The Antichrist Dilemma

It's one thing when part of scripture starts to happen IRL, but it's a whole new level when every word is happening...

The world is so caught up in figuring out who the antichrist is as a person. Are we doing something wrong? What are we missing???

Today, Jamie discusses the "mahdi", the new pope, earthquakes, and Jesus' body "found" in Egypt? What is going on?! 

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Outer Reap Podcast, the OP. I'm your host, Jamie DeShane, and today we're going to jump right in because you've probably seen the title with it being the Antichrist Dilemma. Why is it a dilemma? What is going on in the world today? Do we actually see the Antichrist? What's going on? What does scripture say about it? Well, we're going to talk about that today. If you haven't had a chance to go back the last couple episodes that we've had, we've actually talked about things such as immortality. We've talked about in Revelation, the first nine books, maybe what John was doing, the Maybe what he wasn't doing. If you have had a chance, go back and listen to those because we're still kind of talking about end times because we are definitely in the end of the end times. So what do I mean by that? I mean, we have stuff happening in the news right now at an increasingly alarming rate of scripture being fulfilled left and right. If you've been on TikTok, if you've been on any type of social media, if you've even seen the news, which all are not viable sources, but they're viable in the fact that if they're all saying the same thing and things that are pointing to the Bible coming to fruition, we probably need to perk up our ears and listen and look to the sky. So... Without further ado, what is going on in the world today? over social media with people saying that, oh my gosh, Donald Trump is the Antichrist, or this new, quote, Mahdi that has now come out that's all over social media claiming to be the Mahdi of the Islam community. It's crazy, all these people, how they just have these ideas of who is and who isn't the Antichrist. Now, we're on the topic of the Mahdi. If you've not been on social media, maybe you're very, you know, Naive to what's going on in the world. There's a lot. There's a lot. We've got someone that's claiming to be the Messiah that has come to say that, hey, I have come from Jesus Christ himself. He has sent me. Muhammad has sent me. He is trying to basically come and be the end all like be the Messiah. He is what scripture would consider the Antichrist. If you're looking at the Bible. But it's crazy because a couple of things about the Mahdi, if it's true that this guy that has arose in the last couple of weeks, if he truly is who he says he is, the Mahdi is actually going to slaughter all who do not worship Allah, which is a big deal. He's going to want to convert everyone to Islam. And if you don't convert to Islam... He's going to have you killed with his massive army. He's going to try to establish an everlasting world-dominating kingdom of Islam. Of course, he is the Islamic savior, the long-awaited savior that they're awaiting for for the end times. And you must follow him. There's clips right now on social media where he has told Christians straight up, hey, those of you in the east and the west, Jesus sent me. I have come on behalf of him. I'm now the true authority, so you must obey and listen to me. He calls Paul false and says that he had led all of us astray, which if you... Paul very well. You know, he's pretty much makes up the bulk of our new Testament. Uh, but he said that Paul led us astray. And it's kind of funny. He says that because Paul in the way he presents the gospel, um, is an absolute powerhouse in what we need today. And, uh, the fact that he's actually trying to say that, Oh, Jesus sent me, but Paul, Ooh, Paul is wrong. You just need to look at some of the letters that Paul has written because that dude is on fire for what he says. And we'll kind of cover a little bit of what he says today. But back to the Mahdi. Again, he wants everybody to listen and obey. He's trying to join everybody because his end goal is to have a peace agreement with the Jews and the West for seven years. years now this is all biblical this is everything that has come from the bible that even jesus himself had said uh even john you know everybody peter paul they've all mentioned at some point some way some scenario that you know what's going to happen in the end time when we do have a you know a false prophet that when we have a false messiah the antichrist when we have satan rise the beast system the beast this the beast that it is all 100 biblical of what's coming Now, what's crazy is that in the process, because we're talking about what's going on in the news right now, in the process of all this, there has been a news article that's come out that has promised the world that they have found the body of Jesus Christ in Egypt. Isn't this crazy? All these things that are coming about right now that is trying to discredit what our Bible says, discredit what the Word of God says, discredit what Jesus says, Paul says, and everybody that followed, you know, the 12 disciples that listened to Jesus, the fact that they all just, you know, they just wanted to up and die for no reason. No, they legit died for a reason. They died because they knew that Jesus was the true Messiah. And now you've got a guy coming in claiming that he is the true Messiah. Yeah. It's so crazy. He's even supposed to, I remember I was seeing a clip the other day, John MacArthur, which I do and don't follow. I just happened to come across one of the clips that he said, and I did some research