Delusion Redux

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about how I had changed my mind about the ethnicity of the Antichrist, and the fact that I am now convinced he must be a Gentile, not a Jew. In that article, I mentioned the strong delusion that God says He will send upon a Christ-rejecting world during the Tribulation, and I discussed how I am convinced that this strong delusion will be aimed primarily at unbelieving Jews, and will be unleashed on them at the abomination of desolation in order to delude them into doing the unthinkable: finally accepting this conspicuously non-Jewish leader who has brought them (false) peace and security and facilitated the building of the Third Temple as their long-awaited Mashiach.

My argument basically amounted to the simple fact that if the Antichrist were in fact Jewish, the Jews would have been hailing him as the Mashiach from day one, and no such strong delusion would be necessary.

I also indicated that there was more to it than that, but that it really warranted a separate article.

This is that article.

The first thing I want to do is whet your appetite with a Top 10 list of interesting parallels and contrasts between Christ and the Antichrist. There are actually many more, but I winnowed it down to these 10, and the last one on the list will lead us into a discussion of why I am convinced the strong delusion God sends upon the world during the Tribulation is directed primarily at the unbelieving majority of Jews and is specifically intended to delude them into accepting a Gentile Antichrist as their Mashiach.

I also want to discuss what I believe is a fascinating connection between the strong delusion and an unusual incident that occurred during the lives of the Jewish Patriarchs that I believe gives us a bit of insight into why this strong delusion will be aimed primarily at unbelieving Israel to delude them into embracing the Antichrist as their Messiah and worshiping him.

Parallels and contrasts

There are a number of ways in which the Antichrist bears some intriguing similarity to Christ, and arguably even more ways in which he is a bit more like Christ turned upside down and backwards. Here are 10 of these parallels and contrasts that I think are noteworthy.

1. Both work miracles to establish their authority.

Christ performed miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit, and miracles served to confirm His divine authority:

Note that miracles didn't actually prove He was divine—they proved He possessed divine authority. Not the same. For example, Moses performed miracles too, but that didn't mean he was God in the flesh. That was simply God's way of letting the people know that Moses was His man and spoke for Him, and that He expected them to listen to him.

It was a similar situation with Christ. Even though He really was the Son of God, the miracles He performed weren't the proof of that. Miracles were proof that He wielded God's authority and spoke for God, and let the people know that God expected them to listen to Him. Plus, they fulfilled messianic prophecy (Isa. 35:5–6) and so communicated to the people that He was in fact the promised Messiah without Him having to openly proclaim it.

After the Restrainer is removed at the Rapture and Satan is turned loose on a Christ-rejecting world, he will be able to empower both the Antichrist and the False Prophet to perform miracles. Just as the Holy Spirit empowered Christ to perform miracles in order to confirm Christ's divine authority and ultimately lead men to glorify and worship Him, the False Prophet will use counterfeit miracles to deceptively attempt to confirm the same divine authority for the Antichrist, and for the purpose of inducing men to glorify and worship him in place of Christ:

2. Satan tests Christ, but empowers the Antichrist.

In Matthew 4:1–11, Jesus is fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, and Satan comes to tempt Him to cause Him to succumb to various temptations. He wanted to cause Him to fall, and if he had succeeded it would have disqualified Christ from being the Jews' Messiah and our Redeemer. If.

On the other hand, Satan will empower the Antichrist to make him stand:

During the Tribulation, Satan will be able to empower the Antichrist in order to foist his man on an unsuspecting world as their "savior." But when the real Savior shows up, it's all going to come tumbling down.

3. Both have an earthly ministry limited to three and a half years.

Although there are varying opinions among biblical scholars concerning exactly what year Christ's ministry began (most zero in on AD 28–29), there is fairly widespread agreement based on information given in the Gospels that Christ's ministry lasted about three and a half years.

Similarly, the Antichrist will reign for three and a half years (42 months):

That's "a time" (one year) plus "times" (two years) plus "half a time" (half a year), for a total of three and a half years. And there's this:

4. Christ made the Old Covenant obsolete—the Antichrist will restore it.

Christ established the New Covenant with Israel based on His blood that rendered obsolete the Old Covenant based on the blood of bulls and goats:

The Antichrist will also establish a covenant with Israel (Dan. 9:27), only it will allow Israel to return to that same obsolete covenant based on the blood of bulls and goats by facilitating the building of the Third Temple—a temple that will enable the Jews to reinstitute the Levitical sacrificial system. In this way, Satan will strive to accomplish his goal of the last two thousand years, which is to completely denigrate, discredit, and dispense with the cross of Christ—mankind's only hope of reconciliation with a holy God.

