Here's Anne Graham Lotz. And I'm wondering if that's AI, artificial intelligence that permeates that kingdom that the Antichrist sets up.
So he rules over it, but AI helps him just trample and devour and destroy and something that you almost can't fight because it's not human. Thank you for joining us for the weekly program Living in the Light with Bible teacher Anne Graham Lotz. According to the Bible, a seven-year tribulation period will occur during the last days. It will be a terrible time ruled by a man called the Antichrist. He'll become the false redeemer of the world and will lead many away from the true Savior, Jesus Christ.
At this time, the world will be overcome with evil as judgment is poured out by God upon the earth. Let's learn more as Ann takes us to various Bible verses in today's lesson. Here now is Anne Graham Lotz. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 says, Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. When Satan was thrown out of heaven, he took a third of the angels with him, and so they're fallen angels.
Those are his demons, and they're in category.
So you have some that are higher-ups, and some that are medium, and some are just like little nuisance demons, and I don't know how it works, but I know they are at work in the world today. And so what we are facing is not just Hamas, although, you know, when, I don't know if you've seen some of the video and some of the footage of what went on down there, it was like watching the demons coming in. That was so demonic.
Sometimes you can almost see above the surface of that blanket. But underneath, in our own political system, and what's going on in the streets, what's happening in business, what's happening in corporations, what's happening on social media. Underneath that is where the real battle is being fought, and it's against principalities and powers in the unseen world.
So 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3 says, Though we live in the world, we don't wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, our weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds. And then Ephesians 6 verses 17 and 18 tells us primarily our two strongest weapons against these invisible foes underneath that blanket are prayer and the word of God. I know that's one reason when I go to pray.
That's when the dog starts barking. That's when somebody comes to the door. That's when the phone rings. That's when, you know, the enemy doing everything he can to keep us from praying. When you go to read your Bible, all the distractions, you can't keep your concentration, you can't keep your focus.
That's the enemy trying to keep you from the word. Be alert. Be strong. That's where it helps me to list the facts and ask myself what's a lesson from each fact and then put it in the form of a question. It keeps my concentration on the word.
And sometimes I write down my prayers so that I can keep my concentration in prayer and make sure my content is good, and I'm going to try to do that for you. This is a prayer I wrote for Israel, and I've just excerpted it, so I'm not going to read the whole thing. But this is a prayer that I wrote and posted in a blog, combining the word and prayer. God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Lord of hosts, God of angel armies. and I love Eugene Peterson translates Lord of Hosts as the God of angel armies.
Don't you love it? Lion of Judah, show up in extraordinary power. Give your people resounding victory over their enemies. You have said if we cry aloud to you, and that's Psalm 3. You will answer us from your holy hill.
So we cry aloud to you now. Answer us. We ask that you strip Israel's enemies of cooperation among themselves so they're divided and turn on each other. even as you did the enemies of Jehoshaphat. Do you remember when he went out to fight the battle and the enemy had killed each other?
We ask their evil plans would be exposed or fall back on their own head. We ask that the face of every man, woman, child, or baby that the enemy is slaughtered, beheaded, burned, be indelibly imprinted on their mind's eye, filling them with turmoil, robbing them of clear thinking, driving them insane, as Romans says. We ask, defender of the weak, that you would supernaturally guard and protect the hostages, Reveal yourself to them in the underground tunnels, reassuring them of your presence, even as you did the Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. We ask that you bind the hands, jam the guns, trip the feet of the captors so that the IDF can overcome them, deliver those being held, even as you deliver Daniel from the lion's den. We ask that your fiery chariots would surround the IDF soldiers as you did Elisha in his day, then anoint each soldier with protective power to rout out and overcome the enemy as they proceed through Gaza City.
And I looked at the headlines this morning. They have now started to go into those tunnels, 300 miles of tunnels, and the IDF is going in. We ask that the ancient prince of the Persian kingdom that rose up in Daniel's day, every other demonic force coming against your people, be bound and rendered powerless in the face of the hosts of heaven. We ask that you comfort the mothers, fathers, and children living near the Gaza border, especially those that witnessed atrocities. Erase memories of what they've seen.
