The Watchman’s Call

Announcer: Standing at the intersection of the word and the world, there is a clear sound for uncertain times. Welcome to The Watchman’s Call. Join us as we stand on the rampart of scripture to examine the intersection of biblical prophecy and modern culture. The headlines are changing, but the blueprint has already been written. Listen as Pastor Andy Woods uncovers the prophetic significance of the world we live in. The Watchman’s Call starts now.

Dr. Andy Woods: We're continuing with our series, One Second After the Rapture. What's going to happen for the believer? We talked about reunion, resurrection, and reward. What's going to happen for the unbeliever? There's going to be a perverted explanation offered as to where all the missing people went, a dramatic change in the outworking of God's purposes. And let's move to our third point here of eight: what will the unbelieving world experience one second after the Rapture?

They will experience number three: the identification of the Antichrist. They will have the ability to know exactly who this coming Antichrist that many have speculated about, who that person actually is. Now, the reason we cannot know his identity this side of the Rapture is 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 tells us that there's something holding the Antichrist back. Notice what Paul says. He says, "And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way."

In other words, there is something in the earth called the restrainer that is stopping the Antichrist or the man of lawlessness described in verse three of that chapter from coming forward. Now, the big question is, who is this restrainer? I believe that this restrainer is none other than the eternally existent third member of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit.

Why would I say that? First of all, the Holy Spirit or God himself, only he could hold back Satan's man of the hour. That's who the Antichrist is. Satan will perfectly express himself through this Antichrist or man of lawlessness, and who could hold Satan back? None other than God. And so that fits our description of the Holy Spirit. Peter, in Acts 5, identified the Holy Spirit as God. When Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit and were killed, Peter says, "You, Ananias and Sapphira, have lied to God himself."

Another reason I think this restrainer is the Holy Spirit is in the 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 passage that I mentioned earlier, the participle "restrainer." The participle is neuter in verse six in Greek, but it's masculine in verse seven. There's a switch from the neuter to the masculine. What a great description of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is neuter. The Greek word *pneuma* for spirit is a neuter noun, but Jesus frequently in the Upper Room called the Holy Spirit "he."

In fact, in John 14:16-17, you'll notice that Jesus called the Holy Spirit "he." In John 16:7-11, "when he comes, he will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment." So the switch from the neuter to the masculine is a great description of the Holy Spirit, a neuter noun, but Jesus used the masculine pronoun frequently to describe the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room.

And even beyond that, we know that the Holy Spirit has ministries in the world. He has ministries in the church, he has ministries in the believer, but he has ministries in the world. One of the things he's doing right now in the world is he's convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He was striving with man in the days of Noah for 120 years. And what is being described in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 is a ministry of the Spirit in the world, in this case, restraining or holding back the Antichrist.

Now let me ask you a basic question. Where does the Holy Spirit now live? He lives inside the child of God. He lives inside the child of God forever. 1 Corinthians 6, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:9, if a man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not have Christ. John 14:16-17, the Holy Spirit will be within you forever.

So if I'm understanding all of this right, what I'm thinking is that the church's presence on the earth, the Christian's presence on the earth because the Holy Spirit indwells the Christian, is holding back the Antichrist or Satan's man of the hour. But one second after the Rapture, that restraint will be removed and the Antichrist will be allowed to come forward and Satan will be allowed to present his man of the hour. And now the Antichrist won't be a mystery to the world. Everyone will look and know that this is the Antichrist, something that can't happen today.

Revelation 13:17-18 says he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man, and his number is 666. Famous passage. There's something in ancient languages called gematria, where letters in ancient languages were associated with a number. This is true in both Hebrew and Greek, the languages of the Bible.

In Greek, for example, you could spell out someone's name. You could attach the right number to the right letter, add up all of the digits, and everybody's name could be reduced to a simple number. Apparently, when this Antichrist comes forward, you'll be able to take his name—I would assume that's his first name and his last name—translate it into Greek. Don't throw the title in there, that's not what the prophecy indicates, it's the number of his name.

Translate his name into Greek, attach the right number to the right letter, add up the digits, and it will yield the number 666. And that's how the whole world will be able to identify and recognize the Antichrist once the restrainer is removed, the removal of the restrainer being a synonym for the Rapture of the church. This, by the way, is why it's a complete waste of time to try to figure out who the Antichrist is this side of the Rapture.

Unfortunately, many in church history have tried to speculate as to who the Antichrist is. This was actually happening in the days of Irenaeus, one of our earliest church fathers. Irenaeus was discipled by Polycarp, who was discipled by John the Apostle himself. And Irenaeus, in his book *Against Heresies*, says: "We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; but if it had been necessary to announce his name plainly at the present time, it would have been spoken by him who saw the apocalypse; for it was seen not long ago, but almost in our own time, at the end of the reign of Domitian," which is about AD 95.

