The Christ in Prophecy Journal

Current Prophetic Events: Muslim Antichrist

August Rosado and Nathan Jones

MP3

Is the Antichrist destined to rise out of Islam?

On Saturday, April 27, 2013, I was interviewed by host August Rosado of the BlogTalkRadio show Signs of the Times. August is a Bible prophecy teacher and preacher and founder of a ministry called Today in Bible Prophecy. He has and continues to be a personable guest on our television program Christ in Prophecy. He and I spent some time discussing prophetic trends and events that we are seeing occurring today.

Muslim Antichrist

August Rosado: Many try to paint the Antichrist as a Muslim using verses that really have no eschatological application whatsoever. What evidence do we have that the Beast from the Sea of Revelation 13 will be of Roman origin?

Nathan Jones: We can go to Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 9:26-27 where it talks about the end times when the people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. This prophecy reads:

“After those 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the coming prince will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come with a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations are decreed. 27He will make a firm covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. And the abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple until the decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator.”

So, Daniel 9 tells us about the people of the coming one-world ruler, the Antichrist as the New Testament names him, who will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The city of course is Jerusalem, and the sanctuary is the Temple. That prophecy against the city was fulfilled in 70 AD when the Roman general Titus Vespasian came against and decimated Jerusalem.

We also read here that the Antichrist will come into the Temple and he will desecrate it. We know from history that Titus Vespasian did not come in and desolate the Temple. No, he utterly destroyed the Temple. The destruction was so thorough that the soldiers picked the stones apart looking for any gold that might have melted in between the cracks. As Jesus foretold in Luke 21, there would not be one stone left upon another. So, Titus and his Roman people did not fulfill that prophecy about the desecration of the Temple. Therefore, the desecration of the Temple will find a future fulfillment in the Antichrist, which also means for him to desecrate a Temple there has to actually be a Temple. Devout Jews are still waiting for the Third Temple to be built.

One of the frequent arguments people who support a Muslim Antichrist will use is that when the Romans came and attacked the Temple in 70 AD, true there were some Roman leaders and Caesar ordered the campaign, but the Romans brought mercenaries with them. They’ll argue that all these mercenaries were Arabs, who of course 500 years later as a race would eventually become Islamic. Therefore, the people who destroyed the Temple where really in affect Muslim.

I believe the best response to this claim that the people who destroyed the Temple were future Muslims is in the research that Sean Osborn of Eschatology Today. Sean studied the history and found out exactly what peoples comprised Titus Vespasian’s army. He wrote:

“The Roman army that destroyed the Temple is 70 AD were those of the Legio X Fretensis, Legio V Macedonica and Legio XV Apollinaris, under the command of Roman General Titus Vespasianus. The soldiers of Legio X were Italians from the region of the Straits of Messina; Legio XV from the mixed Illyrian-Celtic people of the region of Pannonia along the Danube River, and Legio V were of the Thraco-Illyrian people in the region of the lower Danube formerly known as Moesia. In sum, the ‘people of the prince’ were Europeans and Roman citizens.”

Yes, Titus also brought in mercenaries from the Middle East, but the majority of the people that attacked Israel were of pure Roman blood. They were Roman citizens. Titus was a Roman. Caesar was a Roman. It’s clear then that the people who destroyed the Temple in fulfillment of the prophecy in Daniel 9:26 were Roman people, and so therefore it’s crystal clear that the Antichrist will rise out of the Roman people’s descendants. Those descendants of the Romans today comprise the revival of the Roman Empire in the European Union.

The European Union is a modern-day miracle of politics. Just look in the 1940’s for instance, what happened in Europe? World War II. Now more than 50 years later, Europe is basically one country, one continent. They are continually growing closer and becoming less national and more as one European Union rather than individual countries. Second to Israel as a miracle of becoming a nation again, that is the miracle of getting all those European entities to put aside their hatred of each other and join together. Clearly something is happening in the European Union, and that is in fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

The wars that decimate Islam and the Antichrist rising out of the EU make it a fact then that Islam will not be part of the end times. Bible prophecy seems to be against Islam as a player during the Tribulation, well, at the most not past being destroyed by the Antichrist in the first Conventional War.

August Rosado: Yes, I absolutely agree with all of that research. Those who to try to find some sort of passage that will support an Islamic origin of the Antichrist, they pull a verse here and they pull a verse there and then they roll it up into one ball and proclaim, “Islam is what it means.” They try to pull a fast one. Even if it were true with these mercenaries, it doesn’t matter if they were from Egypt or Lebanon or Syria. It doesn’t matter if they helped the Roman army, as you said, led by Roman General Titus the son of Vespasian. The Roman Empire in 70 AD destroyed the city and the sanctuary.