Give them an overwhelming supernatural sense of your presence. Hide them under the shelter of your wing as you promised in Psalm 91. Comfort those who mourn. Give peace to the terrified. Hope to the hopeless.
Save them. Cover them. Command your angels to guard them and keep them in all their ways. You're a great prayer hearing, prayer answering, covenant keeping, miracle working God. Hear our prayer.
Listen to your children as we pray. Please rise up great lion of Judah and defend your people Deliver Israel from her enemies so that all the nations of the earth may know that you alone are God Answer us we humbly boldly plead Answer us for the glory of your great name, Yeshua, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. So, it may help you to write down your prayers. and it helps me to keep my concentration, to check the content and then pray it. And God moved me several years ago. I wrote a little book, The Light of His Presence, where I was encouraged to publish some of my prayers.
They're just my personal prayers because sometimes I'd come across a little volume, The Valley of Vision. You familiar with that little volume? And it's the old-timey Puritan prayers. And these old-timey people had published their prayers and it helped me in my prayers. and I thought, well, maybe I could help somebody else in their prayers.
Like David at the Psalms, we pray his prayers.
So not that my prayers would be like that, but anyway, sometimes we need help in our concentration and our content. If it helps, just write down your prayers, but don't stop praying because one of the weapons that we have is prayer and God's Word. And if you can pray God's Word, that's like a double-edged sword, Double whammy.
So the birth pains, the battle, and now I want to talk about the beast. I believe, of course, that's, and we're going to talk about this in a moment, the blessing of the Lord taking us out of here. But there will come a time, a seven-year period of what the Bible calls tribulation. And it will be ruled, that seven-year period, it will be ruled by one man, a leader, that comes on the scene, and we're going to see him from Daniel in just a moment. But he will be powerful, and he will rule the world, and he will seem like the world's answer, like the false messiah that he is.
He's the Antichrist.
So if you want to follow me, we'll look at Daniel chapter 7. And Daniel is amazing. He's like the Old Testament apostle John as far as his visions and things. But Daniel chapter 7, he sees a vision of four kingdoms.
So he had a dream in verse 1. In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven, four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.
So the beasts were four world empires. You just have to take my word for some of this.
So four world empires. The first was like a lion. That was the empire of Babylon. Verse 5, the second was like a bear. That was the Medo-Persian Empire.
Verse 6, the third one, there was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. That was Greece. After that, verse 7.
So after that really is implying after a long time. He's skipping over a lot. In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast, terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns made up of either ten provinces or ten nations. But when it says it had iron teeth, it crushed and devoured the victims, trampled underfoot whatever was left.
It was just so terrifying. It's like the old Roman Empire, but worse.
Something different about it that Daniel couldn't understand. And I'm wondering if that's AI, artificial intelligence, that permeates that kingdom that the Antichrist sets up.
So he rules over it, but Ai helps him just trample and devour and destroy and something that you almost can't fight because it's not human.
So that's just a thought. And it will be ruled by the Antichrist. You'll find him in Revelation 13, verse 1. The dragon stood on the shore, that's the devil. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea.
I don't know what the sea is.
So it could be the sea of people, the sea of Gentile nations. Or it could be around the Mediterranean, because the Mediterranean was considered like a Roman lake. And so all around the Mediterranean, it could be that this beast is just rising up from that area, which would go along with some other things that describe him. He had ten horns and seven heads. Don't worry about the heads.
The horns are kingdoms or nations. Ten crowns on his horns. He rules ten nations. Each had a blasphemous name. Verse 5, he was given a mouth to utter proud words.
blasphemies, and to exercise his authority for 42 months. That's three and a half years. All right. Remember the seven-year period of tribulation. This is the first three and a half.
Verse 8, all inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast, all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.
So he'll set himself up as a world leader, but also demanding that kind of total allegiance and worship, actually. Verse 16, He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it's man's number. His number is 666.
I have no idea what that is. I just know if somebody wants to put a mark on me, on my hand or my forehead, I'd rather die first. Because anybody who has that mark will not go to heaven.
