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May 6, 2016 - Jim Bakker Show
28:30
The Rise of an Islamic Antichrist
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Lukewarm Christianity's End Times 00:03:36
I believe that at one point in time, that lukewarm Christianity will be a thing of the past.
The Word of God tells us what we can expect in different generations.
And so they're trying to shut out the church.
They're trying to conform the church to the way of the world.
When our enemy says they're coming for us, they mean it.
It's judgment.
It's judgment.
It's God's judgment upon America.
People aren't waking up to that there's a judgment coming.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's episode of Revelation in the News.
I'm your host, Zach Drew, and today we have a very special guest with us.
Our special guest today is a New York Times best-selling author.
He's a filmmaker and an internationally recognized preacher and teacher.
He has been featured on numerous different radio and television programs, including, you know, the Glenn Beck Show, Mike Huckabee Show, the Sid Roth Show, also Jewish Voice Today, the Dennis Miller Show, the New York Daily News, WND, The Blaze, Delicious goes on and on.
He's been featured a little bit of everywhere.
Please give a warm welcome to our special guest, Joel Richardson.
Joel, it's great to have you here today.
Today we're going to be discussing, you know, we've only been doing the Revelation of the News show for a few months now.
It's a new show.
It's a new audience.
And I want to cover something that I believe every single Christian needs to know about.
I've said it for months, that there's three books that everybody needs to have.
And it's The Harbinger by Rabbi Jonathan Kahn.
It's The Islamic Antichrist by Joel Richardson.
And the newest book is The Rapture Verdict by Michael Snyder.
But your book, Joel, The Islamic Antichrist, it seriously shook me.
And anybody, how many in the audience, how many of you have read The Islamic Antichrist?
Has it not shaken you?
I mean, it's been absolutely incredible.
And, you know, Bellers, I know that you've read The Islamic Antichrist.
I did, yeah.
And it changed, for me, it changed my view on a lot of things because before I was here at the school, I did go to university for a few classes.
And what I was taught about the Islamic religion is that it's a religion of peace and jihad is an inner struggle.
And that's what's being taught to the younger generation today.
So that was sort of my misconception about this religion.
And then I also, as far as the theology of the Antichrist and who he'll be, I didn't give much thought to that because there's been a lot of theories and a lot of people, you know, have been accused of being the Antichrist.
So I just didn't give it a lot of thought.
But this book changed my view on both of those radically.
Yeah, and it's been an amazing journey.
Actually reading through this book, knowing that you have the player's handbook to the other side or the other team's side, looking through and just actually understanding that there's parallels between the Bible and the Quran and seeing that it's not so far-fetched from what we believe, but yet it's so, it's like almost a mirror image and it shows and like it completely like it completes each other.
So when you see both of these teams going for it, you're like, wow, this whole end times really does play out.
It's like two teams going to war against each other.
Islamic Revival Trends 00:07:06
That's right.
And what you're seeing right now is I believe we're living in the end times.
I mean, I really do believe that.
And as a Christian, but you see the Islamic community also believes that as well.
Now, Joel, you're an expert on the whole religion of Islam.
What is taking place right now?
There's an Islamic revival taking place.
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah, well, I mean, it's amazing.
There are a lot of major ideological and just socio-political trends that are transforming the world right now right in front of us.
And so we have multiple things.
In the West right now, in the United States, our kids, our young people, are leaving the churches when they become young adults at a rate of about 80%.
So first of all, our churches are shrinking.
Some churches are growing, largely because they leave the little churches and join the megachurches.
So we are shrinking as the Western church.
But meanwhile, the Islamic world is expanding to the point where there was just a recent study done that says by 2050, Islam will be the world's largest religion.
Now, again, demographic trends can change drastically, suddenly overnight.
At present rates, by 2050, Islam will be the world's largest religion.
And it's also right now, I believe it's the fastest growing religion.
Right now, the largest religion, as we know, is Christianity, but the Muslim community is 1.2 billion people.
What happens to America?
What happens to the world at that tipping point?
Whenever there's a change, whenever the Islamic community becomes greater and larger than the Christian community.
