Unsaved people have in their makeup the capacity to be in touch with demons and that’s exactly how Satan works through people.

“We know the point of contact with an unsaved person is in their spirit,” says my pastor, Richard Jordan. “Paul identifies the three great enemies. First, there’s the world system out there; what he calls ‘this present evil world. Second, there’s the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Then there’s the devil and his myriad of foot soldiers who work in and through lost people.

“Now, don’t blame what the flesh does on the devil. As I always tell you, his special activity is not down at the brothel, the bar or the concert hall. Every unsaved person has demonic activity in their life and the only way you get out of it is by what Paul tells us in Col. 1:13: ‘Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.’ Jesus Christ has delivered us from the authority Satan has as the ‘prince of darkness’ to work in our lives.”

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The 70^th week of Daniel during the Tribulation period is divided in the middle with three-and-a-half years on each side. In the middle of the week, a transformation occurs in the life of the Antichrist where he goes from being the “man of sin” to the ‘son of perdition.’

“In the first half, he’s a man, and in the middle of the week he dies,” explains Jordan. “When a man dies his soul goes to hell. He’s killed and goes to hell and they lay him out ‘in state.’ My educated guess of how it will happen is he will lie in state and have a state funeral and then, all of a sudden, he’ll just come up out of the coffin and say, ‘Hi guys, I told you I was God.’

“Now if you had some wacko terrorist come in and slash some guy real good with a machete and kill him, and then he was laid out stone cold dead, and they’ve got the TV cameras on him and pictures going out all over the world, and he’s this world ruler that’s brought in peace and subdued everybody, and then all of a sudden he just stood up, what you reckon everybody’s going to do?!

“He becomes the beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit and he’s no longer just a human now, he’s a demonic creature: he’s Satan incarnate, as it were. Now he’s the ‘son of perdition.’ Ezekiel 28 says he’s the prince (Antichrist) in the first half, and the king (Satan) in the second half.”

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Just last weekend flying from New York to Houston and then onto Huntsville, I filled my flight-time finishing Noah Hutchings’ 1990 book, Daniel the Prophet. It’s a great read even though there are incorrect conclusions about some of Daniel’s prophecy.

Hutchings makes the astute point, “When a man in his own wisdom and pride looks downward and inward to himself, God gives him the mind of a beast because all beasts look down.”

From the Book of Daniel, we know that one-time world-ruler King Nebuchadnezzar (a picture-type of the Antichrist) was given the mind of a beast for seven years—the same time frame of this 70^th week in which the Antichrist is called a beast.

“Although (Daniel’s) dream was prophetic of God’s judgment against Nebuchadnezzar himself, it was a representation of the subduing of all Gentile nations under the authority of God at the end of the Tribulation period,” writes Hutchings. “We notice that although Nebuchadnezzar had been given two specific warnings, he continued to claim all honor and glory unto himself and defy the God of heaven.

“God gave him the mind of a beast and he was insane for seven years. During the seven-year Tribulation period, the leader of the nations will act as mad men: they will defy God and accept the leadership of a ruler called the Beast.”

In another chapter, Hutchings informs, “We read in Revelation 13:5 of the little horn on the beast: ‘And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. . .’

“This ruler of the last beast empire will try to force every man, woman and child to reject Christ as Savior and deny the existence of God, and then he will pass a universal law that everyone must fall down and worship him as God.

“The end of this Antichrist, demon-possessed madman which Daniel saw is also described in Revelation 19:19-21. . . Daniel was particularly interested in the fourth beast because it was the ruler of this kingdom who would make war against Israel and prevail against them for a time. The fourth beast was also the strangest and most horrible of all the beasts, and it would be destroyed by the Messiah when He comes to bring in His kingdom. So it would be natural that Daniel would want to know as much as possible about it.”

From II Thess. 3, we know that just prior to the middle of the 70^th week, the Antichrist will sit on the throne of God in Israel, declaring himself to be God. In fact, that’s why somebody kills him and the other events follow.

“This guy is the most intelligent, wisest, craftiest creature God ever created,” Jordan says of Satan, who was created as Lucifer. “And he’s beautiful. He’s lifted up by pride on the basis of what he is and what his mind can do. And God gave him all this creativity and beauty in order to lead creation in the worship of God but he turned it inward and put it all on himself. He began worshipping himself.”

From Ezekiel 28:18, we know he “trafficked” in iniquity, going out among the upper echelon of the angelic host and getting them to agree, “What we need to do is take over.”

Jordan says, “When you think of the word ‘trafficked,’ think of a tourist gift shop looking for foot traffic so they can get people inside and buying stuff. Satan didn’t take his plan and say to the angels, ‘Hey guys, let me sell you all a bill of goods.’ He went out among the upper echelon of these guys and began to sell the idea, ‘I know how to do this better than Almighty God does,’ and he began to undermine God’s authority.

“He sins by pride and then goes out and enlists others to go along with him. So much so that Rev. 12 says that a third part of the stars of the heaven joined the rebellion! At least one-third of the angelic host fell with him and it’s the upper echelons and the officers and the uppity-ups in the political system that did it.”

After creating hell in response to this mass rebellion, and in order to scare away any other angels who were thinking of jumping to Satan’s side, God covered the universe in absolute pitch darkness.

“Then he put somebody on earth the likes of which they had never seen before—man,” explains Jordan. “God’s response to what Satan did was to create man on earth in the midst of the satanic realm to be used by God in the thwarting and defeating of Satan’s objectives and plans.

“He takes earth and says to the (fallen) angels, ‘Okay, you guys got this idea you want to take over the heavens and earth; let’s see if you can just take the earth.’ So he puts man on the earth and makes it the center of activity and says, ‘Okay, let’s get on with it!’ and man’s purpose on the earth from the outset has had to do with repossessing the planet.”