PROPHECY PRIMER: Let’s talk about the Antichrist and Bible Prophecy

I get asked from time to time about Turkey, the Antichrist, Bible Prophecy, and how it all weaves together. I have written about this before, but it’s been a while and I’ve decided I would like to address it for those of you who are interested. I’m not going to get too deep into it, I just want to cover the basics. And I know that this looks really long, but believe me, it only covers the most basic of the basics.

Just remember when you are reading this, that the Bible is a Middle Eastern book that revolves around Israel. So when it talks about kings, mountains, countries and empires, it’s those of the Middle East.

Ok let’s begin.

Revelation 13

If you haven’t heard of the beast in Revelation 13, that’s one of the most talked about passages in Bible Prophecy:

1-4 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.

And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”

Revelation 17

Of course, that’s not a literal beast. Revelation 17 explains the beast in Revelation 13 and tells us that the seven heads on the beast are really seven mountains (empires) and the ten horns are ten kings. But I want to focus only on the seven empires for now:

9-11 “Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.

So let’s break down these seven empires. As I said, the Bible is a Middle Eastern book that revolves around Israel, and the book of Revelation was written by John who lived during the Roman Empire. So the Bible says that five of these empires have already fallen. So what Middle Eastern empires had fallen before the Roman Empire?

  • Egypt
  • Assyria
  • Babylon
  • Persia
  • Greek (Alexander the Great)

Then the passage says “one is”. Obviously that is the current empire in which John is living, which is Rome.

  • Roman

The next empire is described by the passage as not having come yet: “and the other has not yet come”. So what is the next empire that ruled the Middle East? I’ll give you a hint: Islam. More specifically, the Ottoman Empire. The caliph system started shortly after Muhammad’s death, which was in 632, and continued in succession through the Ottoman Empire until it was dismantled in 1923. The Ottoman Empire was the greatest of the Islamic Empires.

So number seven is the Ottoman/Islamic Empire:

  • Ottoman/Islamic

So let’s review our list of empires in succession:

  1. Egypt
  2. Assyria
  3. Babylon
  4. Persia
  5. Greek (Alexander the Great)
  6. Roman
  7. Ottoman

Revelation 17 also mentions another empire, one it calls the EIGHTH empire:

The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.

The Bible tells us that this eighth empire is of the seventh empire. We know the seventh is the Ottoman, so the eighth must be of the Ottoman empire.

For those of you who are new to this, let me ask you, do you know that Erdogan of Turkey is trying to revive the Ottoman Empire by 2023, the centennial anniversary of it’s fall? Just to make my point clearly, look at this image from May of last year when Erdogan celebrated the birthday of the Ottoman Empire:

ottomanempire_reviving

The Turkish sign says “Yeniden Dirilis, Yeniden Yukselis” which means “Resurrection Again, Rising Again.”

So Erdogan is telling the world that he intends to revive the Ottoman Empire which will be the eighth empire! Just google Erdogan and Ottoman Empire and you’ll find tons of news articles which talk about his plans to resurrect the Ottoman Empire by 2023.

Now Erdogan could fail in his mission to revive the Ottoman Empire or he could simply die before it happens, meaning that someone else would have to do it either now or sometime in the future. But as of right now, it looks like what he is doing is the fulfillment of the eighth empire.

Okay so that covers the basics of Revelation 17. Let’s move on.

Daniel 2

In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of a statue that only Daniel can interpret. This statue is made of up for metals:

31-35 “You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

statuedaniel

Ok that’s the dream itself. Daniel tells us what this means and I’m going to focus mainly on the statue itself. We know that the stone cut out without hands is Christ, striking the statue at its feet and crushing the entire statue. That’s important, but we’ll get to that at the end.

So what does this statue mean?

You, O king, are a king of kings…you are this head of gold.

The first kingdom, the golden head of the statue is Babylon, of which Nebuchadnezzar is king. Next?

But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours;

What came after Babylon? Medo-Persia. So Medo-Persia, or Persia is the chest and arms of Silver, the second kingdom. Next?

then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.

The next kingdom to arise was the Grecian empire of Alexander the Great, which is the belly and thighs of bronze, the third kingdom.