What does the world look like?
Well, it's actually 1.6 billion.
1.6 billion.
1.6 billion Muslims in a world of about 7 billion.
Christians are about 2 billion.
And mind you, that's, you know, it's about 2.2 billion.
Half of that would be Catholic and Orthodox.
So roughly, you figure there's more Muslims than there are Protestants.
And then of the Protestants, you say how many are actual believers.
So in a sense, you could say, if you allow for cultural Christianity, you could already say Islam is bigger than Christianity.
But never underestimate the power of a trend.
So whereas much of the Western world has not felt this potential tipping point yet, I can tell you, for instance, in the African American community, in the United States, it's already incredibly hip and trendy to embrace Islam.
And there are all of the lies that say, you know, Islam is a black man's religion, Christianity is a white man's religion, all the complete, absolute historical revisionism.
We don't get into all of that.
But never underestimate the power of, I mean, one or two celebrities in the future suddenly converting to Islam, somebody that everybody looks up to.
And a move, a massive shift can happen.
And it's already happened a few times in the past.
But at the way things are moving right now, I believe we will see a few more dramatic shifts in that direction.
You know, I think sometimes whenever we look at the Islamic community, whenever we think about, you know, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, these radical, these extremists, we don't quite understand them.
And I don't think that we can understand the Islamic community without understanding their eschatology, which is simply the study of end times.
Christians, we have our own eschatology of the Antichrist coming, the scriptures that detail what the Antichrist is going to be like.
We have our scriptures about the false prophet and even Jesus returning.
We have our eschatology.
But you see, the Islamic religion, they have their own eschatology of different things that they are expecting to come upon the world.
And they right now also believe that they're in the end times.
And there is some demonically inspired parallels that we're going to be discussing today of what they expect from a Messiah figure coming according to their end time study called the Mahdi.
You see, why does it seem that Muslims are more concerned with the end times, even more so than Christians?
And can you tell us about the Mahdi, their awaited Messiah?
And what does that have to do with their end time study?
Sure.
Well, I mean, essentially, if you were to summarize the biggest issue within Islamic end time expectation, what are they expecting?
They're awaiting this Messiah figure known as the Mahdi, the Mahdi.
And they believe that he's going to come back as a world leader.
He's going to unify Muslims.
And this is believed by whether it's Sunnis or Shia.
You know, I've had a lot of criticism.
People say, oh, the only people that believe this are the Shia in Iran.
No.
I can show you multiple Sunni, world-renowned scholars and books that say, no, this is what we're waiting.
There's some minor differences, just like there are among Christians.
But they believe that he comes back.
Just think, Pope, president, general, all wrapped up into one office, military, religious, political.
They believe he will come back and establish a new world order, specifically wherein Islam will be victorious over all the other religions.
And they believe this will be the fulcrum, the tipping point that will cause Islam to be superior throughout the world.
So he is kind of like the savior for the Islamic world.
He's kind of like their Jesus, right?
Yeah, to a degree.
You know, of course, they don't believe he died for our sins or this sort of thing, but they believe that he is the one who causes Islam to be exalted and to fulfill its prophetic destiny.
Now, I have to qualify this because, you know, clearly the scriptures are the only thing that contain genuine, God-inspired, God-breathed prophecy.
So we're not equating Islamic prophecy with the Bible.
What we're saying is very simple, is that as Bible believers, we believe there is a devil.
And in the natural, Islam has these prophecies.
They have developed over time through various natural ways.
But when you really analyze them, you can see the hand of Satan having molded and pushed these, resulting in where you basically, when you look at the Mahdi, he in many, many ways resembles the biblical Antichrist.
So all we're saying is that God has his plan, and Satan has his counterplan.
And he has created and helped fashion these prophecies within Islam in order to recruit his armies.
And it's already right in place, right in front of us.
And that's why Sasha called it.
We're reading the enemy's playbook.
And that's in many ways really what it is.
Okay, so what are people saying in the Islamic community?
I mean, do they actually believe that they're going to see this figure that's going to come and redeem Islam globally?
Do they expect to see this figure in their lifetimes?