5. One cleanses the temple, one defiles the temple.

Jesus honored the sanctity of His Father's house, and cleansed the temple of merchants who were dishonestly profiting from people who had come to worship His Father by physically driving them out of the temple area:

Jesus actually does this twice in the Gospels, once near the beginning of His ministry and again near the end of it. John records the first such incident, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the second (Matt. 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46).

The Antichrist, however, will do just the opposite. At the midpoint of the Tribulation, he will enter the Holy of Holies and desecrate it, apparently by erecting an image there for people to worship. This event is referred to in Matthew 24:15, Daniel 9:27, and Revelation 13:15, and it marks the beginning of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of the Antichrist's 42-month reign.

6. Both are the object of universal worship.

Christ will ultimately be worshiped by every person who has ever lived:

During the Great Tribulation, the Antichrist will likewise be worshiped by a deluded world (which will include deluded, unbelieving Jews):

And anyone who doesn't worship the Antichrist will be hunted down and executed if caught.

7. During the Tribulation, both will have followers who are sealed.

During the Tribulation and with the Church long gone, God will seal 144,000 Jewish men to take the gospel to the post-Rapture world, and they will be afforded divine protection until their task is complete:

And then, of course, along comes Satan's man, requiring people to take his mark in order to be part of the global system he will set up:

And if you don't take the mark and in so doing demonstrate your allegiance to the Antichrist, you will not be able to engage in any commercial activity. Clearly, that's going to be a powerful incentive to get with the program.

8. Both introduce an era of peace.

Christ will usher in an era of peace when He physically returns at the Second Coming to establish the Millennial Kingdom, which will kick off with a population of 100 percent believers—some in their natural bodies (saved Tribulation survivors) and some in their glorified bodies.

The Antichrist will also purport to usher in an era of peace and security when he confirms the covenant of Daniel 9:27 with Israel. But unlike the peace the Prince of Peace brings, there will be an end to the Antichrist's "peace":

9. The Antichrist will claim to be God—Christ is God.

This is one of the most fundamental parallels between Christ and the Antichrist—this is where it all leads.

First of all, Christ is the Son of God, existing in heaven as part of the Godhead and as the second Person of a triune God since eternity past, and retaining the divine nature of God while living in the world as a man in a body of flesh:

The Antichrist will claim to be divine and will demand the worship that is due God alone:

10. Both are resurrected.

Christ's ultimate proof of both His messiahship and His divinity came near the end of His earthly ministry via the Resurrection. And yet the Jewish religious leaders and thus Israel as a nation rejected Him, partly due to the fact that Jesus didn't fulfill their messianic expectations as a political firebrand who would free them from the yoke of Roman oppression, but mainly due to the hardness of their legalistic, hypocritical hearts.

In contrast, the Antichrist's reign will begin with a counterfeit resurrection:

We know this occurs at the abomination of desolation and marks the beginning of the Antichrist's three-and-a-half-year tenure, because two verses later in Revelation 13:5 (quoted earlier in #3) we are told this is when his 42-month reign begins.

The real Resurrection proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christ was both the promised Messiah and the divine Son of God, and the Jews rejected Him mainly due to the hardness of their hearts. This counterfeit resurrection will attempt to prove to the Jewish religious leaders and the unbelieving majority of Jews that this man who facilitated the building of the Third Temple and brought them (temporary) peace and security really is their Mashiach and should be worshiped as God.

Only this time the Jews will accept this man as what Christ was and is—in spite of the fact that he is a Gentile.

And that brings us to the crux of the matter:

I have become convinced that the strong delusion that God sends upon the world during the Tribulation (2 Thess. 2:11–12) comes at the abomination of desolation, and although it will affect the entire Christ-rejecting world, it is aimed specifically at the religious leadership of Israel and the unbelieving majority of Jews, and is sent for the express purpose of deluding the Jews into embracing a Gentile Antichrist as their Messiah and worshiping him as God. In other words, God will delude the Jews into regarding the Antichrist in the way He expected them to regard His Son.

I sketched a very brief case for this in my article a couple of months ago, but now I want to delve a little deeper into this and discuss in a bit more detail why I am convinced the above is true.

A look back

So far in this article, we have looked at 10 parallels and contrasts between Christ and the Antichrist. You might say these were the hors d'oeuvres, but now it's time for the main course.

One of the things I have been studying on and off over the last several months has to do with the parallels and contrasts between the ministry of Christ and that of the Antichrist. First, a small clarification is in order:

In point #3 above, I said that both Christ and the Antichrist have an "earthly ministry" of three and a half years. In a sense that's true, but I was only referring to the Antichrist's reign of 42 months as the dictator of a global economic, political, and religious world system that he will form and will begin to rule following the abomination of desolation.

But the Antichrist doesn't just pop out of thin air. In reality, the Antichrist will have already been gaining influence and rising to power for (at least) three and a half years, a period that will officially commence with his confirmation of the treaty of Daniel 9:27, a covenant with Israel that will enable the Jews to build the Third Temple and return to their Old Testament sacrificial system of worship, as well as bring them a temporary peace.

