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Transcript 650A — The "Holy Father" and the Antichrist
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I have a couple of questions, and I would like to make a comment or two. I would like to know, would it be considered blasphemy against God for a man to take the title of Holy Father?
HC: Would it be blasphemy against God to take the title of Holy Father? The Bible says, "Call no man your father." Now it is true that we have our earthly fathers. We have a father who is our blood father, and we call him "Father." And that's not contrary to the Word of God.
But if we look upon anybody in place of God, a father in place of God the Father, then of course it is blasphemy. Then it would be entirely contrary to the Word of God. In fact, if a man is a spiritual leader of a flock, it would be far safer and wiser to call him a pastor, which really means shepherd. He is the shepherd of the flock.
Now Christ of course is the Good Shepherd, but those who are pastors are under shepherds, guiding the flock.
CALLER: I'm sure you're familiar with II Thessalonians 2:3: "Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God."
Then I'll drop down to verse 9, "Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders." And I follow the newspapers quite a bit. And as the Lord raised up Pharaoh to show His power, that His mighty works might be declared throughout the earth, there is no doubt that the beasts written of in Revelation will appear in these prominent positions that men hold.
HC: Actually, when we study the Bible, we find that the man of sin here in II Thessalonians 2 (I'm very convinced of this) is no one else but Satan himself. And he is the beast that comes out of the sea, or the beast that comes out of the earth. It is Satan and his kingdom.
Now he is manifested in men of course. And we read in Matthew 24:24 about "false prophets and false christs, who will arise with signs and wonders, that is, anyone at all who comes with a gospel other than the true Gospel is an emissary, ultimately, of Satan. He is being used of Satan to woo people away from the true Gospel. And if they're not saved, many will be wooed away from it. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be prominent in the world. A lot of people, when they think of the antichrist or the man of sin, think of some figure-head who is very very notable, in a very very high position. No, that's not required at all. Anyone at all who comes with any gospel other than the true Gospel is an Antichrist, is someone who is coming as Satan's emissary. And in II Thessalonians 2 God has His eye on Satan. He is the one who is ultimately worshipped in any gospel other than the true Gospel, even though they may think that they're worshipping Christ, because it's not the Gospel of the Bible, ultimately.
Therefore it is a false gospel, and they're worshipping Satan, even though they don't realize it. This I believe is what God has in view here.
CALLER: You're saying that the beast with the seven heads and the ten horns then would be Satan himself.
HC: Yes, or the kingdom of Satan as it's revealed throughout time, and will continue to be on the scene right up until the end of time, but will be particularly dominant during the final tribulation period, when Satan is loosed. And that's particularly the time of the ten horns.
CALLER: Okay then, the second beast who follows after him will, I believe, be a man - the one with the two horns. I've been doing a study on that. Each horn signifies a king. So this beast with the two horns would signify two people, and I believe they would be behind a very large congregation. And there are two in the world today, one that is based in the Middle East, and also there is one that is based in Rome. And these two horns would be these two kings of this beast, working signs and wonders.
HC: These men you're referring to aren't able to do signs and wonders. They just aren't able to do that. Whether they have the true Gospel or not is another question. But when God talks about this beast in Revelation 13, with two horns that speak like a dragon and yet look like a lamb, God is emphasizing that this is the rule of Satan as he comes as an angel of light. Remember II Corinthians 11, where God talks about Satan coming as an angel of light, and his ministers as ministers of righteousness. And he causes all to worship the dragon..
This is simply talking about Satan as he comes through other gospels. And they are legion today. Everywhere there are all kinds of gospels that are holding forth. And I define another gospel as any gospel that goes outside of the Bible looking for divine truth, or which refuses to look at the whole Bible as the Word of God. I believe there's only one true Gospel, and this circumscribed by the Bible. The Bible alone and in its entirety is the divine Word. And any gospel that will not measure up to that definition is another gospel. And if it's another gospel than the true Gospel, it will be a false gospel. And these are found everywhere today.
CALLER: That's true, but in this one church that I'm talking about, with over 600 million people in their congregation, has doctrines in their church saying that this man is endowed with infallible abilities, which in fact would make him to be God, because only God is infallible.
HC: While there may be a church here or there that is obviously is not the true church, that does not mean that that church embraces all that the Bible is talking about. You see, the Bible is not concerned with just one denomination at any time in history. The Bible is concerned with the whole kingdom of Satan, as it exists in the world. Now the kingdom of Satan runs the gamut all the way from Eastern religions to those gospels that are so close to the true Gospel that even the elect would be deceived, if that was possible. And there's every variety in between. And it finds its place in every country of the world, in every city of the world. Everywhere we find the kingdom of Satan holding forth, with one kind of a gospel or another.
By the same token, we find the true Gospel sprinkled throughout all the nations of the world. And it is not confined to one denomination. It can be found in many many different denominations. But this is the conflict that God talks about in the Bible. God does not single out this particular denomination or that particular denomination, any more than He singles out nations. We don't find Russia mentioned in the Bible, or China mentioned in the Bible, we don't find the United States mentioned in the Bible. We do find some of the ancient nations, like Egypt and Israel, mentioned certainly. But the modern nations are not mentioned in the Bible at all. God is not concerned about modern nations as individual nations, any more than He's concerned about individual denominations., regardless of how large they may be or how powerful they may be. God is concerned about the dominion of Satan on the one hand, and the kingdom of Christ on the other. And Satan's dominion has its big names and its little names. It has its big denominations and its little congregations. It has its religions that bear no relationship to Christ, and it has those that are so close to the true Gospel that even the elect could be deceived. We find all of this as part of the kingdom of Satan.
However, in these last days God particularly warns that the major assault will come against the true church by those gospels that are so close to the true Gospel that they would even deceive the elect, if that were possible. The doctrines are so close, and the practices are so close. But the first thing we can recognize them by is that they have a real interest in signs and wonders, which the true church has no interest in.
CALLER: You just said that signs and wonders wouldn't be possible in these last days, but I know for a fact that there are people going around claiming to have these.
HC: No, I did not say that. I'm only saying that the man that you mentioned, for example, doesn't do signs and wonders. While he is looked upon by his people as a great religious leader, he doesn't do signs and wonders. But there are plenty of gospels around, plenty of them, that may not appear evil in the sight of many, but nevertheless they do feature signs and wonders. And these are found all through the world.
Thank you so much for calling and sharing your thoughts.