Or is it more of like a distant future?
They're kind of trying to prepare for it.
How soon do they see this Mahdi figure appearing?
Yeah, well, no, it's amazing.
Just a few years ago, maybe several years, five years ago, Pew Research Forum conducted a series of polls, wide-ranging, like 23 Muslim-majority nations.
And they asked this question.
They said, do you believe the coming of the Mahdi will be imminent in your lifetime?
Muslim Antichrist Expectations 00:15:17
Okay, so now not just do you believe in the Mahdi, do you believe it's imminent in your lifetime?
You're going to see it.
And some of the numbers were as high as almost 90% said yes.
In Afghanistan, it was 87%.
In Iraq, it was 78.
Now, this was five years ago.
Everywhere I go, I see apocalyptic, Muslim-apocalyptic expectation exploding.
Right now, what we see with ISIS, just to talk about the ramifications of what we're talking about, the real world implications, ISIS has recruited 30,000 young kids.
They believe that what ISIS is doing, these wars that are breaking out in Syria and Iraq, they believe these are part of their prophecies.
And so there is power in prophecy.
And they are using, when you look at the magazine that ISIS puts out called Dabik or Dabik, it's put out monthly, they are constantly talking about the prophecies, and they're using that to recruit these kids.
30,000 kids from all over the world believe prophecy is being fulfilled in their day, so it's absolutely exploding.
And here we are, much of the church says, oh, prophecy, prophecy, schema.
You know, it's all, we've been there, done that, tried that.
Let's get on to the more important stuff.
Let's move on from these things.
You know, let Jim Baker do his thing.
But the bottom line is, we're losing our kids.
They're recruiting 30,000.
And prophecy is one of the underlying significant factors that's driving this.
Now, are they not trying to make, I mean, according to their text, according to the eschatology of the end times of the Islamic community, that the Mahdi is going to come upon the scene in a time of great chaos, in a time of great war.
Is this kind of the motivation of all this jihad that you see, all the terrorism that you see?
Are they trying to start this global war and kind of force Allah, if you will, to force the Mahdi on the scene?
Are they trying to fulfill their own texts?
Well, it's interesting.
You have to understand that there's a difference between passive and active apocalypticism.
So let me say it this way.
You've heard, you know, you've heard the theory that maybe Judas, when he betrayed Jesus, he was trying to force the hand of God.
He thought if I betray Jesus, Jesus will be forced to say, you can't arrest me.
I am the king of Israel.
So he was a zealot.
He was trying to force Jesus to emerge as this insurrectionist Messiah leader, kind of like Joseph Maccabeus, about 160 years before Jesus, and lead a rebellion.
Okay, so that is active apocalypticism, Judas.
Now, Christians, we by and large, have more of a passive apocalypse, which means we are waiting for Jesus to return from heaven to defend us from tribulation.
We're not trying to make Jesus come, like, we're not trying to light the world on fire so that Jesus will come back.
We're not trying to hotwire the apocalypse.
Islam, in many ways, believes, they say, look, the Mahdi, when he comes, is going to do all these things, going to cause Islam to be supreme.
But we don't wait for him.
All the things he's supposed to do, we do it, and we, in essence, can sort of hotwire and force the hand of God.
And so there is some of that within the Islamic world.
But their vision, and we need to remember, it's aggressive and it's active.
So in their vision, they're the ones that are conquering nations.
In our picture, in our Bible, we're the ones that are defending ourselves, that are praying for protection from aggression.
So it's a very different picture.
So when they're active, it's much more dangerous, obviously.
All right, well, this is only a 30-minute show, and I really want to, this has been good stuff, but I really want to get to the meat right now.
I want to discuss the satanically demonic, inspired parallel of the Quran and the Hadiths and how they actually parallel what the end times say according to the word of God, but it's completely backwards.
Now, that might sound confusing, and we're going to clear it up in the rest of the show.
Okay, in chapter five of your book, you have a chapter titled Comparing the Islamic Antichrist, or excuse me, comparing the Antichrist of the Bible with the Mahdi.
Can you tell us the similarities between the two?