I believe there are some fascinating parallels between Christ's ministry and this initial period of three and a half years, which begins with the treaty of Daniel 9:27 and ends with the abomination of desolation (i.e. the first half of the Tribulation). I believe the rise of Satan's man to world prominence during this time will resemble Christ's earthly ministry more than anything the Antichrist does during his 42-month reign as world dictator during the Great Tribulation.

To see this, let's take a little trip back to first-century Israel, and let's consider the First Advent for a moment. In approximately AD 28–29, give or take (and I have no interest in arguing with the givers or the takers), a young man from Nazareth named Yeshuah began a public ministry that would impact the world like none before or since.

Now, the first thing to realize is that there were Jews in the late first century BC and the early first century AD who were actively scouring the horizon for the Messiah. This was partly because they had increasingly fallen under the control of the Roman Empire (a process that was officially complete in AD 6) and thus were looking for another Moses to deliver them from bondage, and partly because some rightly understood the prophecies of Daniel.

Daniel's Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks (Dan. 9:24–27) told them when the Messiah would be cut off or killed, and that was 69 weeks (483 years) after the issuing of an order to rebuild Jerusalem, which occurred in 445 BC (or 444 BC according to some), which translates to the year AD 32 (or AD 33, and I will happily sidestep that argument as well).

Can't you count?! Incidentally, in case you're looking askance at the arithmetic, that's 483 prophetic years of 360 days each. Years of 360 days are almost invariably used in prophetic calculations in the Bible.

As a result, some Jews were getting antsy as what we call the first century BC drew to a close and what we call the first century AD got underway. They knew the Messiah could show up at any time, and that it had to be soon.

That is certainly true of Jews today, who are just about to Mashiach all over themselves. Seriously—there are Jews living in Israel today who are literally afraid to leave the country on a vacation trip for fear they might miss the arrival of the Mashiach.

They sincerely believe the Mashiach could show up at any time, and that it has to be soon.

First-century Jews were also fully aware that the Messiah would be no ordinary man. They believed he would perform miracles—that he would make the lame walk, the mute speak, the blind see, and the deaf hear (Isa. 35:5–6). They knew He would be a great prophet and teacher and preach "good tidings to the meek" (Isa. 61:1). In other words, they knew some of the things the Torah said about the Messiah.

He's just a man: Understand that the modern Jewish notion that the Mashiach will be an ordinary mortal man with a pronounced de-emphasis on miracles got kick-started in the days following the destruction of the temple in AD 70, as rabbis scrambled to re-invent Judaism in order to protect their positions and reputations. They promptly allegorized all messianic prophecies (especially of the First Advent variety) so that they could be interpreted to mean anything under the sun except what they plainly say, and completely obfuscated any trace of scriptural support for that rabble-rouser from Nazareth who had deceived the people with magic that came from being empowered by Beelzebub. No more of that nonsense, no sir.

So, around the time of the First Advent, there were Jews champing at the messianic bit, anticipating the arrival of a man who would confirm His role as the Messiah by displaying prophesied miraculous powers, bringing them new revelation, delivering them from the yoke of Roman oppression, and generally doing things only someone fully imbued with and operating in the power of God could do.

And that's exactly what Jesus did.

(Except for that "yoke of Roman oppression" bit, that is.) Jesus undeniably fulfilled messianic prophecy, and as a result some Jews did believe that He was or at least might be the Prophet God had promised to send them. But you know how it is: If you ask three Jews a question, you get five opinions. To the surprise of no one, there were arguments about Jesus' messianic street cred:

Some were under the impression that since Jesus came from Nazareth, He must have been born there. They argued that the Torah specified that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (which it does, and which He was).

Many grew suspicious about the Jewish religious leaders' reaction to Him:

Indeed they did, and Christ's miracles and authoritative teaching—and His growing popularity among the common people that resulted—threatened their legalistic power over and exalted social position among those same people. This does a lot to explain why they hated Him so intensely.

The vast majority of the Jewish religious leaders remained highly skeptical of Jesus for the entirety of His ministry, and reacted in an extremely critical manner to His teaching. They scoffed at the idea that He was the Messiah, and mocked people who listened to Him as being "led astray" or "accursed":

Here, it is none other than Nicodemus, the Pharisee who came to talk with Jesus in the dark of night for fear of censure by his fellow Pharisees, who tries to stick up for Christ in a most reasonable, level-headed way. And what happens? He gets an immediate smackdown.

But notice that there is something telling about the acerbic remark that Nicodemus gets hit with:

It's completely illogical.

