The author of the hit prophecy book "The Islamic Antichrist" says his thesis is supported by a wave of beheadings taking place in the Muslim world today.
Joel Richardson believes it is a foreshadowing of what is described in Revelation 20:4:
And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands.
Richardson's thesis about who will carry out the persecution of the saints in the endtimes conflicts with the widely held theory of a Roman or European "Antichrist," popularized in the 1960s and 1970s by best-selling author Hal Lindsey and other prophecy teachers.
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"Now, while many students of prophecy have looked to Europe for an empire and a religion to emerge that will eventually legislate the beheading of Christians, many are now abandoning this notion as silly," writes Richardson in a column in WND today. "In Europe today, popular sentiment expresses an open revulsion at the wild and barbaric practices of some American states because they still continue to execute their murderers. Europe simply does not fit the many descriptions in the Bible of the iron-toothed beast-like empire that is said to overwhelm the earth in the days prior to the return of Jesus. And so, as Europe continues its slide toward a toothless effete state, so also does the slide away from the Euro-centric Antichrist paradigm also continue. The Euro-centric end time perspective is simply looking far less plausible than it once did. Instead, many are now turning their eyes toward radical Islam."
Richardson says radical Islam is using beheading right now in various parts of the world to punish those who refuse to convert to Islam.
Just last Thursday, he points out, a Nigerian newspaper offered an account of how three Christian pastors were beheaded for refusing to submit to Islam.
"The pastors… were asked to change their faith to Islam... I think there was an argument by one of the pastors which gave the others some level of confidence to also resist accepting Islam… They came out later to the courtyard within the compound and cut their heads one after the other and thereafter, shouted allah akbar in wild celebration accompanied with several gun shots."
In "The Islamic Antichrist," Richardson, a student of Islam, exposes Western Christians to the Muslim traditions. He says most Christians have no idea of the stunning similarities between the biblical Antichrist and the "Islamic Mahdi."
Richardson's book stands in stark contrast to most other popular prophecy books of the last 40 years.
The student of the Middle East says that after decades of reading popular prophecy books and even best-selling fiction like the "Left Behind" series, millions of evangelical Christians around the world are expecting the Antichrist to emerge from a revived Roman Empire, which many have assumed is associated with the Roman Catholic Church and the European Union.
Not so, argues Richardson. His book makes the case that the biblical Antichrist is one and the same as the Quran's Muslim Mahdi.
"The Islamic Antichrist" is a book almost certain to be greeted in the Muslim world with the same enthusiasm as Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses." The author is prepared. He has written the book under a pseudonym to protect himself and his family.
"The Bible abounds with proofs that the Antichrist's empire will consist only of nations that are, today, Islamic," says Richardson. "Despite the numerous prevailing arguments for the emergence of a revived European Roman empire as the Antichrist's power base, the specific nations the Bible identifies as comprising his empire are today all Muslim."
Richardson believes the key error of many previous prophecy scholars involves the misinterpretation of a prediction by Daniel to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel describes the rise and fall of empires of the future, leading to the endtimes. Western Christians have viewed one of those empires as Rome, when, claims Richardson, Rome never actually conquered Babylon and was thus disqualified as a possibility.
It had to be another empire that rose and fell and rose again that would lead to rule of this "man of sin," described in the Bible. That empire, he says, is the Islamic empire, which did conquer Babylon and, in fact, rules over it even today.
Many evangelical Christians believe the Bible predicts a charismatic ruler, the Antichrist, will arise in the last days, before the return of Jesus. The Quran also predicts that a man, called the Mahdi, will rise up to lead the nations, pledging to usher in an era of peace. Richardson makes the case these two men are, in fact, one in the same.
Richardson is the co-author with Walid Shoebat of "God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible" and co-editor of "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out."
"The Islamic Antichrist" is published by WND Books and is available autographed in the WND Superstore.
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