Yeah, I mean, there's numerous similarities.
Like, as I said, the Antichrist, according to the scriptures, is a demonically inspired guy that emerges as a religious, political, military leader.
Well, that's what they're looking for.
Except, again, they're looking for their guy to lead an attack against Israel.
In the Bible, it's the Antichrist that leads the attack against Israel.
Now, according to the scriptures, where does the Antichrist set up his seat of authority?
It's in Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount specifically.
He sets up the abomination that causes desolation on the Temple Mount.
Okay, so now what are Muslims expecting with their Messiah figure?
This is a quote from the Hadith collection of Tirmidhi, which is sort of extra-Quranic Muslim sacred prophecy.
And it says this, in the last days, armies carrying black flags.
Now, have we seen this recently?
Yes, we have.
Armies carrying black flags will come from the east, from the region of Iran, Afghanistan.
And it says, no power will be able to stop them until they finally reach Beitul Makdas.
This is the holy house in Jerusalem.
That's the Temple Mount.
And it says that's where they will erect their flags, their seat of authority, the global Islamic rule in Jerusalem.
So they're waiting for their Messiah figure to set up his seat of Islamic authority in Jerusalem.
The Bible says the Antichrist will do that, except for the demonic side of things.
This is from a quote from a book by Ayatollah Bakir al-Sadr.
It says that their Messiah figure, he will reappear on the appointed day.
He will fight against the forces of evil, lead a world revolution, set up a new world order based on justice, righteousness, and virtue.
Ultimately, the Muslims will take the world administration into their hand and will be victorious over all religions.
How crazy is that?
I mean, it literally just sounds like he's reading from our Bible of what the Antichrist is going to do.
It is a demonically inspired parallel.
I mean, doesn't the Mahdi, how long does the Mahdi rule for?
Yeah, I mean, that's interesting.
Well, first of all, the Antichrist, the scriptures say that he will have this career of one seven-year cycle.
It talks about this in Daniel 9, 26.
And so the Antichrist really has this brief period in Revelation.
Satan's cast down.
It says he's enraged because he knows his time is short.
It's just this brief seven-year period in the last days.
Well, according to Islam, the Mahdi would rule for a period of seven years.
You know, these are very specific parallels or anti-parallels.
And again, you can see how Satan, in many ways, for those Muslims that are looking to these prophecies, he set them up.
And on one hand, this is something to be aware of.
On the other hand, we have to be crying out.
We have to be crying out and saying, Lord, open their eyes.
This is a strong deception.
Open the eyes of Muslims.
Because this, you know, Jesus said this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting.
And the Lord's opening the eyes of Muslims all over the world.
But this is a demonic deception and bondage.
And we need to be in prayer.
You know, eschatology of the Bible, we have three key figures of the end times, do we not?
We have the Antichrist, we have the false prophet, and obviously we have Jesus.
In the same way, in the Islamic eschatology, the study of their end times, they have three figures.
They have the Mahdi, they have another Jesus, and it's a Muslim Jesus.
It's a fake Jesus, and then they have a third figure named the Dajjah.
Can you tell us a little bit, because a lot of people think that's very interesting, that the Muslims actually believe in Jesus and that they believe that Jesus is actually going to come back in the end times, and he's going to say stuff like what?
Well, I mean, essentially, and you know, Christians get excited when they hear this.
They're like, oh, you know, you believe Jesus is going to return.
I do too.
Like, we're the same.
You go, yes, but what Islam teaches is that when Jesus comes back, in a nutshell, he abolishes Christianity because they teach that when Jesus was alive on the earth, he was actually a Muslim.
That he never claimed to be the Son of God.
He never died on a cross.
That was all a big illusion that Allah caused.
That he never claimed to be really any of the things that the Bible ascribes to the Messiah other than born of a virgin and having done miracles.
That's it.
And so they say when he comes back, he comes back and says, oh, listen, you Christians, you've had it wrong all along.
Your Bible, by the way, is completely corrupt.
That's not historical.
Islam is the only true religion.
You need to become a Muslim and you need to follow the Mahdi.
You need to follow the Mahdi.
