of the Truth and knowledge of Jesus in the world.  The end will not come until the Gospel of Jesus Kingdom is preached in all the world.