So do not. And it's interesting, we keep single things crop up. We're like in Sweden or someplace, they put a chip in your hand, and all you have to do is wave your hand across something, and that's got your credit card information, your medical information, social security, all that, and you just have to, it's all right there in the palm of your hand. And at some point, they're going to say, we want to put it here. we want to put it here and don let them So whatever that mark is is something that shows that you have given your allegiance to the beast to the Antichrist And then the description of the beast And I should point out I guess that he is assisted by a false prophet which I won go into But he's also in chapter 13, when it says in verse 11 that I saw another beast coming out of the earth.
He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. In other words, he's a religious leader, but he's infused by the devil. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and he makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, the Antichrist. And it says whose fatal wound has been healed.
So apparently the Antichrist maybe has a death and a resurrection. He's Antichrist. He's the counterfeit of Christ. It's just that when he's raised from the dead, he's no longer himself. He's the incarnation of Satan who takes on his form.
And that's the last three and a half years of the tribulation.
So let me describe the Antichrist to you. 2 Thessalonians 2, in verse 1. Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy. A letter supposed to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way.
And how do you keep from being deceived? You saturate yourself in the word, right? Don't let anybody deceive you, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed. That's the Antichrist, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped.
So he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. All right, God's temple? That means probably during the first three and a half years of the tribulation, when the Antichrist rules the world, He allows Israel to rebuild that temple on the Temple Mount. Because obviously, and they're sacrificing, and they think everything is good. And then the Antichrist goes into the temple after that three and a half year period, and he sets himself up as God, and he demands to be worshipped, and he slaughters everybody who doesn't worship him.
That's what's called the abomination of desolation. It happened under Antiochus Epiphanes. I can't remember the date. It was before Jesus. and he came into Jerusalem and he set himself up as God in the temple in Jerusalem.
He sacrificed a pig on the altar. It's called the abomination of desolation. And Jesus said in Matthew 24, in the end times, when you see this happening, when you see somebody go into the temple declaring himself to be God, demanding to be worshipped, he said, you just run for the hills. You don't go back to get your coat, pray that you're not pregnant because you can't run fast, pray it's not in winter when it would be cold, you just run as fast as you can. because all hell will break loose.
So that's at that midpoint of the tribulation. But let me describe him in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 9, which is so interesting because it says, the coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan, displayed, look at this, in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders. That's the same phrase that was used to describe Jesus. with all the signs.
So don't be taken by somebody who can do miracles, okay? The devil can do miracles. Remember when Moses appeared before Pharaoh and he threw it on his stick and it became a serpent and then all the false religious leaders in Pharaoh's court, they threw it on their sticks and they all became serpents. And of course Moses' stick ate them all up. But still, the enemy, the devil can do miracles.
And this false prophet can even call down fire from heaven And he will be popular, he'll be physically attractive, Antichrist, brilliant, intellectual, great executive ability, applauded by the world press, but totally devoid of God. Antichrist.
So he rules the world for three and a half years, and what triggers this seven-year period, as I understand it, I won't take you back to Daniel, but I think it's Daniel 9, verse 27, when Daniel says that he will confirm the covenant with many.
So some people believe that the Abraham Accords is this covenant, but when the Antichrist takes charge, he will confirm it with many.
So Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, they'll all join in the Abraham Accords, and the Antichrist will bring peace in the Middle East, and he will allow Israel to rebuild the temple if she hasn't already.
So it's that signing of the covenant, confirming it with many, that triggers the beginning of the seven-year tribulation. It's not triggered by the rapture.
So I've always thought the rapture is what would usher into the tribulation, but actually the rapture could take place. It could be a year later before the Antichrist confirms that covenant. But however it is, in chapter 2 of Thessalonians, verses 7 and 8, For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.
So the one where it says the one who holds it back will be taken out.