He doesn't say AD 95, but I threw that in there because that's when Domitian, about a year after I should say, left the throne. So all the way back in that time period, people were trying to guess as to who the Antichrist is. And Irenaeus says in his book *Against Heresies*, knock it off. You can't know who the Antichrist is because his name is never given by John. And the truth of the matter is we can't know who the Antichrist is as long as the restrainer is here. As long as the church is here and as long as the Lord is using the church to restrain the Antichrist, it's a waste of time to try to figure out who the Antichrist is.

But one of these days the Rapture will occur, the restraint will be gone, Satan's man of the hour will be released onto planet Earth, and the whole world will know exactly who the Antichrist is. Now, the interesting thing about Satan is he is not omniscient; he's not all-knowing. And we know that because when we get a description of Satan in Ezekiel 28:13 and verse 15, it tells us that Satan was a created being.

As a created being, he does not have omniscience; he's not all-knowing. He does not have omnipotence; he's not all-powerful. And he is not omnipresent, everywhere at once the way God is. And consequently, Satan himself believes in the Rapture, but he doesn't know when the Rapture will occur. So he's always had a man waiting in the wings. Paul hints at this in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and verse 7.

He says the man of lawlessness will be revealed, the son of destruction, and then in verse seven, he says, "For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way." In other words, there's coming the release of the lawless one on planet Earth, but even before that happens, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, meaning Satan has always had somebody waiting in the wings since Satan himself does not know when the Rapture will happen.

John talks about this in 1 John 4:3. He says, "Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and now is already in the world." He made that statement 2,000 years ago. So before the Antichrist comes forward, he will be prefigured by multiple miniature antichrists, we might say baby antichrists, in preparation for big daddy Antichrist, godfather we might say, Antichrist because Satan really doesn't know when this restraint will be removed, and so he's always had someone waiting in the wings.

This may explain why so many leaders in our world bear a striking resemblance to the Antichrist, going back to Nero, going to Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini, working up into modern times. You can think of many people on the world stage and you look at them and you say, "Boy, they sound a lot like the Antichrist." And maybe they are Satan's hand-picked person if this is the time period when the restrainer will be removed.

But rest assured, although Satan's always had a man waiting in the wings because he doesn't know when the restraint will be removed, nobody can know for certainty who the Antichrist is until the restraint is removed, the Antichrist comes forward, and his name in Greek gematria translates into 666. So one second after the Rapture, everything changes in the world and we'll know who the Antichrist is.

There's a fourth thing that will happen for the unbeliever one second after the Rapture: humanity will be moved into maximum global government. We know that global government is coming because of the prophecy given in Daniel 7:23, which describes the final form of Gentile rule that will exist before the second advent of Christ in the Tribulation period itself. And it says there the fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it.

When it uses language like tread down and crush, it's talking about tyranny. And when it says it will devour the whole earth, it's talking about one-world government, one-world tyranny if you will. Many passages in addition to Daniel 7:23 speak of this time period. You might cross-reference Revelation 13:7-8 and then verses 16-18 of the same chapter. You'll see a description of this in Revelation 17:15.

And even though we see movements in our world towards one-world government, the final form of one-world government tyranny has not yet materialized. There's something stopping it. And what is stopping it is the restrainer that holds back the Antichrist. And what is stopping it is the woman in the basket according to Zechariah 5:5-11, with the lid placed over her so she can't get out, a lead covering, heavy metal so to speak, placed on top of the basket so that this woman named wickedness cannot get out of the basket.

One of these days that basket lid will be removed. We see a description of this in Zechariah 5:5-11. It says, "The angel who was speaking with me went out and said to me, 'Lift up your eyes and see what is going forth.' And I said, 'What is it?' And he said, 'This is the ephah,' which is a basket of commerce, 'going forth.' And he said, 'This is their appearance in all the land.' And behold, a lead cover was lifted up, and this woman sitting inside the ephah."

"Then he said, 'This is wickedness!' And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and cast the lead weight on its opening. Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and there two women were coming out with the wind in their wings; and they had wings like wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. I said to the angel who was speaking with me, 'Where are they taking the ephah?' And they said to me, 'To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.'"

What is this talking about in Zechariah 5:5-11? It's talking about a woman who represents wickedness. She's inside an ephah or a basket which represents commerce. She's imprisoned in that basket by a heavy lead covering, it seems. But one of these days that covering is going to be released, it's going to be taken off the basket. This woman will come out of the basket and she will go build a house.

