The Christ in Prophecy Journal

Ron Rhodes on the Muslim Antichrist View


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Could the Antichrist be a Muslim?

On our television program Christ in Prophecy, we asked this question of Dr. Ron Rhodes, the founder and director of a ministry called Reasoning from the Scriptures, located in Frisco, Texas. His ministry specializes in defending Christianity against Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, the cults, world religions, and about any group that teaches false doctrine. He is a seminary professor and an excellent writer who has written more than 70 books! His latest one is titled, The 8 Great Debates of Bible Prophecy.

Ron Rhodes on the Muslim Antichrist View

That’s a hot button topic as of late. I actually know a number of the people who’ve written about this subject. I have to say that the people who write about this, I have found them very nice people, but their theology is just very, very bad.

If I might put it this way, how would it be possible for the Antichrist to be a Muslim in view of what we know from Scripture elsewhere that’s going to be true about the situation of the end times? For example, we know from 2 Thessalonians 2 that the Antichrist is going to claim to be God, right? What Muslim would ever claim to be God? It completely goes against the Muslim Creed. The Muslim Creed says that there is one God named Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. No good Muslim would ever, ever claim to be God. And how would the Muslim world respond if one did claim to be God? They would kill him immediately. He’d be history. So, that’s an impossibility.

There’s no way you can wiggle your way out of that fact, though I’ve seen Muslim Antichrist view supporters try. The guys that are writing books on it try to argue their way out of this complication. It’s worse than fiction! You just can’t wiggle your way out of that truth.

Furthermore, how could it possibly be true that Israel would accept a seven-year covenant from a Muslim leader? Daniel says the covenant is going to start the Tribulation. Just look at the situation in Israel today. There has never been a time in human history than there is like today where we have a situation where the leaders of Israel are suspicious of the Muslim leaders of the world. The Israeli leaders know that the Muslims want to push Israel into the sea. They want the land back. They think the Holy Land belongs to them because Allah promised it to them. So, they want it back, and they are willing to go to any means to get it back. They are not going to trust a Muslim Antichrist on that.

Furthermore, have you considered the fact that Muslim prophecy is not cohesive. It’s all over the map! When you’ve read the books written by some of these Christians who are setting forth this idea that the Antichrist will be Muslim, it sounds like the Muslims have a cohesive viewpoint and a coherent viewpoint. That’s not the case! A lot of the sources of these mixed views come from tradition, and it is just scattered all over the place. Islamic end time views are not found in the Koran. They’re found in the Hadith, which are the various sayings of Mohammed that they’ve kind of patched together over the centuries.

To me, the case for a Muslim Antichrist is weak at best. I think that it can even be called deceptive, because we are looking for the wrong things in the world.

Not only is it ridiculous to think that Israel is going to accept a peace treaty from a Muslim leader, but to think that a Muslim leader is going to allow Israel to rebuild their Temple? That’s not going to happen, given the fact that their own holy temple is right there.

Then you have the statement over in Daniel that the Antichrist is going to rise from among the people who destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, found in Daniel 9:26. Those people were the Romans. Supporters of the Islamic Antichrist view will argue that the Roman legions were made up of people from the Middle East who were conscripted into battle, so it really is the people of the Middle East and not the Romans who destroyed the Temple. That’s historically not true, but even if it were true, it is irrelevant because it was a Roman army under a Roman general under the command of the Roman Senate in Rome.

In my book Northern Storm Rising about what Ezekiel 38-39 describes as the Gog and Magog War, Russia and the Islamic nations are destroyed by God. The timing clues would place this battle just before the Tribulation. How then could Islam even be a player during the Tribulation?

We’ve got several things that happen there right at the beginning of the Tribulation. We’ve got the Rapture that takes place which removes Christians from planet earth. Then this Ezekiel invasion could take place either at the beginning of the Tribulation or maybe 3.5 years before it begins. Either timing, God is going to take out those Muslim invaders.