Now, that alone isn't a big deal, but think for a second. The Pharisees were the most highly educated men in all of Israel. They were brilliant scholars to a man, and here's a brief summary of this brilliant Pharisee's argument:

— No prophet has ever come out of Galilee.
— Jesus came out of Galilee.
— Therefore Jesus can't be the Prophet.

You don't have to be a logician to see that this makes no sense at all. Just because no prophet ever came out of Galilee in the past doesn't logically prevent a prophet (or the Prophet) from coming out of Galilee at some point in the future. This is a logical fallacy known as dicto simpliciter, or the error of presuming that a sweeping generalization prevents an exception from being true. And if these learned men were arguing about the Torah or a point from the Law of Moses, I'd venture to say that such an emotionally charged lapse of logic would never come from the mouth of that Pharisee.

And that's my point—unlike the various and assorted messianic frauds of the day (and there were some), that tells me one thing:

Jesus was getting to them, and you don't have to be a logician to figure out why: He was the real deal, and down deep many sensed as much.

No? Well, let's ask our friend Nicodemus:

Notice he said "We know," not just "I know." In other words:

"Me and all my bros back at the Sanhedrin know you came from God, because all the miracles, like, make it kinda obvious, ya know?"

Over the centuries, the Jewish religious leaders had gutted God's Word of its spiritual power and turned it into the greatest tangle of petty legalism the world has ever seen. They believed and taught that righteousness came from obedience to this oppressive furball of rules—with them, of course, being held up as the most righteous people on earth.

But it was radically different with Jesus. He went to the people—and everywhere He went, He did miracles and taught as one with authority:

The Pharisees resorted to arranging for individuals to deliberately pose trick questions to Jesus to trap Him into saying something that they could manipulate and use to discredit Him in the eyes of the people—and it invariably blew up in their faces as Jesus exposed them as the hard-hearted hypocrites they were and put them to silence every single time.

So it's not hard to understand why their hearts burned with a vicious hatred for Jesus—hatred that ultimately led them to arrange for His Machiavellian arrest, fraudulent trial, and gruesome execution as a common criminal by their Roman masters to whom they fawningly pledged allegiance.

Jesus had told the Pharisees who tauntingly demanded that He do a trick for them that the only sign they would get was the sign of Jonah—meaning that He would rise from the dead on the third day.

Then He did it...and they rejected it.

As we saw in point #10, it was the Resurrection that was the spectacular confirmation of everything Jesus had said and done. It confirmed that He was the prophesied Messiah and possessed the divine nature of God, yet the Jewish religious leaders denied it and sought to cover it up (Matt. 28:11–15), and remained steadfast in their denial.

But less than 40 years later, it all came crashing down when they saw their beloved temple demolished, and that was all she wrote for Judaism as they had known it for almost 1,500 years. So, the Jews got busy reinterpreting and allegorizing Old Testament messianic prophecies so they would point 180 degrees away from Christ being the Messiah—and they're good at it.

Allegory à gogo: Anyone who has the ability to go through the Old Testament and allegorize every messianic prophecy to the point where they point away from Christ has the skill to make those prophecies point to anyone. The Jews could make Abbot and Costello out to be ben David and ben Yosef with a little effort, and I suspect this ability will come into play when God sends them the strong delusion to make them accept the Antichrist as their Messiah.

The point is that Jesus created a huge messianic buzz in Israel two thousand years ago, and for the duration of His ministry the following were true:

1. He was seen as fulfilling some messianic prophecies (and so there were some Jews who believed He was the Messiah and followed Him).

2. The Jewish religious leaders vehemently rejected Him as the Messiah, and exhibited a highly antagonistic attitude toward Him.

Then they continued rejecting Him after the most convincing proof imaginable: the Resurrection—the proof the Jews clumsily attempted to cover up.

A look forward

Now, as for the Antichrist, I am convinced his first three and a half years on the world scene will share these two key similarities to Christ's ministry.

First, he will fulfill several messianic prophecies, at least in the eyes of the Jews. He will facilitate the building of the Third Temple, which is arguably the top messianic qualification on their list. This got added to the messianic to-do list after the destruction of the temple in AD 70, and is possibly associated with or influenced by Ezekiel's description of the temple that will be built during Christ's reign during the Millennial Kingdom (Ezek. 40–44).

The Antichrist will also appear to bring Israel peace and security, which is another item on their checklist. Both the building of the temple and peace and security (albeit of a false, temporary nature) will result from his confirmation of the treaty of Daniel 9:27 with Israel, and it will allow the Jews to return to their Old Testament worship of God.

But as I showed in my article "Is He or Isn't He?," it is clear from Scripture that the Antichrist is a Gentile, not a Jew. And it is for this very reason that today's religious leaders of Israel, as well as the majority of ordinary Jews, will reject him as their Mashiach throughout the first half of the Tribulation.

