Is This the Beginning of the End?

Saddam Hussein is not a Madman we can pass off as insane or psychotic but is actually a "malignant narcissist," say two experts on personality disorders quoted in a recent New York Times article.

This "severe form of narcissism," according to the May 4 feature, gives people an "adeptness at charm and manipulation" that is beyond that of classic narcissists, who are defined as being "grandiose, self-centered, over-sensitive to criticism and unable to feel empathy for others."

"Inordinate narcissism," explains one of the researchers, "is expressed in grandiosity, a confidence in themselves and the assurance that they know what the world needs They express their aggression in cruel and sadistic behavior against their enemies: whoever does not submit to them or love them."

Interestingly, this fits the M.O. for a stooge of Satan and Saddam's an obvious crony.

It's very interesting to note too that Saddam's self-professed idol and role model is Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon from 604-562 BC and responsible for besieging and demolishing Jerusalem, including the Temple built by Solomon, leading to the exile of the citizens.

While Saddam comes off as a boob, the Antichrist, or Satan's Top Guy prophesied in the Bible, will fool nearly everyone as he rises to power. He will be as charming, cunning, eloquent and debonair as any politician in the history of mankind.

"He will gain the confidence of the world by presenting a 'foolproof' plan for peace," explains an old religious booklet I have called "The Times of the Gentiles." "He will gain Israel's support by offering to protect them against their enemies." (Verses on this include Daniel 2:42-44; Daniel 9:26, 27; Revelation 11: 1-6; 12:3, 13:1, 17:12, 16)

The booklet, published in 1969, actually suggested the Antichrist could already be alive and would try and imitate Jesus Christ even in age of political emergence:

"[Christ] was in obscurity for 30 years until His baptism; then His brief ministry began. Undoubtedly, the Antichrist will try to imitate Christ even in this respect."

Since Paul's ministry in the first century, Christians have wondered if the Rapture and the subsequent rise of the Antichrist was imminent.

For those who don't know, the Rapture, laid out in part in I Thessalonians 4: 13-18, is when Christians, both alive and in the grave, are suddenly sucked up into the sky to meet Jesus Christ in the air.

The question is how far off are these prophesied events when you look at the state of things today?

When I brought this up with a friend the other day, he said, "Aaagh, I went through a spell in the '60s with the Bay of Pigs and Khrushchev where I thought we were seeing the Last Days. Everybody goes through that one time or another."

I immediately thought of my father, who, in 1969, up and decided to close his booming practice as a private physician in Akron, Ohio and become a missionary doctor in the jungles of Ecuador, bringing his whole family with him.

I've wondered before if he didn't partially make the radical career move out of feeling things in our country we're really getting out of hand and wanting to protect his family from the chaos. As it turned out, the Kent State shootings (in Akron's backyard) happened the year after we left!

Certainly my decision to quit my job last November and devote a year to researching and writing about the Bible was based on 9/11 and the accompanying feeling that bizarre times were now rolling like a freight train. I've since calmed down about it but am surprised by how many people, including some of my own family members, completely scoff at the idea we might be seeing the beginnings of the Last Days. I mean, what was 9/11 in their eyes? What does the escalating tension/terrorism in the Middle East say to them?

I'm finding lately that even the people who don't think there's any chance the world's coming to end in their lifetime want to know whether we're seeing the beginning of the end. Here's an email I received recently from a friend in New York:

"I read in the past day or so that Sir Isaac Newton had calculated that the world would end in 2060. Evidently he had studied Hebrew scriptures and came up with this number. You mentioned that world events were leading to 'end times.' Have you seen this article or does it fit in with any interpretation that you subscribe to?"

One huge indicator of people's growing curiosity about the end is the phenomenal success of the "Left Behind" series that novelizes the rise of the Antichrist and End Times prophecy. There are now 11 bestseller books in the series and the latest installment, "Armageddon," currently tops the New York Times Bestsellers List for hardcover fiction.

When I was a kid it was a huge deal that a single book on the subject, Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth" (1970), made the bestseller's list at all. For those who don't remember, Lindsey referred to us as the "Terminal Generation," and indicated strongly that the end of the world would play out in our lifetime.

Cleaning out my dad's basement full of books after his death, I found a book from 1959, called "Your Bible and You," in which the writer suggests in his opening paragraphs that things were out-of-control enough then in the late '50s to make one wonder if the Last Days weren't imminent.

"Never have people been so afraid of the future," read the preface, quoting a U.S. News & World Report column in which editor David Lawrence wrote, "Man talks often nowadays of the universal destruction that hangs over him. In the vocabulary of the times, ‘international suicide’ is the phrase used by governmental spokesmen to describe the menace that threatens our lives and our civilizations. Peoples everywhere are terrorized now by the possibility that missiles of destruction can be hurled at them from globe-girdling devices of incredible power."

The fact is even the Apostle Paul thought he was seeing the makings of the Last Days: "Paul himself had no idea that the day of grace would be extended until the present time, for, writing to Timothy some 1,900 years ago concerning the 'last days,' he instructed Timothy on how to conduct himself under the circumstances," explains Bible scholar C.R. Stam in his book "Things that Differ." Verses showing this are I Timothy 4: 1-7, II Timothy 3: 1-17.

In II Timothy 3, Paul begins the chapter advising, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."

Attending a Sunday morning service at my old church in Chicago this past January, my pastor detailed for us the "falling away" of the Church the Body of Christ that would happen in future years.

As Paul warns in II Thessalonians 2: 3: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition"

Essentially, as my pastor told us, there will be a three-level departure of Believers from the truth of the Bible.

The first departure will be from Paul's unique apostleship as the Apostle of the Gentiles and the Mystery Program revealed to him by Jesus Christ (verses on this include Ephesians 3:1-11; Ephesians 1: 9-10; Colossians 1:25-28; Galatians 1:11-12).

The second departure will be from the basic message of justification by grace through faith alone, laid out in Chapter 5 of Romans. Distinctions between God's Law program for Israel (found in the Old Testament and the Gospels) and the Grace Program for the Church the Body of Christ will be lost on people.

The third departure will be from the Salvation message altogether. "People will lose the ability to keep the clarity of the gospel straight," my pastor explained.

Critical to anyone's understanding of the Last Days is the knowledge that we still live in the "age of grace" and are currently not seeing any Bible prophecy being fulfilled.

Paul makes it clear that until the Rapture, everyone enjoys the Dispensation of Grace (Ephesians 3: 1-6) in which God is "holding back his wrath" in hopes of gaining as many Believers as possible.

Peter stressed in his own ministry that God wanted to give people as much chance as possible to believe in His Son. As he writes in II Peter 3: 8-10: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
[9] The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
[10] But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up."
Once the Rapture occurs, the prophetic program of the Old Testament and the Gospels will again be resumed and people still on earth will suffer through the Tribulation Period that includes the reign of the Antichrist.

The mystery is how long God will allow this period of grace to go on. There's no time-table or prophetic signs to go by.