The result of this war is that we have there two main people groups who would stand against the Antichrist’s false religion, and they’ve just been taken out of the way. Islam’s demise makes it very, very easy for the emergence of the false religion of the end times, because as long as you have the Muslims and the Christians on the earth, those two groups would stand against the Antichrist’s religion, but now they’ve been taken out of the way at the onset, leaving the Jews which the Antichrist beats on the last half of the Tribulation.

So, to me, these events all just fits together like pieces of a puzzle.

The Muslim Antichrist view is a classic example of reading headlines into the Bible, which has been a major problem for years. Therefore, I always exhort people not to do that. The proper policy is to first find out what the Bible says about biblical prophecy, and then understand what the Bible says about the subject. I’m not talking just about the northern storm rising issues, but like the description of the Antichrist found in 2 Thessalonians, as well as what the Bible says in the book of Revelation about the one-world empire, and so forth. Once you understand all that, then and only then do you watch the world to see if there are legitimate correlations.

Some headlines to think about. Russia already has set a precedent for working with the Muslim nations and standing against Israel. We saw this back in the Six Day War. We also saw this back in the 1970’s when several Muslim nations including Egypt were invading Israel. Russia was the muscle behind that attack. They were the intelligence behind that invasion. And, Russia provided the weaponry. Russia has already worked behind the scenes in moving against Israel. So, if anybody expresses skepticism that the Gog and Magog War could happen in the end times, well just look at history, because the coming alliances are already happening.

Even as late as the 1940’s, there were skeptics saying, “Oh, you guys are absolutely nuts!” when it came to Israel becoming a nation again. Even after Israel was established in 1948, scoffers claimed Israel would be just here today and gone tomorrow with no chance of existing.

The wonderful side to skeptics, such as Preterists for example, is that we can always point them to real events in real history that are illustrations of real prophecies. There is nothing like a prophetic stamp of biblical approval like that on their viewpoint.

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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.

5 CommentsLeave a Comment

  • One more very important set of items I'd like to add to this discussion.

    Revelation 11:1-3 makes clear (to myself at least) that the Temple will be standing and in full operation on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem PRIOR TO when the Two Witnesses are appointed by God to begin their 1260-day long ministry at the start of the Thlipsis (70th Week).

    Imagine: Two Jews preaching and conducting the Lord's business during the Thlipsis on Temple Mount in and around the grounds of the standing and operational Temple still under the full control of the current Islamic Waqf with secondary control held by a secular Jewish government?

    No way. As Israel approaches its 70th anniversary of the fulfillment of Isaiah 66:8 (1948-2018) I would expect major changes of monumental prophetic import will change the current paradigm in ways no one is currently speaking about. Changes such as a standing Temple in Jerusalem on Mount Morah prior to the 70th Week!

  • Excellent point, Sean! With a Temple at the start of the Tribulation, then something major geo-politically must happen beforehand that will remove the Islamic influence.

  • Nathan,

    It is this specific point that was the impetus for me to post yesterday "The Surest Sign of the "End of the Age" which was opened with these words:

    "Our LORD Jesus Messiah began His Olivet Discourses virtual checklist of prophetic end times signs by pointing to the Temple on Mount Moriah and prophesying to the apostles that it was soon to be destroyed with not one stone to remain standing upon another. This prophecy came to pass exactly as described by Jesus 37 years later on 10 August (9th of Av) in 70 AD.

    How appropriate would it be then for the Temple of the 70th Week to have its construction, completion and worship services commenced prior to the advent of the angel Gabriel's prophecy about Israel's 70th Week? I believe the Word of God Himself in the text of the Holy Bible tells us this will be the case.

    Therefore, a standing and fully-functioning Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah would be the greatest physical sign of the imminent arrival of the final seven years of human history as we have known it since Jesus' own death, resurrection and ascension into Heaven and the rebirth of Israel in fulfillment of Isaiah 66:8."

    • The Temple was on the Temple Mount, just North of where the Dome of the Rock now stands. The rock in the Dome is believed to be the additional altar Solomon set up to handle the vast amount of sacrifices made when the Temple was dedicated.

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