A spectacular sign appeared in the sky: There was a woman who was dressed in the sun, who had the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. She was pregnant. She cried out from labor pains and the agony of giving birth.

The huge serpent was thrown down. That ancient snake, named Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, was thrown down to earth. Its angels were thrown down with it.

Everyone who doesn’t continue to teach what Christ taught doesn’t have God. The person who continues to teach what Christ taught has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and doesn’t bring these teachings, don’t take him into your home or even greet him. Whoever greets him shares the evil things he’s doing.

Many people who deceive others have gone into the world. They refuse to declare that Jesus Christ came in flesh and blood. This is the mark of a deceiver and an antichrist.

But every person who doesn’t declare that Jesus Christ has come as a human has a spirit that isn’t from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist that you have heard is coming. That spirit is already in the world.

Children, it’s the end of time. You have heard that an antichrist is coming. Certainly, many antichrists are already here. That’s how we know it’s the end of time.

Who is a lair? Who else but the person who rejects Jesus as the Messiah? The person who rejects the Father and the Son is an antichrist.

For over two thousand years the religious writings of the Jews and Christians has shown a curiosity concerning the mysterious person who will be the antichrist.

         Poets, dreamers, mystics and kings all have imagined uniting all nations into one worldwide nation. Two World Wars with millions killed and the threat of nuclear war have many convinced that that is the only hope for mankind to survive.

Even secular writers and poets have contemplated the old prophecies that warn of a great crisis that will grip the nations as we approach the new millennium.

     One poet expressed his dread of the prophecies of the second coming to their connection to the antichrist. He wrote "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ... surely some revelation is a hand; surely the Second Coming is at hand."

Martin Luther saw Jesus' coming as the key to defeat the antichrist at the end of the age.

     Luther also concluded from his study of Psalm 90 that the Lord would return to establish his kingdom at the end of six thousand years from Adam's creation.

One writer reveals that the early Church knew that the prophecies of Revelation would be fulfilled in the last days leading to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

     He knew that John's tremendous prophecies were not fulfilled in the burning of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans.

Referring to Daniel 9:24-27, he says, that he points out the time that his, the antichrist's  tyranny shall last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, they who offer a pure sacrifice unto God. And in the middle of the week,the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away and the abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto the consummation of the time shall the desolation be complete.

      Three-years and six-month makes the half-week, with seven-years making the full week to be fullfilled at the end of this age by a seven-year treaty leading to the  return of Jesus..

The kingdom of the antichrist has been identified with the future revival of the Roman Empire, the fourth beast of Daniel 7. Satan's prince will violently overthrow three of the ten nations forming the revived Roman Empire.

Daniel also, looking forward to the end of the last kingdom, the ten last kings, among whom the kingdom of those men shall be partitioned and upon whom the son of perdition shall come, declares that ten horns shall spring from the beast and that another little horn shall arise in the midst of them and that three of the former shall be rooted up before his face.

This same scholar refers to the antichrist sitting in a rebuilt Temple, "in which the enemy shall sit, endeavoring to show himself as Christ, as the Lord also declares", Matthew 24:15.

    Discussing Daniel's prophecies of the coming antichrist, he wrote,"For when he is come and of his own accord concentrates in his own person the apostasy and accomplishes whatever he shall do according to his own will and choice, sitting also in the temple of God, so that his dupes may adore him as the christ; wherefore also shall he deservedly 'be cast into the lake of fire.'"

He wrote "For he the antichrist being endued with all power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king, nor a legitimate king, in subjection to God, but an unjust and lawless one; as an apostate, iniquitous and murderous; as a robber, concentrating in himself all satanic apostasy and setting aside idols to persuade men that he himself is God, raising up himself as the only idol, having in himself the multifarious [many sided] errors of the other idols."

One Christian writer who lived most of the  second century after Jesus, studied the Gospels under Polycarp who was a disciple of John the Apostle that wrote the book of John. This fellow knew many of the men that were taught by the 12 apostles and had become martyrs during a period of persecution of the Church.

     His writings are considered one of the most important to the early church. He writes of the rule of the antichrist and its relation to Jesus' Second Coming.

Another writing about the antichrist sees him hating the people similar to the satanic hatred of the Jews back then. As the Jews spent seventy years in anguish, now then a period of seven years is appointed under the antichrist.

     This writer refers to the duration of the antichrist's power over tribulation saints as exactly seven years. He is obviously referring to the prophecy of Daniel 9:27, "And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate."

In another early manuscript that confirms the Bible, Daniel 9:24-27, prophesied a final seven-year tribulation period under the antichrist at the end of this age.

    Some recent critics of the pre-millennial and pre-tribulation rapture position have falsely described the concept of a future antichrist and seven year treaty period as a new theory; but the truth is that a large number of Christian writers from the early centuries clearly taught about it.

The phrase that the antichrist "will act and speak in the name of the beloved and say 'I am God'" is the same warnings of Jesus. He said "I have come in My Father's name and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive" John 5:43.

    The statement that the antichrist "will set up his image before him in every city" shows that the writer was familiar with Revelation 13:14, which declares that satan will deceive "those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast wounded by the sword and lived."

The future antichrist is a man possessed by satan, "the king of this world," who will assume the position of a "great prince" and "lawless king."

     He "will come with all the powers of this world" as stated in Revelation 13:13-14, "He performs great signs, so that even he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived."

There are some scholars whose materials relate to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

     One gives some insight into the early Christian's understanding of the Antichrist and the Second Coming of Jesus.

         He says that many in Jerusalem and in Judah, the antichrist,  will cause the people to depart from the true faith. These are the days of the completion of the world and after that the great prince, the king of this world who has ruled it since it came into being, shall descend; he will come down in the form of a man, a lawless king, a slayer . . . This ruler will come in the likeness of a king and there will come with him all the powers of this world and they will hearken to him in all that he desires.

           All that he desires he will do in the world; he will act and speak in the name of the Beloved and say that he is God and before him there has been none other. And all of the people will believe in him and serve him.