His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Isaiah 56:10
A previous generation of evangelicals would have had not difficulty answering that: it’s the Pope, or the papacy in general. The virulence of anti-Catholic feeling in years gone by – cheerfully reciprocated by many Catholics – is quite startling, but it’s largely died away. In fact evangelicals rather like Pope Francis.
Throughout history there have been various candidates, including Peter the Great, Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin. It’s surprising how many people today think the Antichrist is President Obama or Hillary Clinton.
According to a new survey by the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Research, whoever they identify as the likeliest candidate, by far the most popular view among Protestant pastors is that the Antichrist is a real figure, a false Messiah who will arise at some point in the future.
Nearly half hold to that view, while others say there is no individual Antichrist (12 per cent), or that he is a personification of evil (14 per cent) or an institution (seven per cent). Six per cent say the Antichrist has already been here.
However, the ‘Antichrist is future’ view is heavily skewed towards Baptists and Pentecostals (75 and 83 per cent respectively), with Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterian/Reformed pastors far less likely to believe it.
It’s also noteworthy that the more educated a pastor is, the less likely he or she is to believe in a future Antichrist. Christian Post
But who or what is the Antichrist, and is it sensible to think in terms of a future event at all?
There is so much wild speculation out there as to who the antichrist is, without any solid Biblical grounding or any historical evidence. But here you will see from the Bible and history who the real antichrist is. Is the antichrist a single person yet to come in the future, like so many people believe? Or does the Bible teach us that the antichrist is something else? What did the reformers believe? They were adamant that the Pope was the antichrist leader. Were they right? Here you will find the truth.
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