and found that this is true. Supposedly, the Mahdi is supposed to find near the Sea of Galilee hidden scriptures, hidden gospels, a hidden Torah, and basically he's going to use that for the world to say that these are the true scriptures and to show Christians and Jews that they are wrong and they have Followed a false gospel. So what do you do as an antichrist when you come into the world? Or you make it out that Jesus never rose again. So you say, oh, we found a body in Egypt. Then you also say like, oh, all these scriptures that y'all as a world community, even Christians nowadays don't know if like the word is infallible. If it's like, if it's an errant, like it hasn't been changed over time. Oh my gosh, all the versions, all the different, you know, NLT, NEV, NIV, you know, all this stuff. People want to say, oh, the scriptures have been watered down. We know for a fact they've not been watered down. You can go listen to Apologetic Wes Huff, and he can pretty much show you all the historical significance behind what we have as Scripture. But again, the enemy is going to try and do everything they can to discredit the word of God by bringing randomly their own personal word from God and try to treat it as if it is the infallible word and have people follow them. Now, we know that it will happen in the end days. Going back to Revelation, we know there's going to be a tribulation and you may not be aware of this, but we will go through tribulation and A lot of people think like, oh, Jesus is going to come and get us before the tribulation happens. We're going to be raptured up. I'm sorry. That's not what your Bible says. Your Bible says that we will go through tribulation. We will go through persecution. Right now, even if this guy is or isn't real, I'm not even giving any word of power to this person. Because this part doesn't matter, but he's got people, apparently this false or fake whatever Mahdi has people all around the world, including U.S., going around and trying to push this idea that he's the Messiah. And if he's really come along the fact and wants to kill Christians that don't want to convert to Islam, well, you might need to understand that we might see in a couple of years, maybe even this year in 2025, we might start seeing absolute persecution for Christians and following their faith. So first off, I want to tell you, it's real. All right. We know it's going to happen. Tribulation will happen. What will not happen to us is the wrath of God coming upon us. And that's when Jesus comes and raptures his people, not just the church, but his people. people, the people that have followed him, that have believed in him. Those are going to be the people that go up in the rapture before the wrath of God. But I'm sorry to, to, you know, give you some, some pain here, but we will go through some type of tribulation. And when that happens, listen, you need to need to hold on because I'm telling you it's worth it in the end. And again, we'll get to that, but we got all this stuff happening in the news right now. There's so much more that I could cover of what's, you know, the things they're finding over and overseas. And, uh, you know, the, all of a sudden now there's also going to be an extradition going to see if Noah's Ark is, uh, was a real, which again, just continues to credit the Bible that everything that's written in the Bible is actual facts, which is fantastic because again, once again, science proves the Bible is actually historically correct. And if that means that historically correct, that means that prophecy will continue to be historically correct. So if you've done any type of research when it comes to the end times and revelation, you absolutely know that there is scripture in Matthew 24 where the disciples are like, Jesus, we need you to tell us when is all this going to happen? Basically, when is the end times going to happen? And he does. I mean, if you've been in church for quite a while, you know this scripture well. But I think it's fascinating because there's a lot of things happening in the world that this is going to start lining up. Which, by the way, as of today, which is, I believe it's the 10th of May, we had, I'm here in Knoxville, Tennessee, we had a 4.1 magnitude earthquake. I have never in my life witnessed an earthquake. I have never seen an earthquake happen. I've never been in person when it's happened. I've never seen a home shut down. shake like I did this morning, but good Lord, there was an earthquake. So, why is that significant? Well, let's look at some of the scripture right now, what's going on. So, let's look at 24 verse 4 in Matthew. It starts out, Jesus answered, watch... Watch out what? You know, Pakistan and Israeli fights. And then we hear like everything from Russia and China, like all this stuff. Rumors of war. We're going to World War Three. World War Three is going to happen. We keep hearing all this stuff. And of course, what happened? Jesus said that you're going to hear of wars and rumors of wars, but not be alarmed. Such things must happen. But the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Now we've seen and we have heard overseas and even in America in some places where we've had a little bit of famine, where there's been recalls or you haven't been able to go to the grocery store because things have been sold out or there's been like tariffs and something happening at the trade and we're not getting food and All this kind of stuff. And then you hear of earthquakes happening in a random places. They normally don't happen as AKA today, like it happened in Knoxville, Tennessee. These read again, the beginning of birth pains. You know, Jesus is always paying the picture. that the end times would come along like a woman having birth. Birth pains are essentially, hey, this woman's about to have child. It's time to go to the hospital and be ready. And so Jesus is saying here, listen, this is the beginning of birth pains. This is the beginning of everything happening to let you know that as the contractions get closer and closer, as rumors of wars and wars happen, as more false messiahs and everything else comes, you are getting closer and closer to the end. Closer and closer. So we know it's coming. Are we ready? Continues in verse 9. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and to be put to death. And you will be hated by all nations because of me. Now, again, if this false Mahdi wants to go through, this potential Antichrist wants to go through and wants to kill Christians and all that, again, like I said earlier, you will be persecuted. You will be. You know, we think that persecution is going to come like something similar to, you know, in America, we've had school shootings and the Columbine was like the first big one that we had. And the story from Columbine was the guy was going up and asking students, like, do you believe in God? And if they said yes, they would kill him. And of course, we know the story that the one, the women, the little girl that said that she goes, yes, I believe in Jesus. I believe in God. And he shot her and killed her. It's crazy because we assume that, oh, that's how it's going to be. First, we're going to be persecuted in front of many. I just want to tell you right now, it's not just going to be some guy putting a gun to your head saying, do you believe in God? Do you not want to follow God? Then they're going to pull the trigger. It's not going to be just like that. They're going to try to basically put you against people. Like they're going to try to have you in front of everybody and peer pressure you into following a false God and a false Messiah. And I'm telling you, you need to stand firm in your faith because again, when persecution comes, be joyful because that means that you're standing up for the true Christ, the one that saved you, the one that went to the cross, beheld death and the grave, including a false Messiah and a false antichrist, uh, all of that so that you could be eternally with him. So don't, Do not give up hope, you know, persecution when it comes, when suffering comes, be joyful, be glad. I'm pretty sure there's some scripture on that. So continue on in verse 10, it says, at that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people because of the increase of wickedness. The love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. Now you have a lot of Um, the pastors that want to fight the once saved, always save. And they always like when you use this scripture right here. And this is not what I'm talking about today. The once saved, always save, you know, if you stand firm only at the end, that's when you'll be saved. Now I'm saying that what Jesus is saying here is don't be deceived. Like don't, don't, don't take, you know, a false mark against God and claim some other religion. You know, don't disrespect the Holy spirit that God's put inside of you to say, Oh, well I'm gonna follow this person. Cause this actually might be Jesus. So this actually might be like God. No, Jesus is saying, you know, Stand firm to the end. Still be there for me. Believe in me because I will come through for you. His word never returns to him void, by the way. Continuing in verse 12, because of the increased wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. So when you see standing in the holy place, the abomination that causes desolation spoken of through the prophet Daniel, let the reader understand. Then let those who are in the Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down and take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back and get their cloak. How dreadful will be to those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Pray that your flight will not get taken place in the winter or in the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress unequaled from the beginning of the world until now. and never to be equaled again. So it's going to be at the worst height possible for things happening in this world. And again, I can continue to read on. I'll jump to verse 24. It says, For many false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Even you or I potentially could be deceived. See, I have told you ahead of time. See, Jesus is saying, listen, I'm not leaving you hanging here. Like, I'm not going to just say, oh, you know what? Just persevere. You know, just get through it. You know, you just keep hoping in me. No, Jesus says, hey, I'm going to give you the answers to the test. You know, automatically we win. You know, don't give up. You know, there's a reason that you're fighting for. You're fighting for me. And you're fighting for your salvation. So if anyone tells you there he is out in the wilderness, do not go out. Or here he is in here in the inner rooms. Do not believe it. Which is funny they say that because we just heard the news article coming out that Egypt supposedly has Jesus' body buried in one of the inner rooms. But I digress. Verse 27, For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass where the vultures will gather immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will darken and the moon will not give us light. The stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then will appear the son of man in heaven. And then all the people of the earth will mourn when they see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the