Now, the word for house here is *bayit*; it's the same word used to describe the temple that David was promised he would have one day. Of course, David didn't build the temple; that assignment went to his son Solomon, but this was promised in the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7. The word for temple that's used there is the word *bayit*. And then this temple is going to be built for her where? It's very clear: in the land of Shinar.

That should ring a bell. That's where the Tower of Babel once stood. It's where the children of Israel were taken into the Babylonian captivity. It's between the Euphrates and the Tigris in modern-day Iraq, modern-day Babylon. And what this is is a prediction that one of these days that covering is going to be taken off the basket, this woman is going to go out of the basket and she's going to, as wickedness, set up shop and build a temple which represents religion in the land of Shinar where the Tower of Babel once stood.

This is an awesome prophecy. This is an amazing prophecy that one-world government will come back to planet Earth and it will be a reincarnation, if you will, of the Tower of Babel. What was the Tower of Babel that we read about in Genesis 11:1-9? It was a system of politics, religion, and economics that excluded God. In fact, Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian commenting on that passage, says the builders at Babel were trying to build a tower so high into heaven that if God ever decided to flood the earth again, they would be protected, impervious from that flood.

So they were trying to build a system without divine accountability; they were trying to build a system and a city without God. Satan has always wanted this project back. God, as you remember, disrupted it through the confounding of the language at Babel where the builders could not cooperate with each other. But Satan has always worked in history to get this one-world government system back headquartered in the land of Shinar, a reincarnation of the Tower of Babel.

This system will not come into play until this woman is released from the basket. She can't come out of the basket at the present time. So what is holding this woman in the basket? I think it's none other than the restrainer that we saw earlier. 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 says, "And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken away."

One second after the Rapture, the restraint is gone, the Antichrist can come forward. And concurrently with that, simultaneously with that, the woman will be let out of the basket and she will go back to the land of Shinar, which will be the headquarters of one-world government, the reincarnation of the Tower of Babel, if you will. And humanity will then move into, for the last seven years of human history prior to the second advent of Christ, maximum global governance.

This will be the fulfillment of Revelation 17 and 18. It's kind of interesting that when you study Revelation 17 and 18, the prophecies about Babylon, next to the prophecy of the woman in the basket, Zechariah 5:5-11, you see some uncanny parallels. In both sections of Scripture, a woman is sitting. It's just in Zechariah 5 she's in a basket and in Revelation 17 she's sitting on the beast and seven mountains and many waters.

Zechariah 5 portrays this woman as heavily involved in commerce. That's what an ephah was, a basket for measuring grain. And you see a commercial emphasis in Revelation 18; the words merchant and things of that nature are repeatedly used in those chapters. In Zechariah 5, the woman is named Wickedness; it's just in Revelation 17 and 18 her name is Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth.

There's a focus of false worship in Zechariah 5 because this woman is going to build a temple, which is synonymous with religion itself. And when you go to Revelation 17:5, you'll see that this woman is described as a harlot, which in the Scripture, when used symbolically, always represents false religion. Now, where is this woman going to be taken? She's going to be taken to the land of Shinar, and that's just a synonym for Babylon, which was located between the Euphrates and the Tigris, 58 miles south of Baghdad, where this woman is called Babylon.

So this is something that will happen one second after the Rapture. Satan will be able to finally achieve what he wanted to create at the Tower of Babel: his one-world master plan. And I believe that our world is being set up and it's being prepared for that very city and system that's coming. After all, John Lennon sang about it in his famous song, *Imagine*.

He said, "Imagine there's no heaven, no hell, no countries, no religion, no possessions. Imagine all the people living for today and the world as one." What was he singing about? He was singing about this one-world system that would one day come to planet Earth. David Rockefeller was very instrumental in helping push us along into that one-world system. This is what he says in his memoirs on page 405.

He says: "For more than a century, ideological extremists have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalists and conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty and am proud of it."

See, humanity has always pushed us in the direction of this one-world system. But the goal of one-worldism in its maximum sense will not be reached until one second after the Rapture, until the woman is released from the basket. The restrainer must be removed first. So these are things that will be thrust on, forced on, unbelieving humanity one second after the Rapture. There's more to come and we will develop those in our next lesson together. Thank you for listening, God bless you, and Lord willing, we will see you next time. God bless.

Announcer: You've been listening to The Watchman's Call, exploring the intersection of prophecy and culture. This program is a ministry of Sugar Land Bible Church, a place where the Bible is taught and the times are discerned. Visit this Sunday in person or connect with them anytime at SLBC.org. That's SLBC.org. Until next time, may the Lord give you a spirit of discernment in the week ahead.