And so, you know, the Bible has this figure called the false prophet.
And the false prophet is essentially the one that does lying signs and wonders to deceive the inhabitants of the world in order that they will serve and follow the Antichrist.
And what does the Bible say of the false prophet?
It says that he has two horns like a ram.
The word there is the same thing as we say the lamb of God.
In Revelation, it's actually the Ram of God.
It's the same.
And so he has the appearance of the Lamb of God.
And it says, but he has the mouth of a dragon.
So, you know, we have the phrase, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
This is the dragon in sheep's clothing.
This is a satanic dragon, which is the symbol for dragon is Satan in the book of Revelation, who appears to be the Lamb of God, a false Jesus telling everyone to follow, not this guy, telling everyone to follow the Mahdi.
So essentially, once again, we have the false prophet who's the PR guy for the Antichrist.
He's the public relations fellow for the Antichrist, making him serve, making the world serve the Antichrist, making the Antichrist look beautiful, making the Antichrist look wonderful, performing signs and wonders, and then directing the glory, so to speak, to the Antichrist.
It's the PR guy.
In the same way, Muslim eschatology, the fake Muslim Jesus, is the PR guy for the Mahdi.
It's a demonic parallel.
But the third figure, now this is crazy, is that in the end times of Islam, according to their text, they have their own Antichrist.
And his name is the Dajjal.
Can you explain to us who the Dajjal is?
Yeah, so the term Dajjal in Arabic just means the charlatan, the deceiver.
And so they call him Ad-Dajjal al-Masih, the deceiver Messiah, the false Messiah, the Antichrist.
And so they believe he comes back claiming to be Jesus Christ.
So in their vision, they have two Jesuses.
They have the real Jesus and the fake Antichrist Jesus.
They say he comes back and claims to be God, that he does miracles, he heals people, and that he brings about the greatest deception and trial that Islam will ever face.
And so, you know, in many ways, I've always said, how is it, you know, I read Revelation and I see it has the picture of the rider on the white horse, Jesus, comes back from heaven in flaming fire, the armies of heaven with him.
And then it says the beast and the false prophet and the kings of the earth go to make war with him.
I've always gone, how does this work?
A divine God-man just breaks forth from heaven and they go, hey, let's go fight him.
You know, you think at that point they would say, oh, whoops, we were really wrong.
Until you understand that from an Islamic perspective, they're going to go, oh, this is Ad-Dajjal.
This is the Antichrist.
It's our divine destiny to defeat him.
The scriptures say, no, he defeats them and they were cast into the lake of fire.
Listen to this quote.
This is from an online Muslim apologist.
This is articulating the Muslim expectation.
You see how Satan has set them up.
He says, we Muslims believe that Jesus will come down to the earth toward the end of the world to fight the army of Satan, which will mostly be from the bad Jews or the Zionist Jews, in other words, the Israelis, as we call them, as well as the deceived polytheistic Christians or Trinitarian Christians.
So they believe that a Jesus comes back to fight against Jews and Christians.
And then he says, the army of Satan will be led by a person who will claim to be Jesus Christ himself.
The Muslims will call him Ad-Dajjal or the deceiver.
The real Jesus' army, in other words, the Muslim Jesus that they're waiting, will fight Dajjal's army and defeat them.
The empire of Israel will fall.
The religion of Islam will prevail.
The Dajjal sounds strikingly similar to Jesus.
You know, isn't there even writings that speak about how he's the greatest deceiver of them all, that if a man can go to sleep, a Muslim, and wake up a follower of Dajjal, this Jesus figure, that that would happen?
Yeah, exactly.
And this is one of their prophecies that says, this is going to be the greatest in Arabic, it's the fitna, it's the trial that will ever come upon the Muslims.
It says, a man will wake up in the morning, a faithful Muslim, he will go to bed, an apostate, an infidel, a kafir.
And the same thing.
He'll go to bed, a faithful Muslim, wake up an unbeliever.
Well, here's what's amazing, is that right now, think about this, throughout the Islamic world, you have Muslims that are going to bed, faithful Muslims, and then a man in white appears to them and says, I am Jesus, tells them, reveals to them himself, and they wake up, followers of Jesus.