I would note here that even though the passage says the third empire would rule over all the earth, it doesn’t mean earth as in the sphere that we’ve come to know as earth. It really means all the land. If you question this, then explain to me how the Grecian empire ruled over the entire earth and not only in the Middle East region?

Next are the legs of iron, and this is crucial. If you look anywhere on the internet, it will say all over the place that the legs of iron are the Roman Empire.

THIS IS WRONG!

Yes, chronologically the Roman empire does come after the Greek empire, but Daniel 2 never suggests that it is going by chronology.

Let’s look at this passage very closely:

And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.

It says the empire that is the legs of iron will crush all the others. So what does that mean?

It means that this empire will conquer all the territories that were part of the previous empires of the statue, Babylon, Persia, and Greece. All of them. So let’s look at some maps of these empires to see what territories we’re actually talking about here:

BABYLONIAN EMPIRE:
babylonian_empire1

PERSIAN EMPIRE:
persian_empire

GRECIAN EMPIRE:
grecianempire

Now let’s look at the ROMAN EMPIRE to see if it conquered all of the territories of the previous empires on the statue:

romanempire

If you compare the borders of all the empires, did the Roman Empire conquer all the territories of the previous empires? NO! It never conquered Persia! Not even close. So the fourth empire CANNOT be the Roman Empire.

So which empire did conquer all of these territories? Islam. Look at the maps below which include both the caliphate system after Muhammad’s death and the Ottoman Empire at its greatest:

islamicconquests750ad_small

ottomanempire

From Spain all the way Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Islamic caliphate system conquered all those areas. This clearly encompasses all of Babylon, Persia, and Greece.

So the legs of Iron, the fourth empire on the statue must be the Islamic/Ottoman Empires. If you want to understand more about the Islamic caliphates, check out this in-depth study on it from Walid Shoebat.

Here’s what we have so far:

  • Babylon
  • Persia
  • Grecian
  • Ottoman/Islamic

Then we have the feet and the toes of the statue which represent a fifth empire, which is made partly of Iron and Clay:

Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile

So like Revelation 17 where it says the eighth is of the seventh, so we also here see the iron from legs of iron (fourth empire) mostly making up the fifth empire of the feet. It says the feet are made of iron and the toes are made of iron and clay. The Bible talks about how the kingdom is divided and partly strong and partly fragile.

Well given what we know from Revelation 17 and what Daniel 2 tells us, this fifth empire of the feet is the Ottoman Caliphate that Erdogan is trying to resurrect!

So why is it divided, partly strong and partly weak? Well the two main players in this Caliphate will be Turkey, a Sunni nation, and Iran, a Shiite nation. It’s all Islam which is represented by the iron, but it’s two sects of Islam joining forces to become one caliphate, to one day invade Jerusalem as the Bible tells us in other passages like Matthew 24.

One last thing from Daniel 2:

You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.

Notice that the stone cut without hands, which represents Christ, smashes the FEET. Not the legs, not the stomach, not the chest, and not the head. This represents Armageddon, which Christ comes back to crush this fifth empire of the feet, or the eight empire from Revelation 17, and save Jerusalem from the Islamic hordes.

Antichrist

So who is this Antichrist? We don’t know with absolute certainty. But we know from what we’ve already learned that Islam is the religion of the Antichrist.

And the reason I refer to Turkey as Antichrist Turkey is because Turkey was the center of the Ottoman Empire, just as it is and will be the center of the new Ottoman Empire 2.0 that Erdogan is currently resurrecting.

If you read Ezekiel 38, which is absolutely about Armageddon (I will write about that at a later date), you will see that Gog,  the prince of Magog, Meschech and Tubal, which are all Turkey, Turkey, and Turkey – it is Gog leads this caliphate of nations on an invasion into Jerusalem.

So, whoever the Gog of Turkey is when this invasion happens will indeed be the Antichrist.

I’ll let you do the math on who that might be.

So this is the basic structure of Bible prophecy. Believe me it is basic. But if you understand this, the rest of Bible Prophecy will fall into place and this a very good place to start.


Comment Policy: Please read our comment policy before making a comment. In short, please be respectful of others and do not engage in personal attacks. Otherwise we will revoke your comment privileges.