earth to the other. Now, what's crazy is, again, this is the rapture. If you noticed that as Jesus was talking, he said, listen, you're going to go through tribulation. You're going to go through persecution, even to the point of death. You will go through this, but take heart. Don't worry. I'm telling you, Jesus is saying, don't worry. And we're living in a world right now where so many people are so enthralled with trying to figure out who's the Antichrist, who's the Antichrist. And let's just be real. There are too many Christians in this world right now that are so focused on trying to figure out who the Antichrist is that they're not even worried about who the true God is, and they're not trying to have a relationship with the one true king. We need to have a more realistic view of who God is, who Jesus is. Yes, they're love. Yes, they're grace. Yes, they're mercy. Yes, they have all of this. But let me tell you something. God has no rival. Jesus has no rival. The world would have you believe that Satan, the devil, is the rival of God, is the rival of Jesus. That is the furthest thing from the truth. They have no rival. And if Satan is supposed to be the leader above the Antichrist, by the way, if that means that God and Jesus are not even rivals to them and we're above Satan as well, then what in the world would you think that the Antichrist would be above us? Because he's not. He's not. He shouldn't even be worried about. We need to start living as Christians. Stop worrying about who the Antichrist is. Stop trying to tell people like, oh, this could be the Antichrist. This could be Antichrist. And instead, tell people, hey, this who is the Christ? Jesus is the Christ. Let me show you all the things that he's done, not just in the gospel, but in my own personal gospel, the testimonies that's come in my life, the things that God has done for me, through me, and with me. That is the gospel people need to hear because when people hear that, when people hear vulnerabilities, when people hear the miracles that God's done in your life, whether big or small, which by the way, any miracle in your life is the same size regardless of what it is. God did something in your life. That is something that you should be praising on all. Oh my gosh. I get on such a tangent of people that just forget the things that God's done for them. We need to be focusing and going the direction of telling people more about Jesus and about everything going on with him in their life and your life than trying to look for an Antichrist. So I know we talked about, we opened this podcast about, oh, the Antichrist dilemma. The dilemma is this. We need to stop worrying about the Antichrist. We need to worry about Jesus Christ. We need to be on the ideal plane of discipleship. following Jesus. Jesus never said, oh, by the way, as you're doing this, as you're treating people with love and allowing the Holy Spirit to move in your life, oh, by the way, you should also go worry about who the Antichrist is. He didn't say any of that. He just warned us of what will come, but he never said to harp on it. So we as Christians need to stop harping on it. How do we do that? We need to focus on better things than the end times. The one thing though, I would say that we need to do a better job is, is getting people in front of the gospel. If you are not feeling confident enough to get someone under the gospel, to share the gospel, invite them to your church. I don't care if people have this idea of like, oh, you know, people, they just want me to invite them to church and it's going to be weird and it's going to be awkward. Listen, I don't care. Church is one of the easiest places for people to be under the sound of the gospel. If your flesh is And let's be honest, we have all dealt with this. If your flesh is too strong for you to share the greatness of God and what he's done in your life, then invite the person to church. It's the easiest thing you can do to get somebody under the sound of the gospel. We need to stop treating Sunday mornings like, hey, I'm a consumer. I need, I need. No, get other people. And it gets to the point where you're actually a worker of God and you're working out your faith by getting people under the sound of the gospel. They need to know that Jesus came for them, died for them. Yeah, there's so many cool things that you can learn theological wise as far as like, oh, why Jesus did this? Oh, why does Jesus did that? That's so cool. And we'll talk about that on the podcast. Absolutely. But the main point is that Jesus came. Jesus died for you. He took all sin, sickness and disease on the cross when he was buried and he was raised in three days. People need to hear this. And then people need to hear what he's done in your life as part of that gospel, because it doesn't just stop at the cross. It continues forever. with you. You are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be more and do more. It's time we do that. It is time we do that. I want to finish up with some scripture. Like I said, good old Paul, he wrote to the Ephesians, the Philippians, and that's kind of what we're going to kind of look at today is quickly in Philippians. Picking up in verse 7, you're like, Jamie, how do I focus? What do I do? Well, let's look at this. He says in verse 7, but whatever were gains to me, I now consider lost for the sake of Christ. Now, let's talk about this because, again, if persecution comes, we have to be ready. Verse 8, what is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through the faith in Christ. The righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ. Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Now, not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on and take hold of that which is in Christ Jesus took hold of. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. What's ahead? I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. We have to be so emphatically in love with Jesus, following him, following what his word says. We have the likes of Paul, who, by the way, that my D has said, don't listen to He's led you astray. Now, I'm pretty sure he's leading us the correct way towards Jesus. He's one of the only apostles that never actually witnessed Jesus in person. He had his own miracle. Jesus appeared to him and healed him and had this whole thing with his eye, which is a whole cool other story, just thinking about Paul. But he had a different type. He had a relationship, a faith like you and I can have. Not like someone that Peter and John and everybody else that was actually physically with Jesus. He was a type that we can be led not astray, but to the God of the ages through Christ Jesus. I think the word of God is so powerful. It has always been powerful. It will never not be an errant word of God. I mean, everything that is said in here, it's just amazing. If you've not been reading your Bible or I suggest you do that instead of looking on social media and trying to figure out who the Antichrist is or trying to look up your own things. Jump in the Bible. Listen, do you think that people just learn things because of other people alone? No, no. God uses the Holy Spirit to teach you the word of God. So if you open your Bible and you say, hey, listen, Holy Spirit, I need you to reveal the stuff in this word that I may not understand today. I guarantee you he will, because the more you ask of God, the more you will get of God. We have this idea that when we pray and all this kind of stuff, that we always pray for personal things. But I'm telling you, every time that you pray for something of Jesus, of God, of the Holy Spirit to you, watch what happens. I dare you to do it and then try to come back and tell me that something didn't work. Because if you do, I'll just be like, well, you probably didn't do it the correct way then. You literally need to sit there and just say, hey, Holy Spirit, lead me and guide me. And then open the word. Start in a gospel or start in a letter that Paul wrote to Ephesians, the Philippians, Corinth. I mean, anybody, anybody. And you can see very quickly how the things that are written in that word just as well speak louder today than they did back then. So I'll close with this. We need to be thinking on the things that are pure, that are just, you know, the things that, you know, I don't know. Verse 8 says of chapter 4 in Philippians, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you. So what does that tell you right there? If we focus on those things, then the God of peace, which by the way, peace that surpasses all understanding, will be with you even through persecution, even through the crappy stuff and just the wickedness of this world. Listen, I know that you might even think to yourself, like, man, you don't even know my past. Listen, I'm telling you, everybody has a past. Everybody has sin nature. We're always fighting a sin nature. Through the Holy Spirit, we have a fighting sin nature. Does it mean that you will stop sinning? No, you're not perfect. Your thoughts can be sins. Your actions can be sins. There's so much things that can be sinful. And we'll actually talk about that on the next episode, which is going to be amazing talking about the timing of God versus the timing of us. But I digress again. Listen, final thing today. Stop worrying about the Antichrist. Start worrying about the Christ. Start doing any relationship with him. Start praying. Start getting in your word. You know, you don't have to do everything all at once and like just hammer it away. Just have time with God. on your drives, if you're going to work, talk to God, talk to Christ. If you're at home and you've got, hey, 15 minutes where you're doing absolutely nothing and you're kind of bored, man, that's a great time to go pick up the Word of God. Or a book that actually points and gives you more references to study and understand the Word of God. Just do that. Do that and I guarantee you, you will see your faith grow. You will see God grow. One of the cool things I've been doing lately, I think it's fantastic. It's like a discipline. It's taking a scripture, whether it's, for example, Psalms 1, Proverbs 1, and literally writing it down verse by verse in a notebook, literally just writing it down. It'll help you with memory, but it'll also help get the Word of God in you because not only are you reading it, you're having to speak it out loud, and then you're writing it down, which is all three ways. This is one of some of the easiest ways for you to get God and the Word of God in in you. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Well, this has been another episode of the Outer Rape Podcast. If you haven't had a chance, subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're currently listening to because we're going to continue dropping episodes as often as possible, especially with what's going on because God's moving. It's 2025. We're getting closer and closer to the end and we need to be rapture ready, not from the perspective of just It's like, oh, we get to go home, but we need to be rapture ready as far as we need to go out and reach the world for Jesus and tell more people so that we can add them to the fold of the family so we can see them in eternity. Guys, we love you. God bless. And we'll see you next time on the Addery Podcast.