So even Satan even has this false prophecy trying to side reel this great work that the Holy Spirit is doing in these last days, waking Muslims up all over the world.
And Satan says, oh, no, that's the Antichrist.
But yet it's actually, I mean, the Lord is actually doing that.
And we need to pray for more of that.
Amen?
You know, see, I believe that, you know, the devil is the father of all lies.
He's a deceiver.
And why does he deceive?
I mean, what's the purpose?
Is it just to trick you?
Does he think it's funny?
Is he laughing at you?
I mean, what's the purpose of deception?
The root purpose of all deception is to keep you from entering into the kingdom of heaven.
That's what it is.
I mean, whatever type of deception, I mean, the root of it all is to keep you out of the kingdom of heaven.
I mean, do you guys agree with that?
Amen?
So think about it like this.
I believe that the devil knows prophecy.
I believe the devil knows prophecy better than you and I ever will on this side of heaven.
I believe the devil knows prophecy so well that he created other religions like the Islamic religion.
That he created the Islamic religion that also has a savior in the end times, that also has an antichrist, that also has a false prophet.
Why?
What was the purpose of it?
Tell me if I'm wrong here, but I honestly believe that the whole entire purpose of it is that whenever these things start to take place and we say, look, the word of God is true.
Fix Eyes On Jesus 00:03:13
The word of God is accurate.
Jesus is coming soon.
That's the Antichrist.
Look at our texts.
And they're going to say, yeah, you are right.
But according to our texts, I mean, don't you think that it's just simply a tool of the enemy to deceive people from entering into heaven?
Yeah, exactly.
And that's the thing is in explaining all of this and with today's political climate and atmosphere, you could listen to this and become more afraid of Muslims, become more hateful toward Muslims.
And there's a lot of, you know, as I say, there are reasons to be concerned.
But as followers of Jesus, our response to this should be to say, oh, Satan has really set them up.
We have been saved by his mercy.
And we are going to cry out for the blinders to be ripped off.
We're going to pray and cry out to see as many snatched out of the fire so that when the day comes when he returns, because the scriptures are clear, there's going to be an army of people going up to Jerusalem from all throughout these Muslim-majority nations.
The Lord, I believe the Lord says there's going to be a revival throughout that part of the world.
So we need to recognize it for the deception that it is and in a loving way respond and start praying for those that are under the bondage of this deception.
Absolutely.
Is there a, because like I want to have a street ministry, I love like evangelizing, speaking to people about Jesus.
What is the, as a Christian who sees, you know, this eschatology, what's the best way to approach someone who is Muslim?
Well, you know, love them.
Get to know them as people.
It's that simple.
You know, Muslims are people too.
And we often, we categorize people in camps and we go those people, them versus us.
Get to know them.
Muslims love to talk about God, the Bible, and Jesus.
They're incredibly God-conscious people as a general rule.
Most people, you know, you go out down the street, start talking God, the Bible, and Jesus.
They don't want to talk to you.
The thing that I love about Muslims is they might argue with me, but they love talking about God.
And they're looking for God.
They're just looking in all the wrong places.
They're praying five times a day.
They are working so hard.
You know, you talk about getting ripped off.
They are getting so ripped off.
We need to have God's heart in the midst of the chaos.
Amen.
I just want to thank you, Joel, for being here today with us.
And we only have about one minute left of today's broadcast.
Is there any final thoughts to the audience or those that are watching at home before we leave today that you would like to tell them?
No, I just say, listen, the storms are gathering.
The days are getting darker, and it's only just begun.
But don't fix your eyes on the storms.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Fix your eyes on the age to come because we don't often see it.
I can testify behind the scenes, God is doing amazing things.
And we have a lot to look forward to and to be excited about.
Don't get down.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
The future is bright.
That's right.
And if you ever feel a little fearful or anxious, it's just a clear indication that your eyes aren't fixed on Jesus.
Amen.
Well, this has been Revelation in the News.
I want to thank you again, Georgia Sim, for coming out with us today.
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