Hello, John and Doves:

I have read with interest the various letters that offer opinions on the identity of the coming antichrist. Here is my personal perspective on that topic. Revelation chapter 13 gives us the best clues as to how and where he arises.
“Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.” (Rev. 13:1)

Since the Bible is primarily a Middle Eastern book and written with Israel as the center of the world both geographically and historically, the “sea” mentioned here refers to the Mediterranean Sea. The seven heads represent the seven major world empires that have impacted Israel since the beginning: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media-Persia,, Greece, Rome, and the 7th empire to come. The ten horns are the ten regional kingdoms that arise during the Tribulation. All of these empires were pagan. Since no human has seven literal heads, this verse describes the beast system that arises out of this area. 

Verse 2 of this chapter says that the beast was like a leopard (Greece), had feet like a bear (Persia), and had the mouth of a lion (Babylon). These describe the beast as Daniel saw in his vision of the successive empires that would come against Israel. Verse 4 states that the dragon, Satan, gave the beast his power. Verse five says that one of his heads was wounded, causing death, but the deadly wound was healed. Again, this is not a literal head wound, because it says ONE of the heads. A human only has one head. It was an empire that died but was revived in the last days. That empire is Babylon, since all the others have endured in some form until this day.

Because the beast arises from the area of the Mediterranean Sea from one of the areas of the original empires, I believe this gives us a clue as to where he originates. Nearly all of the land mass described was at some point under the rule of the original Babylonian empire. This would eliminate candidates from the US, England, Kenya, or other parts of the world from being the future evil ruler. He would most likely arise from Syria, Turkey, or other nations in the surrounding area. Personally I agree with Perry Stone that this future ruler will be a Muslim since the chief means of execution during the Tribulation is beheading, a hallmark of Islam. Israel is surrounded by nations that are determined to wipe the nation off the face of the earth, and they are all Muslim.

II Thessalonians 2:3 states, “Let no man deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition”. 

This verse shows that the antichrist is not revealed until after the Church is removed by the Rapture. The falling away has a double meaning in Greek: it means a great apostasy, which we are certainly seeing now, but it can also mean a departure. Early manuscripts of the Bible translated the word to be “departure”, which makes sense in the context of the verse. That means that the antichrist is not revealed until the departure of the Church. He is being kept under wraps for now so that nothing can stand in his way to world domination.

My final point in that while we could label quite a few despicable potential candidates with the designation, no one can say for sure who it will be. His identity is known only to God for now. What we do know is that God is still in control of all current events and of the future of the world. Our redemption is very near, because we are the “fig tree generation”, the final generation that has seen Israel restored as a nation and this will result in all things being fulfilled, including the return of Jesus. Let’s concentrate on praying for the continual outpouring of the Spirit on a lost world and preparing ourselves to meet the One we only know by faith. What a day that will be when we finally see Him face to face and know that we are forever safe with Him!

Maranatha, Doves. Keep listening for that trumpet sound. It won’t be long now!
Candy Carmichael