The Dragon and the Beast

Who Will the Antichrist Be? The Dragon and the Beast of Revelation - who are they? For two millennia Christians have pondered over Biblical prophecy, trying to discern the identity of the Antichrist. In recent years many have pointed to the twelfth Imam of Shi'a Islam as the one who will fit the bill. But if the Antichrist is Islam's long awaited Mahdi, shouldn't there be parallels among all the prophecies of the Bible and Islamic scripture? In The Dragon and the Beast, Faith Jones reveals that the end time prophecies of the two religions align nearly perfectly. The dragon of Revelation is As-Sufyani, the Muslim tyrant who arises out of Iraq to conquer the entire region. At the appointed time, the beast out of the sea (the Mahdi) will gather his troops on the shores of Galilee and defeat him. Then, with the help of the false prophet (Islam's "Prophet Jesus"), he will overcome the saints and the two witnesses (Al Dajaal, "the Liar" who besieges Jerusalem with his army of Christians and Jews). As the two-horned beast out of the land, the Mahdi and the "Prophet Jesus" will then rule the earth together from Jerusalem, imposing the Bismillah of Islam as the mark of the beast. These parallels in prophecy, and the fact that both Daniel and Revelation point to the Middle East as the heart of the beast's empire, are strong evidence that Islam will be the false religion of the beast, and that its Mahdi will be the Antichrist. It appears that the stage of the end time is already being set in the Middle East, but will Christians be ready? The first century Church's belief that Christ's return was imminent drove them to spread the gospel like wildfire, despite great personal cost. Can modern believers recapture that same urgency to do great things for the kingdom in the last days of the Age? In the seven letters of Revelation, Christ gives a message to the Church at each broken seal, warning that many will fall away. Yet in His letter to Thyatira, He reveals that the gentile Church will be raptured at the fourth seal, triggering a time of great distress for Israel under the Mahdi's regime. Yet God doesn't leave His people without a witness. At the sixth seal, 144,000 Jews will receive Christ and a special anointing to spread the gospel and build up the Jewish church of Philadelphia. It is these who will be taken up in the harvest rapture at the seventh trumpet. If you are a student of end time prophecy, The Dragon and the Beast is an absolute must!