During Christ's ministry, although there were those who believed and followed Him, the great majority of Jews remained under the sway of the religious leaders (whom they loathed and feared, and for good reason) and followed their lead to maintain the status quo. I believe the first half of the Tribulation will be of a similar nature.

We know from Zechariah 13:8 that two-thirds of the Jews will be destroyed during the Great Tribulation, which leaves one-third as the believing Jewish remnant that will ultimately be saved. There may be a smattering of individuals who believe the Antichrist really is the Messiah during the first half of the Tribulation (there's always a smattering of individuals who will believe anything), but the great majority, and certainly the religious leadership, will reject this Gentile as their Mashiach out of hand for the first half of the Tribulation, no matter what he does.

But he builds the temple: The fact that the Antichrist is a Gentile will trump the fact that he facilitates the building of the temple. After all, there is historical precedent for a Gentile facilitating the construction of a Jewish temple: Persian leader Cyrus the Great paved the way for the construction of the Second Temple, aka Zerubbabel's Temple. The Jews won't stop him from paving the way for it to be built, but most will maintain a "wait and see" attitude concerning the identity of the Messiah.

But at the midpoint of the Tribulation, everything will change. Just as the real Resurrection provided thundering proof that Christ was in fact the Messiah and also possessed the divine nature of God, at the midpoint of the Tribulation the Antichrist will suffer a seemingly fatal head wound, and will be "resurrected" by the power of Satan himself:

This seemingly miraculous event will change things, and in the very next verse we see how it will change them:

Satan craves and seeks worship above all else, and the world will worship Satan through his man the Antichrist after this event—and the Antichrist's 42-month reign during the Great Tribulation will be off and running. The point is this:

Jesus Christ proved His identity as the real Messiah and
His status as the Son of God via the real Resurrection.

The Antichrist will prove his identity as the false messiah
and his status as the son of Satan via a fake resurrection.

But don't forget that Christ told us that the Jews will accept the Antichrist as their Messiah (John 5:43), so they will be among those mentioned in Revelation 13:3 who worship him.

So...they've been rejecting this Gentile as their Messiah for the last three and a half years, and now all of a sudden they're worshiping him?

What gives? How could they be so deluded?

Did somebody say "deluded"?

I can only see one explanation for the Jews suddenly accepting a Gentile as their Mashiach and worshiping him as God after his so-called "resurrection," and the answer is found in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians:

The strong delusion, which God sends to the world at the abomination of desolation, when the Jews will be confronted by an Antichrist who has just staged a false resurrection, claims to be the Mashiach, and demands they worship him as God. And Scripture tells us they will worship him.

I've written about the strong delusion before, but this is something I missed earlier. Let's think this through carefully:

Q1. When does God send the strong delusion?

A. I won't be dogmatic about it, but notice that Paul first describes the revelation of the Antichrist (vv. 8–10), and this clearly occurs at the abomination of desolation. But then he goes on and in the very next sentence (vv. 11–12) describes the strong delusion God will send, as if it were all part of the same thought. To me, it is very natural to interpret Paul's words to mean that God will send the strong delusion at the time of the abomination of desolation, when the Antichrist is formally revealed.

Q2. Who does the strong delusion apply to?

A. It applies to all those who "received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved" (v. 10).

Q3. Will Israel receive the love of the truth, i.e. obtain salvation through faith in Christ, the true Messiah?

A. A remnant of about one-third ultimately will, yes. These will be Jews who reject the Antichrist's claims even after his fake resurrection, and who will (or already have) come to faith in Christ and be saved, many no doubt as a result of the preaching of the 144,000. They will flee for their lives and will be protected by God until the end of the Great Tribulation (Rev. 12:13–17). The other two-thirds—the unbelieving majority—will not, and will perish at the hands of an Antichrist now fully under Satan's control.

The point is that the Antichrist is the rod of God's anger (Isaiah 10:5), and God's going to use him to judge the Jewish religious leadership, the unbelieving majority of Jews, and a Christ-rejecting world—all those who have irrevocably rejected His grace and mercy that He expressed to them through His Son, the real Messiah.

So, does the strong delusion apply to the Jews? Good grief, I'd say it's aimed at the Jews, because that's what it's going to take. The unbelieving Gentile world at large will be low-hanging fruit for Satan—they will be in a position to believe almost anything in the post-Rapture world. It's the Jewish religious leadership and the unbelieving majority of Jews they influence who will be the tough nuts to crack, because accepting a Gentile as the Mashiach and worshiping him as God is so unthinkable to the Jews that only a supernatural delusion will bring them to that point—and Scripture makes it clear that they will reach that point.

The bottom line is that the unbelieving majority of Jews will accept the Antichrist as the Messiah, and will worship him as God, and both of these will occur after the abomination of desolation.

God's gonna see to it—that's the entire purpose of the strong delusion.