Some people believe, and I've always thought, that that was the Holy Spirit. and the Holy Spirit will never be completely taken out of the world, but at the rapture, think of every believer who has received the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit lives in them, all of a sudden they're gone. It would be like the Holy Spirit had been removed from planet Earth. And then the lawlessness takes over and the Antichrist has free reign. The blessing, I believe with all my heart, is that Jesus is going to come for us before that seven-year period.
And I tell you, the purpose of that seven period is to punish the wicked for sure But the purpose of that seven period is to bring Israel to repentance So after chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation until chapter 19 the church is not mentioned.
So the seven years really has nothing to do with the church.
So I just want to encourage you. I want you to know the time is short, okay? I feel compelled to tell you because you know people. If Jesus came today, they're going to go through that seven-year period, and it's going to be hell on earth, and that should motivate us to tell them about Jesus and try to bring them to faith before that time to snatch them out of the fire, as Jude says. But for you who have received Christ as your Savior, you're born again, you're a child of the King, you're going to be out of here.
And I believe that.
So 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 5 says, But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You're all sons and daughters of the light, sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or in the darkness. And then down in verse 9, For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. You're not appointed.
None of us. The church is not appointed to the wrath of God, which is the seven-year period of tribulation, when he begins to hold the world accountable for their sin and their rebellion. And there will be people, yes, there will be people saved during the tribulation, and they'll give their lives for their faith. You talk about persecution, it's going to be a bloodbath. I think at that second three-and-a-half-year period, nobody would be saved.
And that's when God pours out his wrath through those bowls, and just one after another, and brings the world to its knees before him. And he comes back when the world would destroy itself, comes back at Armageddon to stop all that carnage, puts his feet on the Mount of Olives, and destroys his enemies with one word, the sword from his mouth, and he sets up his reign in Jerusalem. But this is for us. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 13. Brothers and sisters, we don't want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep.
To fall asleep is the Bible way of describing a believer's death.
So when an unbeliever dies, they die. But you and me, Jesus said, we'll never see death.
So you just close your eyes to this life, you open them to the face of Jesus. Your faith becomes slighted death. It's just falling asleep, he says.
So don't be ignorant of those who have fallen asleep or grieve like the rest of those who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again. You believe that? And yes, we do believe that. and we're going to behold them.
We believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
So he's going to bring with Jesus my husband and my mother and my father and my grandparents and my husband's parents and my husband's brothers. I've just got this increasingly large welcoming committee and he's going to bring them back with Jesus according to the Lord's own word. Hey, somebody here think I'm making it up. And Paul said, no, this is God's word. We tell you that those who are still alive, like you and me, who are left to the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep, like my husband and my parents.
For the Lord himself, look at that. He's not sending a proxy. He's not sending an angel or an archangel. He himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet call of God. and the dead in Christ will rise first.
My husband is going to rise up out of the grave and his spirit that's been with Jesus, his personality, all that was inside of him is with Jesus, but his body's going to be raised and it will clothe his spirit and I'm going to see him. Yes, I will. I will know my husband. I'll know who he is and you'll know your loved ones too. In the Old Testament, we're caught up.
It says when we die, the Old Testament saints were caught to be with their families and they're gathered with their families. That's not very encouraging for some of us, right? The only thing I encourage myself with is that when we get to heaven, that old nature drops off and we're all like Jesus.
So it's okay. Don't be afraid to be with your family. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command with the voice of the archangel, the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive, you and me and are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Therefore, encourage each other with these words. Jesus is coming. He's coming. Any day we're going to hear that loud command. Any day the sky will split wide open.
Any day the voice of the archangel will shout and the trumpet will blow and we're going to be caught up to be with him. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 51 says, Listen, I tell you a mystery. We'll not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. I just can't wait to get my new body.
A body that's suited to live in eternity, They can get tired or weary and a mind that knows exactly how to serve the Lord and energy to do it perfectly. And he's coming. And we're going to be raised to meet him in the air and live with him forever and ever and ever. Be sure to take advantage of all that's available for you at AnneGrahamLotz.org. From Ann's blog, her messages, Bible studies, books, and videos, all will give you a deeper, richer relationship with Jesus through God's Word.
And thanks for joining us today for Living in the Light.