My tour group and I were just in March at the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount. We were looking at the remains of the Roman destruction. We went into the Davidson Center were all the archaeological artifacts are on display. We saw a 2,000 year old brick, and right on it in Latin was inscribed in Latin I’ll translate the “Tenth Roman Legion.” What other evidence do we need that the people who destroyed the Temple were European Romans, and therefore the Antichrist will rise out of Europe? Either you are going to ignore the evidence and stick with the plain-sense literal teaching of the Bible, or you can just go off on your wild fantasies and change the origin to the Middle East.

Nathan Jones: Yes, it’s trying to pigeon-hole Bible prophecy into modern-day events. But, that’s not the case as we cannot do that. The Tribulation is a picture of a vastly different world than how the nations and peoples are aligned today. People ask, “Does that mean we then have to wait like a few hundred years before the Tribulation begins?” I could say “perhaps,” but really, all it takes is one economic collapse or one outbreak of disease or something climactic to radically change political and economic systems across the globe. The world is going to see a total upheaval of what exists today. So, trying to take modern-day events and then plugging them into Bible prophecy is newspaper exegesis, and we really should never be practicing that flawed interpretation.

In the eighth segment of August Rosado’s and my discussion of current prophetic trends and events, we will look at modern-day teachers like Rob Bell and see if a proliferation of false teachers are prophesied in the Bible.

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Dr. Nathan E. Jones

As the Internet Evangelist at Lamb & Lion Ministries, Nathan reaches out to the over 4.5 billion people accessible over the Internet with the Good News of Jesus Christ. He also co-hosts the ministry's television program Christ in Prophecy and podcast The Truth Will Set You Free.

13 CommentsLeave a Comment

  • The antichrist won't be the head of any trans – Islam army or confederation, because, I believe, the destruction of the Islamic Middle east (see Psalm 83) is what brings forth the antichrist into power, and cahses him to make the 7 year treaty, that starts in Tribulation.

  • I have done a lot of research on this topic and ran across the idea that since Antiochus Epiphanes IV was of Greco-Syrian descent that Anti-Christ may be too, since Daniel speaks of him being almost a continuation of Antiochus E IV. What do you think. I have found it impossible to locate exactly where Antiochus Epiphanes IV was born.

  • What makes Obama the New World Leader covers several aspects. First-see what has already happened as the masses worldwide accepted him before his first term as President. Of course the mindset of the people here in the USA. SO many and with no identity of his agenda he was elected. That fact remains today that this was not normal. Actually allowed by God. No doubt much planning and work by Satan. Why would God not let us know (the ones who are interested) or at least in theory know Obama. He has been allowed to break every rule and actually defame the Christians. Do we still have Christians who do not know his agenda? Sure we do and its playing right into Satan’s hands. Now we know its prophesy and unfolding daily.

  • Seems everyone has an opinion and not a fact concerning this issue, including those in the above interview. The war is between Jacob and Esau and has been since the beginning. So are we now to believe an American take on reality instead of what the Bible says ? Psalm 83 only takes out some of the muslim garbage not all of it. How convenient to lambast those who disagree with said opinion.

  • Sara, The Antichrist is called the Asyrian in the Bible. A History Teacher said that the Romans that destroyed the temple in 70ad were Syrian descent and Daniel said that the prince of the people that destroyed the temple shall come…

  • Then why throughout scripture in the OT does it speak of Messiah coming and making war with the usual Arab suspects? It never once names Rome as the one Messiah comes to destroy…..

  • Lets not get Rome mixed up with the old Roman Empire which includes the Arab suspects. God Bless

  • Hi Nathan, I agree, it is when people say "Roman Empire" they focus on Rome and don't understand the whole scope of the empire which includes all those Arab nations. God Bless

  • Jesus told his disciple that the temple would only be destroyed not desecrated again. in fact Titus and the Roman army did exactly what he foretold tearing the temple down stone by stone. in fact both the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed and left desolate or uninhabited for quite some time. John tells us that were can with wisdom know beyond the shadow of doubt who the beast in Revelation 13:18 for his name will add up to six hundred and sixty-six. John of course was referring to Nero Caesar whose name adds up to the number in Aramaic, and happens to be the six king of Rome that John would later refer to in Revelation 17 even though he was just the fifth emperor since Julius Caesar was the first king called dictator for life. with coming destruction of the temple in 70AD nowhere in the New Testament or in Revelation especially is there a mention of a third temple being built in Jerusalem for the other temple mentioned is Christ own body. besides when the veil of the temple ripped at Christ's death leaving no veil blocking the Holy of Holies no the next day of atonement for the veil was a huge 60 feet by 30 feet single clothe would have need to be made.

  • So much debate over where the AntiChrist will come from, etc, etc. I don't understand why people that believe they will not be here spend so much time on the AntiChrist and other debates concerning the book of Revelation. If you are not going to be here what does it matter? Oh, so you can be sure to let those "left behind" know for sure….right.

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