Now, you may ask: If the unbelieving majority of Jews accept and worship the Antichrist, wouldn't that mean he would leave them alone? Doesn't that mean they would at least survive until the end of the Tribulation?

I'll let Zechariah answer that one in a passage I referred to earlier:

No. The Antichrist is going to kill them all.

But why? I mean, they accept him as the Messiah, they worship him as God...what's the problem?

Here's the problem:

Yes, Satan craves worship—but what he craves even more is to hang on to this little corner of the universe where he is free to "be like the Most High" as the god of this world, and the only thing standing in his way is the Jews. So, Satan couldn't care less whether the Jews worship the Antichrist or not, or whether they believe his man is really their Mashiach or not.

Satan doesn't want the Jews' devotion.
Satan only wants the Jews' death.

Every last one of them. Satan wants every last Jew dead so there will be none left to implore the Lord to return to save them, which is what triggers the Second Coming (Hos. 5:15) and marks the end of Satan's reign as god of this world and his man the Antichrist's inglorious, short-lived reign as that world's dictator. But he won't get the believing remnant. He will only get the unbelieving majority, most of whom will no doubt go to their deaths screaming their undying belief in and worship of the Antichrist as their beloved Mashiach.

But the remnant who refuses to bow to him and escapes with their lives will ultimately call on the LORD, and He will hear them: He will say "They are my people," and they will say "the LORD is my God" (Zech. 13:9).

Incidentally, you may have wondered, as I have many times in the past, how Paul could make the following statement:

I struggled with this one for years. But now I know...and so do you:

By the time the Great Tribulation comes
to an end, every single Jew will either be
(a) saved by faith in Jesus Christ, or
(b) slaughtered by the forces of Antichrist.

No? Consider:

No not one: Every last one of the generation that doubted God and refused to enter the Promised Land because of the bad reports of 10 of the 12 spies died in the desert before Israel entered the Promised Land. Similarly, every last one of the generation that receives the Antichrist as the Messiah and worships him in the Great Tribulation will die before the believing remnant of Israel enters the Millennial Kingdom—the real Promised Land.

It grieves me to say it, but Scripture is clear: By the time the Antichrist is finished, the only living Jews remaining will be the believing remnant.

And at the climax of the Tribulation, when Satan has the forces of the entire world poised to finally annihilate these remaining Jews, the believing remnant will call on the Lord to save them.

And all of Israel will be saved.

Just like God's Word says.

Patriarchal payback?

As I said, there is a peculiar incident that occurred during the lives of the Jewish Patriarchs that I believe provides us some insight as to why the strong delusion is aimed squarely at Israel, and for the specific purpose of deluding the unbelieving majority of Jews into accepting a Gentile as their Mashiach—a delusion that would be unnecessary if he were Jewish.

To see this, first let's take a little trip back to the Garden of Eden.

In Genesis 3, Satan lures Eve into questioning what God had said, and as a result sets up both Eve and her husband to disobey God and eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Their sin of disobedience severs their spiritual relationship with God, and in the ensuing fallout the LORD arraigns Satan for his subterfuge:

This, of course, gets Satan's full attention. He understands that God is planning to send someone into the world who will take from him what he has just taken from Adam and Eve, which is dominion over the earth.

And he's been prepared to fight tooth and nail to keep it ever since.

And he doesn't have to wait long to start. After their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve start a family. Satan has to assume their firstborn son, Cain, just might be the guy...or at least the progenitor of the guy. This is speculation on my part, but I think Satan got right to work on Cain, tasking some of his top demons with influencing him and eroding his propensity to serve and thus be used by God.

No? Consider: First of all, Satan was smart enough to realize that whoever God would send to "crush his head" and take back from him the dominion over the world he had wrangled from Adam and Eve would certainly be no ordinary individual. For starters, it would have to be someone eminently righteous—someone who could be mightily used by God.

It is clear that Adam and Eve taught their son Cain the proper manner in which to offer sacrifices to the LORD—after all, his younger brother Abel knew these things (Gen. 4:2–5). How could Cain have not known? But Cain wanted to do things his way—he made up his mind to offer the choicest fruits of his own labor rather than the blood sacrifices of animals as had been prescribed by God. In other words, his heart was filled with pride, and he was disobedient to his parents and to the LORD. Then when his obedient brother Abel honored the LORD properly and received God's favor, Cain was overtaken by a jealous rage and became the world's first cold-blooded killer. You don't think Satan had a hand in all this? I beg to differ.

Satan did his utmost to influence Cain to negate his potential to be used by God; and then when he murdered his righteous brother, Satan may have assumed he had the upper hand in this head-crushing business. Little did Satan know, however, that the Head Crusher line would come through Adam and Eve's third son, Seth.

God 1, Satan 0.

As the human population rapidly grew, Satan wisely changed his strategy. Now, instead of going after individuals, he went after the entire human race by corrupting the human gene pool. Satan correctly surmised that if he could somehow contaminate the human gene pool to the extent that there were no genetically pure human women remaining, there would be no woman suitable to bring forth the Head Crusher, and he would win.

To pull this off, however, he needed help. Lots of it. Satan enlisted the aid of legions of his top demons to "leave their first estate" (Jude 1:6) and come to earth to live in physical form. They proceeded to mate with human woman, and their half-demon, half-human offspring spread, as did the genetic corruption they introduced into the human population.

It is unclear exactly how long this went on, but this genetic corruption began "when men began to multiply on the face of the earth" (Gen. 6:1), which couldn't have been too awfully long after Adam and Eve got evicted from the Garden and started procreating (roughly 4000 BC), and ended with the Flood (roughly 2400 BC). That leaves a potential window of about 1600 years. So, even if we knock off a couple of centuries to get things moving, that's still a pretty long time. And Satan almost succeeded; but God finally sent the Flood to wipe out the whole mess, and started over with eight genetically pure individuals: Noah and his family.

God rebooted the human race with these eight people, and although there is indication that Satan tried this again (Gen. 6:4), it never reached anywhere near the pre-flood level and finally came to naught.

God 2, Satan 0.

Many generations later, God made an unconditional covenant promise to Abram (later Abraham)—a promise that included land (the geographical boundaries of which are delineated in Num. 34:3–10), innumerable descendants, and that the entire world would be blessed through his seed, an unmistakable reference to the Head Crusher Himself:

I believe that Satan (who had been on the lookout for any sign of his future nemesis ever since Adam and Eve got the heave-ho from the Garden of Eden) knew this man would give rise to his Messianic Migraine.

Note with care, however, what God said when He confirmed His covenant promise to a still childless Abram:

"Out of your own bowels." OK, pop quiz:

Q. What key detail is missing here?

A. Any mention of which woman this might involve.

I believe that Satan tried to interfere with God's plan by influencing Sarai (later Sarah) to doubt God's promise and as a result give Abram her handmaiden Hagar in an attempt to help God out.

Getting a woman to doubt what God said. S-s-s-sound familiar?

As far as Satan knew, Ishmael, the son that was produced in this faithless union, could have represented the messianic line. And I have no doubt this motivated Satan to go to work on Ishmael, just as he had Cain, and so I think Satan had a hand in fulfilling the prophetic words that the angel of the LORD spoke to Hagar:

Sounds like Satan's kind of guy, doesn't it? I can just see Satan spending the next 14 years slapping himself on the back, wrongly assuming he held some degree of influence over the messianic line. But then God promises Sarah a son, and sure enough: A 90-year-old Sarah miraculously gives birth to Isaac, the son of promise. Again, Satan is left holding a losing ticket.

God 3, Satan 0.

Isaac eventually has twins with Rebekah: Jacob and Esau. God tells Rebekah there are two nations in her womb, and the older will serve the younger. Esau comes out first and so becomes the firstborn, with Jacob clutching at his heel. Esau was a rugged, hairy individual; a hunter—a man of the flesh and the favorite of his father. Jacob was quiet and smooth-skinned, and apparently something of a mamma's boy.

Esau's fleshly appetites are on full display when he agrees to sell his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew (Gen. 25:29–32). In Genesis 27, with Isaac nearing the end of his life and essentially blind, Rebekah dreams up a devious scheme to benefit her favorite son Jacob.

The time has come for Isaac to bless each of his two sons with divine pronouncements that would shape their futures, and he calls for his firstborn Esau. He tells Esau to go and hunt and bring back some venison, and prepare his favorite lentil stew for him—and afterwards he will pronounce his blessing upon him. Rebekah overhears the conversation, and persuades Jacob to deceive his father by pretending to be Esau. She urges Jacob to quickly prepare some meat taken from the flock, and she whips up Isaac's favorite stew herself. She puts some of Esau's clothes on Jacob so he will smell like Esau, and covers his neck and arms with goat skin to resemble the feel of his hirsute sibling in case Isaac decides to touch him.

Although initially a bit incredulous, Isaac falls for the deception and is deluded into believing Jacob really is Esau. After finishing his meal, Isaac gives Jacob the blessing he intended to give Esau, his firstborn, and the deal is done. Shortly afterwards, Esau returns with the venison as instructed, discovers the deception, and cries and wails about how he has been robbed of his precious blessing (after trading away his "precious" birthright for a bowl of stew) and wants to slay Jacob. Rebekah urges Jacob to flee, and it is many years before the two brothers are finally reconciled.

I have to assume Satan was aware of God's promise to Rebekah about the older (Esau) serving the younger (Jacob), so he may have believed he could thwart God's plans by influencing Isaac to greatly favor his firstborn son Esau, and by attempting to ensure that Esau would receive the greatest blessing, which would surely be messianic in nature. At the same time, I'm sure Satan tried his best to influence a fleshly Esau to ultimately prevent him from being used by God.

Of course, Satan was unaware that he had once again put his money on the wrong horse, and so when Jacob tricked his father out of Esau's blessing, it left Satan holding another losing ticket.

God 4, Satan 0.

Satan's track record isn't looking so good, but never fear—he's still got a few tricks up his sleeve.

Speaking of blessings, just what was the blessing that Jacob, whose name God later changed to Israel, received through the elaborate deception cooked up by his mother?

Does "cursed be every one that curses you, and blessed be he that blesses you" ring any bells? It will if you go back and re-read Genesis 12:3 above.

This is part of the covenant promise God gave Abraham, and it encapsulates the promise of the Messiah, through whom the entire world would be blessed and to whom the nations will eventually bow down. Satan thought his plan was working, and Isaac did indeed intend to transmit this promise to his firstborn Esau. But there's just one problem:

Esau wasn't God's sovereign choice to carry
on the messianic line—Jacob (Israel) was.

Satan could do nothing but watch as his shaggy pick in the messianic sweepstakes was cheated out of his divine messianic blessing by the devious trickery of Jacob (Israel) and his mother, and there is a nugget here to stick in your pocket before we proceed.

God often uses the fleshly actions of flawed people to carry out His will.

And I believe one reason He does it is to demonstrate that the performance of His will doesn't depend on anything man does or doesn't do.

• God didn't intend for Cain to murder his brother Abel.

• God didn't intend for Sarah to doubt His promise, or for Abraham to have relations with Hagar to produce an heir.

• God didn't intend for Isaac to favor his son Esau over Jacob, or for Rebekah to favor Jacob over Esau.

• And God certainly didn't intend for Rebekah and Jacob to lie to and blatantly deceive a blind, elderly Isaac to steal Esau's messianic blessing.

But in every case, God's will was carried out in spite of the ill-advised actions of these imperfect individuals.

In performing His will, God neither requires
our assistance nor fears our interference.

He doesn't have to—He's God. Thy will be done.

And He routinely uses Satan as His fall guy by allowing him to play his devious little part in things, as well as using him as a tool to carry out His judgment during the Tribulation.

OK, so what's up with the Reader's Digest history lesson?

The point is this:

God allowed Jacob (Israel) to deceive his father to steal the messianic promise right out from under Satan's nose, thus robbing him of the chance to tamper with the messianic line through fleshly Esau. I think Satan has been looking to get some payback ever since, and sees getting Israel to accept his impostor in the Messiah's place as that payback.

So, first God allowed Jacob (Israel) to use deception to obtain the messianic promise; but because of Israel's ultimate repudiation of that promise, God will judge them by sending a strong delusion that will in turn deceive Israel into accepting a satanically empowered Gentile impostor in place of the Messiah they forever rejected.

This has to be one of the greatest examples of God's poetic justice I've ever come across:

Sending the strong delusion will be
God's way of deceiving the deceiver,
and thus judging Israel for stealing the
promise of a Messiah they never accepted.

It doesn't get any more poetic. Just as Isaac believed his son Israel's lie, God will cause the nation of Israel to believe Satan's lie, and God's righteous judgment of His people will be fulfilled.

God made me do it: I sometimes hear people whine about how a loving God makes people do bad things and then punishes them for it:

"How can a loving God punish people for things He made them do? Like, how can God judge Israel for accepting the Antichrist when He's the one who sends the strong delusion that makes them do it?! That's not fair! That 'loving' God of yours is such a politically incorrect ogre!"

OK, listen up: God doesn't "make" anyone do bad things. He knew in advance the intentions and actions of every single person who would ever live, and crafted His perfect plan accordingly before the foundation of the world. He may have chosen to give someone a push in the direction He already knew they would go in due to their own free-will decisions, but that's not the same thing. All events for all time are spread out before Him like a panorama, and there's no way we can grasp this in our little three-dimensional pea-brains. That's why all a holy, just, loving God asks of us is to believe in faith. Is that so hard?

You know, when I read about things in God's Word pertaining to the end-time scenario, part of me almost wishes I could be here to witness some of these events. From a safe distance, of course.

For example, I'd love to be here to see the believing remnant of Jews who have trusted Christ for their salvation head for the hills and be divinely protected from the worst of the Great Tribulation until Christ returns with us in tow. Yeah...that's what I'm talkin' about.

But I won't be here to see that—and I trust you won't, either. We won't be here to see God make an unbelieving Israel and an unbelieving world swallow the world's biggest lie from the world's biggest liar.

And that's the truth.

Greg Lauer — JAN '20

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